Truth be told, I have a hard time motivating myself with The Terminator. It’s not bad in peculiar ways related to the licensed property, and it doesn’t have some undiscovered talent doing fantastic work on it. But it’s had its moments. It’s also had irregular writers, with the original writer (and copyright holder on new characters in the indicia) Fred Schiller still not back and Jack Herman apparently the new series regular writer.

Herman had an interesting first couple of issues. He doesn’t have an interesting third. Instead, he’s got what appears to be an Arnold Schwarzenegger Terminator—only with a rat ponytail—interjecting himself into the main story. Except this issue isn’t really about the main story—the main story from issues one through three, before Herman came on the book and made it—temporarily—not uninteresting—chuck all that now, now… well, now, NOW Comics’s The Terminator is about to flex that license.

But not completely. Like, the Arnold Terminator doesn’t talk like Arnold. Everyone else in the comic talks, like Herman just watched James Cameron’s Aliens again—solid move—which is how The Terminator comic kicked off. Like they decided they were doing Terminator with Aliens Marines. Sure, why not. But it’s a little late now. Instead of just doing an Arnold Terminator in the series to start, they’ve waited until it appears desperate.

Also, in addition to it not sounding like Arnold, the Terminator doesn’t look much like him, either. Artists Thomas Tennessean and Jim Brozman draw the same three guys over and over again. If they’re lucky, the guys have facial hair, which can distinguish them. Except they’re rarely lucky, and all of them look like white guy resistance fighters in Aliens Marine gear.

This issue has numerous guys who look identical, sometimes shooting at each other, sometimes dying in each other’s arms. The issue’s about a team of… humans or Terminators (can we really tell—yes, yes, we can; it’s a bad comic, no subtexts here). But it’s about one team of guys trying to rescue a civilian from another team of guys. We’re pretty sure we know who’s the Terminators and who’s the humans, but then Herman will occasionally toss a red herring on the deck.

Are any of them good? Nope, not at all. And Herman seems to get it because Arnold zooms into the comic like anyone cares. He’s just a badass Terminator against a bunch of humans until he starts shit-talking them. That’s right… The Terminator is now about an Arnold Terminator with a grudge. Will Terminator get meta and have Arnold go after the license holders and the comic book creators?

One can only hope. But, surprisingly, I found something to be enthusiastic about. Terminator’s nowhere near rock bottom yet.

The Terminator, at least with writer Jack Herman steering the series… okay, it’s not good, but it’s not terrible. It’s not bad. While Herman never resolves the culturally appropriating white male Terminator who goes to the South American jungle and puts tribal markings on his fake(?) flesh to terrorize the locals, it’s at times thoughtful-ish sci-fi.

Like, there aren’t any Terminator: The Movie references and none of the Terminator’s behavior this issue requires continuity with the movie. The Terminator’s mission in South America is to build a giant machine to kill the rainforest faster so the humans all die more quickly. I suppose there’s actually a continuity problem because it means this part of South America is doing just fine in the post-nuclear holocaust of The Terminator. Is SkyNet out of nukes? It can’t figure out how to make more?

So many questions. But only when you consider the issue as a licensed property. As a comic about some isolated South American tribesmen running afoul of an invading metal monster and having to quest—to a research outpost—to save their tribe? It’s solid. There’s a not great “Terminator history but through hallucinating indigenous people, but it’s just slightly problematic, not disastrous. Herman puts in the work on his story.

The ending’s pretty cool, too, introducing the idea of The Terminator as an anthology series, checking in on the destroyed world. Much better than when they were doing “The Adventures of Kyle Reese’s Potential Acquaintances but Definitely No One from the Movie.”

Thomas Tenney and Jim Brozman’s art is the issue’s most significant drawback. They both put in some work, but it just doesn’t add up to much. Odder still is when they do visual nods to other comics; only those nods have better art than when they’re not doing nods. They focused their energies poorly. But, again, it’s a late eighties licensed comic from an indie publisher… the bar is low.

And while The Terminator isn’t of interest as a curiosity (it might still be), it’s far from narratively incompetent.

Even with the inexplicable cultural appropriation thread (yes, really) for the Terminator, this issue’s easily the best Terminator so far. Sure, they’re only on issue four—and on their third writer (Jack Herman takes over)—but it’s nearly okay. Until they decide to do “Terminator Meets Predator” only with Arnold as the bad guy… it’s got some real possibilities.

The issue begins with the Yanomami of the Amazon rainforest. In the NOW Comics Terminator timeline, the world stopped chopping down the rainforest in 1995 because it was bad for the environment–much better timeline, even with the whole Skynet thing.

Anyway.

Skynet realizes there are still people in the rainforest, which reminds it to burn down the rainforest to accelerate the extinction of the human race (and all the other animals reliant on oxygen, presumably). So it sends a Terminator down to kill the Yanomami.

The story follows three young men tasked with hunting wild boar for a peace feast between their village and a rival. It’s not great writing, but it’s better than it ought to be. Then the Terminator shows up, and there’s an action sequence. The young men return home, where no one believes their warnings of the flying craft and its dangerous pilot.

So while the villages have their feast, the Terminator proceeds to learn their language and strip down to cover himself in body paint, like the Yanomami people. Why does the Terminator need to know their language? To taunt them before slaughtering them. There’s no excuse for the body paint. Just to have a shirtless white dude running around with the shirtless brown dudes, only the shirtless white dude is a killer android.

But it’s far more inventive than it needs to be; Herman’s got actual ideas. They don’t always execute well, but ideas are more than the book’s really had going for it before.

Thomas Tenney and Jim Brozman’s art is improving. Tenney’s got some decent composition, though he still doesn’t know what to do with it.

The most unfortunate thing—besides Terminator-gone-native—is it having a cliffhanger. A done-in-one would’ve been preferable.