Before I delve into the 21st century “Terminator” media, there’s one last 20th century item worth noting: “Suicide Run,” a 10-page story in “Dark Horse Presents” Issue 138 (December 1998). It’s the only “Terminator” short comic and the only black-and-white comic.
Written by Alan Grant, it thankfully adheres to his gritty “Death Valley” style rather than his more kid-friendly approach on “The Dark Years” and “Superman versus The Terminator.” With appropriately inky art by Frank Teran, “Suicide Run” chronicles one mission in 2029, giving us a slice of life (and lots of death) in the Future War. It’s for “Terminator” completists more so than the casual fan.
CHARACTERS
John, Sarah and Kyle: Not in this story, although John is mentioned in Ali’s narration: “John Connor must be a special guy. Two of my friends have died for his cause. I’m going to die for it, too.”
Ali: A young soldier who has terminal bone cancer, the story’s narrator agrees to outfit herself with a bomb in order to infiltrate and destroy a key Skynet location, a “data control tower.” She is led there by other resistance soldiers, several of whom are picked off along the way.
TERMINATORS
Endoskeletons: The usual suspects.
CONTINUITY
“Suicide Run” is a slice of life in the 2029 Future War before the events of “Death Valley,” making it the first chronological story (in terms of causal determinism, not the calendar) in Dark Horse’s second stint with the license.
Stamford, a resistance soldier who will later be kidnapped and tortured by Skynet in “Death Valley,” is name-dropped in “Suicide Run” as the architect of Ali’s mission. Appropriately, he likewise chooses suicide – taking out a Terminator in the process – rather than give up information on John in “Death Valley.”
The endoskeleton who gets its hands on Ali before she blows them both up says: “Tell me of John Connor’s childhood. Where did he live? Where did his mother hide him?” When Skynet finally does get this info, it sends back a pair of T-800s to 1998 and it leads to the events of “Death Valley.” But Ali isn’t the one to share the information.
As it chronicles a costly mission to take out Skynet’s “data control tower,” “Suicide Run” is perhaps the bleakest “Terminator” war tale since “The Burning Earth.”
TIME TRAVEL
There is no time travel in this story.