Welcome back to We Want Comics, a column exploring various intellectual properties — whether they’re movies, TV shows, novels, video games, or whatever else — that we would like to see adapted into comic books. This summer marked thirty years since the release of one of the greatest film sequels of all time, James Cameron’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Naturally, I rewatched the 2008-09 Fox TV series The Sarah Connor Chronicles, which, despite being the most intelligent follow-up to the film, has never been continued in comic book or prose form.
In contrast, 2009’s Terminator Salvation received a 12-part comic book sequel, “The Final Battle,” at Dark Horse with J. Michael Straczynski and Pete Woods, while the risible Genisys had a comic (courtesy of Titan) that was packaged with the Blu-ray release. Dark Horse even published a digital comic for the video game Terminator: Resistance (made available with a code provided by a purchase of the game), so the absence of a book based on Sarah Connor, or the similarly superior Dark Fate, is even more conspicuous.
Perhaps it’s because of the complex corporate history of the series: the license for the first film, released by Orion Pictures, is owned by Dark Horse, while the rights to Terminator 2 (produced by Carolco Pictures), were given to Marvel, its imprint Malibu, and then Dynamite in the late 2000s. The rights for Terminator 3 (produced by C2) were acquired by the shortlived Beckett Comics, while Salvation (The Halcyon Company)’s license was held during the film’s release by IDW, before coming into Dark Horse’s possession. Sarah Connor was produced at Warner Bros. with C2 and Halcyon, while Genisys and Dark Fate were produced by Skydance.
Suffice to say, it’s complicated, and it would be great if these issues were resolved, so Sarah Connor Chronicles and Dark Fate could return in print form. If not, there are a lot of great ideas that could be explored in a new storyline, similar to how some concepts from the TV show and the last film overlapped (ie. a Terminator having a human partner, other A.I.s than Skynet, and a future war without John Connor). More on those in a minute though: first, what would a Sarah Connor comic entail? (Spoilers for the 12-year old show.)
The second season saw a T-1001 take on the guise of tech CEO Catherine Weaver (played by Garbage’s Shirley Manson), to develop a new A.I. named “John Henry,” who would oppose Skynet. In the finale, John Henry fled into the future with the CPU of Cameron (the Connors’ protector, played by Summer Glau), and John and Catherine both followed them, creating a new future where John never led the human resistance, and both John’s uncle, Derek Reese (Brian Austin Green), and Allison Young, the woman Cameron was based on, are still alive. You have to wonder if the new future would’ve been undone or made permanent, or if the relationship between past and present would’ve grown even more complicated.
After all, Dark Fate depicted a present where a Terminator from one future (Skynet’s) could fight another from a different timeline (the new one ruled by Legion). Speaking of the movie, Dark Fate gave a pretty simple hook for an spin-off, namely Sarah intercepting and destroying the other Terminators that were sent to kill John at different points from 1998 to 2020. Together with a prequel, a sequel, and a “what if?” that tweaks the controversial opening, there’s at least four potential comic book avenues to explore from the movie, which (because of its box office performance) is unlikely to receive a theatrical continuation.
OK, so what if Dark Horse doesn’t or can’t get the rights to all the movies and SCC? There’s many other twists on the mythology from the show that could be explored independently, the most integral of which was how it was gradually becoming a series about what happens after humans win the war with the machines: does A.I. remain an existential threat? Through Weaver, we were shown a Terminator who’s become self-aware, and chosen to rebel against Skynet without being reprogrammed, but still remains a ruthless hunter-killer: does that mean she remains a threat that must be prevented from coming into existence? Why not start using time travel to undo human crimes then?
Ultimately, since Terminator film & TV seems unable to provide us with a proper conclusion to the true story of the series — the tale of Sarah Connor, the unlikely guardian of the future — that the task must fall to printed media. Even if they don’t have the rights to her subsequent adventures, it would be a great opportunity for Dark Horse to tell the last Sarah Connor story, instead of more side stories about Terminators hunting other people from the past. It’s been nearly forty years since Sarah learned about the war caused by our own creations, yet we’ve never seen her confront that horror head on; perhaps in a world where the future looks stormier than ever, some part of us doesn’t want to see her finally face that inevitability, but what could be more inspiring than having her witness Judgment Day, and still fight on?
One thing’s for sure: they’ll be back.
