The Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy 4 (July 2014)

The Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy #4 It’s all action but it’s all very good action. I kept waiting for Jolley to slow down and explain some things but he never takes his foot off the gas. He’s missing character moments mostly; he’s definitely not going the lovable T–800 route but he’s falling into the Dark Horse Terminator pitfall… the personalities.

The Terminator only has personality because of the actor playing the part. A comic book character Terminator loses a lot when it’s just a static killing machine. Comics are already full of those types.

Then Jolley misses another opportunity for some exposition when the Terminator and his human sidekick find the lab. You know, at the end of the level. They immediately get attacked, which kills the chance for some nice exposition and relationship building.

It’s a fairly decent book. There’s some great Igle artwork; his action scenes are phenomenal. The rest… just not phenomenal

C+

CREDITS

Writer, Dan Jolley; penciller, Jamal Igle; inker, Ray Snyder; colorist, Wes Dzioba; letterer, Nate Piekos; editors, Ian Tucker and Brendan Wright; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

The Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy 3 (May 2014)

The Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy #3 Seriously? They team up. A human and a Terminator team up in a Dark Horse comic? Didn’t I read this comic many times as a teenager? I was kind of hoping for something more. Maybe the big problem is the team up comes so late. There’s only one more issue to the series.

Enemy of My Enemy continues to be blandly unimpressive. Jolley’s scripting is competent. His protagonist is annoying but it’s unlikely anyone would be able to make a disgraced CIA agent fighting a Terminator a good character. She’s supposed to be cool, not likable.

Then there’s Igle’s art. He does a great job with it, but there’s nothing to it. There’s a lengthy fight scene and since Igle’s so sturdy in his matter of fact presentation, it’s boring.

The series is getting less and less engaging as it goes on. Then again, The Terminator has rather limited potential.

CREDITS

Writer, Dan Jolley; penciller, Jamal Igle; inker, Ray Snyder; colorist, Wes Dzioba; letterer, Nate Piekos; editors, Ian Tucker and Brendan Wright; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

The Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy 2 (March 2014)

The Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy #2 Okay, the structure confuses me. I think the issue opens and then goes back to an early time and stays there but it also seems like maybe it continues the time from the open. I don’t know.

The confusion aside, it’s a fairly decent comic for a Terminator comic. Igle’s pencils are good–he’s got a fantastic sense of action and how to break out those scenes. And enough nostalgia for the eighties to make tone engaging.

Jolley writes more of a movie script than a comic book one. You can just hear the Brad Fiedel Terminator music at times and it’d make a great scene in a movie. In a comic, it makes an okay one.

The problem with the comic is mostly the pacing. Not enough happens in it; Jolley raises some neat questions about the franchise, but there still needs to be some narrative content… Doesn’t there?

B-

CREDITS

Writer, Dan Jolley; penciller, Jamal Igle; inkers, Ray Snyder and Robin Riggs; colorist, Wes Dzioba; letterer, Nate Piekos; editors, Ian Tucker and Brendan Wright; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

The Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy 1 (February 2014)

Dan Jolley and Jamal Igle doing a Terminator series. You know what you get? A decent plot, good characters, some awesome art. The way Jolley and Igle are doing Enemy of My Enemy is very cinematic. Igle does a lot of establishing panels. Part of the book is these guys doing a Terminator book and the reader getting to go along for the ride.

But it’s still a Dark Horse licensed comic. There’s a CIA agent on the run picking up assassination work, she comes across a Terminator, she finds herself in the middle of a conspiracy because, apparently, after the first movie the CIA started investigating.

Or something. It’s a standard Dark Horse licensed trope–there was something hidden plot at the time of the movie; it’s finally revealed here. It’s not too bad as Jolley keeps it contained, but it’s still present.

And the book’s better than it.

B-

CREDITS

Writer, Dan Jolley; penciller, Jamal Igle; inker, Ray Snyder; colorist, Moose Baumann; letterer, Nate Piekos; editors, Aaron Walker, Ian Tucker and Brendan Wright; publisher, Dark Horse Comics.

The Terminator (1988)

Skitched 20140201 121918 What a very strange adaptation of The Terminator. It was originally published as single panels, one a day (as a promotion in Hungary), which makes a lot of sense. The panels do look a little like trading card snapshots of the film.

Without all the text–or maybe with just less of it (adapter Attila Fazekas just took lengthy dialogue and squeezed it into half of his panels)–the comic would be better. It’s a curiosity, but it definitely makes one want to watch the film again. Fazekas does a fairly good job; he’s not doing anything sequential as much as the snapshots as I mentioned before.

He does rather well fitting a lot of information into one of these panels. For instance, when the Terminator is killing Linda Hamilton’s friend (or has just killed her), the boyfriend’s off in the background. Fazekas knows how to compress.

It’s definitely peculiar.

CREDITS

Writer and artist, Attila Fazekas.

Superman vs. the Terminator: Death To The Future 4 (March 2000)

Will Lex Luthor create Skynet? Will Lois Lane’s husband get jealous of her ogling Superman? Will Alan Grant get credit (and residuals) for coming up with the name Terminatrix? No to all three, I believe, unless Dark Horse and DC start doing these crossovers again.

It’s strange the epilogue cliffhanger for the series–Lex Luthor is going to take over the world–is something DC couldn’t follow up on without Dark Horse’s permission and participation….

They probably went that route to make the series feel a little less like a complete waste of time. Did it work? No.

Worse, Perkins is back inking Pugh and the art’s even sloppier than before. I feel bad because I only read the comic because of the Pugh artwork and it’s so weak, I’ve done little but comment on it (and mock the series as whole, but, really, what else could I have done?).

CREDITS

Writer, Alan Grant; penciller, Steve Pugh; inker, Mike Perkins; colorist, Dave Stewart; letterer, Clem Robins; editors, Phil D. Amara, Eddie Berganza, Tim Ervin-Gore and Maureen McTigue; publishers, Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics.

Superman vs. the Terminator: Death To The Future 3 (February 2000)

Oh, no, will Superman be able to save the world from the Terminators? Crossovers like this one must be incredibly frustrating to plot because there’s no chance things aren’t going to be returning to the status quo at the end (I mean, did Dark Horse even have a regular Terminator series starring Sarah and John Conner at this time or were they just special guest stars for the crossover?).

Maybe I’m just mad Superman goes through all this trouble to save the future–a big nuclear explosion and EMP to wipe out all the machines on earth–when he’s just going back in time to prevent it from ever happening. It’s not like he had to complete the one goal to go back, it’s just filler for the pages.

More cameos here too–Lex Luthor shows up for a bit, weren’t he and Supergirl dating at one point?

Very lame.

CREDITS

Writer, Alan Grant; artist, Steve Pugh; colorist, Dave Stewart; letterer, Clem Robins; editors, Phil D. Amara, Eddie Berganza, Tim Ervin-Gore and Maureen McTigue; publishers, Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics.

Superman vs. the Terminator: Death To The Future 2 (January 2000)

Well, it’s not just Superman Pugh’s drawing funny–he’s inking himself here too–it’s a lot of people. Supergirl is who I’m thinking about in particular, Pugh gives her an expression like she’s just eaten a barrel of beans and is racing to the john.

Actually, most of the art’s bland. Pugh’s probably racing through this assignment himself, but it’s always shocking to me how mediocre 1990s comic art could get. There’s mediocrity today, of course, but at least they try to photoshop it a little, give it some oomph. This comic was, presumably, a big crossover event; one no one cared about at all?

The writing’s pretty lame too, but at least it’s competent in the continuity-heavy sense. It’s a Superman comic guest-starring Terminators, nothing else. Between Supergirl’s fight scene and Steel’s constant presence, it’s pretty clear.

Honestly, I’m really curious to see how it turns out.

CREDITS

Writer, Alan Grant; artist, Steve Pugh; colorist, Dave Stewart; letterer, Clem Robins; editors, Phil D. Amara, Eddie Berganza, Mike D. Hansen and Maureen McTigue; publishers, Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics.

Superman vs. the Terminator: Death To The Future 1 (December 1999)

I figured I was safe going into Superman vs. the Terminator without any continuity knowledge of Superman comics in the 1990s. Was I ever wrong….

While I did read “The Death of Superman,” I quickly lost interest and am pretty much completely unfamiliar with all the further nonsense following it–Steel, Superboy, Cyborg Superman, et cetera, et cetera.

There’s not just Steel, Superboy and Cyborg Superman in this issue, there’s also Sarah and John Conner, who I never realized Dark Horse was allowed to use (since their license for The Terminator wouldn’t have included Terminator 2 and John Conner).

But this issue’s got Superman defending the Conners and a lot of continuity with the Superman titles and that nonsense.

None of that confusion matters, though.

What matters is the Terminators now have heat vision, which makes them a lot less interesting.

Pugh’s art is okay… his Superman is a problem.

CREDITS

Writer, Alan Grant; penciller, Steve Pugh; inker, Mike Perkins; colorist, Dave Stewart; letterer, Clem Robins; editors, Phil D. Amara, Eddie Berganza, Mike D. Hansen and Maureen McTigue; publishers, Dark Horse Comics and DC Comics.