Declan Shalvey infiltrates ‘Terminator’ with new energies and ideas

Like anyone born in the early to mid-80s, Declan Shalvey has a certain appreciation for the Terminator franchise.

“I remember being in a school play, and the different classes would have their plays on during the day,” he said during a recent Zoom call. “And while we had to get ready and were waiting for hours, they’d play a movie to keep us all sedated basically. And I remember it was Terminator 2, and just that first bit of the T-800 crushing the skull under its feet. I was so scared, but it was so amazing.” 

But unlike the rest of his generational cohorts, Shalvey has a chance to actually write a Terminator series (alongside up-and-coming artist Luke Sparrow), which officially debuts on October 9 from Dynamite. So, you’d assume that, as fans, Shalvey and Sparrow might lean into everything that makes Terminator so amazing, like the killer robots, robust action, and overt dystopian vibes.

Well, not exactly.

Because the new Terminator will mostly be about after Skynet has failed, with Shalvey calling them a series of “done-in-one” tales about the nefarious AI’s other plots to bring down humanity. As Shalvey calls it, “Quantum Leap from Hell in that every issue is episodic. Except the common denominator is a murder robot, not Sam Beckett.”

It’s clearly a brazen choice for a veteran like Shalvey. Heck, he didn’t even look at other Terminator comics (including those mostly iffy ones from Marvel).

“I’m not casting spurges on them; I just haven’t read them,” said Shalvey. “The only one I really remember is a friend of mine, P.J. Holden, drew a RoboCop-Terminator book years ago. And I know that Goran Parlov drew a Terminator book one time because I saw pages from it years ago and actually it does look great. Although I don’t think it was colored. So, no, I haven’t looked — same with Thundercats.”

So, why the shift, then? To some extent, it’s licensing issues, as Shalvey and Dynamite were told that the book is “strictly within the continuity of the first film, nothing after,” said the writer. But  Shalvey still very much leaned into that, turning a “limitation” into a greater storytelling opportunity.

“And at first I thought that would be limiting, but then I realized the core concept is actually so tight and interesting that when you’re used to how it went in Terminator 2, it’s very hard to think about just taking that idea and running with it,” said Shalvey. “You actually can go anywhere with it, which is what changed my mind about it. I actually like that I’m not doing it because I think it would be the most obvious thing to follow on from Terminator 2 and whatnot. I think it’s more interesting what we’re doing. It is by necessity, admittedly, but I think sometimes it’s like what they say, necessity is the mother of all invention.” 

A big chunk of that decision is based on Shalvey’s own readings and perceptions of Terminator (especially that original film). It’s not what everyone thinks it might be. 

“If you go back and you watch it with a more objective eye, it’s, like, 90% a thriller, a chase. That’s it,” said Shalvey. “And there’s the sci-fi stuff in there. But because of restrictions and technology at the time — there’s some amazing creature effects, but that cost a fortune to do — it’s very limited. Arnie himself was such an imposing figure. You didn’t need a robot running through it. And when you did see the Terminator, the T-800 at the end of the film, it’s absolutely terrifying. I think it’s more chilling than Terminator 2.”

In fact, as far as Shalvey is concerned, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 isn’t nearly the star of the show.

“I was talking to Luke and I said to him, ‘To me, the book it’s not Arnie, because Arnie’s not in it,” said Shalvey. “To me, it’s in the scene where we see [Kyle] Reese at his base and somebody comes through and all the dogs start barking and then we realize one of the people who came in is a Terminator. He’s a generic figure, and there’s a shot with the shadows and the two eyes peering out on, and that’s the Terminator. Arnie in that film was the representation. But the idea is an intruder. Even Reese says it himself: he didn’t know who the Terminator was until he made a move on Sarah Connor. That’s actually more insidiously scary than the recognizable figure that we know.”

And the whole Reese “angle” ultimately speaks to the real crux of this Terminator book: it’s about the humanity of survival. What it really means to live through a moment when everything’s about to end in front of your very eyes. 

“When I re-watched the first one, I was like, ‘Well, it’s not about a robot. It’s a story about people facing a future and there’s nothing you can do about it,” said Shalvey. “Facing annihilation, basically, and finding the humanity within, like all the best sci-fi books and stories. It’s not about the thing; the thing instigates the human drama. That was in my pitch to Dynamite and the licenser: essentially, it’s stories about human perseverance and wanting to tell human stories in the face of this thing that you cannot stop.”

It’s very much a lesson that Shalvey learned while working on other, similarly big-name licensed properties.

“Similar to maybe the approach I had with Alien: it says Alien on the title, but it’s not about Mr. Alien,” said Shalvey. “That’s not what makes it scary. It’s caring about the characters. And the challenge for me is creating characters for every issue that you’re going to care about and that you’re actually going to be invested in whether something happens to them. I only have 22 pages to do that every issue.”

And speaking of his other works, Shalvey also leaned into Time Before Time when it came to exploring time travel/hopping within Terminator. Specifically, this notion that nothing can change what’s already happened.

“Rory [McConville, artist] and I, our rule was you can’t change the future,” said Shalvey about Time Before Time. “You can do things within it, but ultimately you can’t change it. Questions would always come up with time travel stuff. Like, ‘Well, what if it changes this and changes that?’ That was also part of Terminator 2. But really, when you think about it, the mission was that Skynet wanted to kill John Connor in order to stop the resistance. And that didn’t work. But also they’re trying to stop Skynet, which doesn’t work. I don’t think stories trying to change the future…they really aren’t necessarily interesting. I think that the struggle is interesting. But I think assuming that it’s going to change, it’s been done.”

Aside from not overly mucking with timelines, there’s some other ways Time Before Time helped inform the work in Terminator.

“And Terminator, though, is actually way more up my alley,” said Shalvey. “I tweeted [recently] that like if you like Terminator, you’d probably like Time Before Time. The last trade is coming out soon. And that’s literally four self-contained stories told at different times. It’s literally the Terminator book.”

But don’t fret too intensely, time travel dweebs. Shalvey noted that even with this rule in place, he and Sparrow are still able to do some deeply compelling things across Terminator. 

“Stuff’s going to happen, but the mission of the book isn’t to change Judgment Day,” said Shalvey. “If anything, the first issue takes place after Judgment Day. So you can pretty much assume it happens. The book opens a few years ago, maybe 10 years ago, which is after Judgment Day. So we can just assume it’s happened already, but that doesn’t mean the struggle is over.”

Shalvey added, “Like I said, we’re a little bit more limited in where we can go. To me, it made more sense. I was considering at one point and doing it like an anthology, where every issue would be a different artist. But I changed my mind on that because I wanted a certain sensibility for the whole book. I kept the idea that it’s all just different stories. And there is connective tissue to the book as a whole. As you read the book, they’re all different times and situations. But as the series progresses, you’ll realize there’s something that really connects them all. So that to me keeps the book narratively as a specific thing while working and leaning into the episodic nature of it all.”

Shalvey and Sparrow ultimately have some solid wiggle room to do something within the book’s structure.

“I’ll tell you this because it’s probably going to be solicited soon,” said Shalvey. “While they’re all mainly done-in-ones, there will be a couple of two-parters. Similar to what I was saying about Quantum Leap and Star Trek — I love when those episodic stuff, with the bigger stories, end up being two-parters. And it’s set during the Vietnam War. So we’re going to have the T-800 walking through Saigon jungles, which to me is fucking cool.”

Shalvey admits that with something like Terminator, he’s battling something more deeply entrenched than even the audiences’ mere preferences. It’s their relationship with this franchise.

“And the difficult thing with this franchise is that everybody is coming to it with a preconception of what they wanted to be, which is Terminator 5,” said Shalvey. “But it’s not even Terminator 2. It’s Terminator -1.”

But Shalvey’s approach goes deeper than just bucking time travel tropes and trying to tell deeply human stories. For one, and this goes back to the stuff about not reading other titles, Shalvey is very much interested in capturing something that’s both quite specific and also somewhat intangible.

“I think I start with vibes, actually. Now that you put it that way,” said Shalvey. “I think about vibes before a story and feeling like what the identity of a book is going to be. I’m known primarily as an artist. That’s where I start with, which might be a dumb way to go about it, but I do feel like you build the identity of a book.”

Luckily, he has Sparrow on his side.

“Luke Sparrow is an incredible artist,” said Shalvey. “He’s so good at scenarios and backgrounds and specific locations that I want to see him draw — all the different stuff rather than the same thing every time, you know? I’m hoping for him this will be what 28 Days Later did for me, which is take what ostensibly could just be a crappy license book, and there’s plenty of crappy licensed books, but try to deliver something better than what people are expecting. And from the pages that are already coming in, I think this is the best looking Terminator book I’ve ever seen.”

It’s Sparrow, then, who is capturing the single defining vibes of Terminator and how that informs and extends this book. 

“The nightclub they’re in is called TechNoir,” Shalvey said of the first Terminator film. “So I wanted to lean into the more pulpy, moody, dark take, which is what the original is. I wanted to take that aesthetic and run with that and each issue being a different kind of a scenario.”

Once again, it’s another theme “lifted” from his work on Alien.

“Marvel gave me all of the old Dark Horse stuff. But all I really wanted from that was the aesthetic,” said Shalvey. “I wanted to make a book that looked more like the Dark Horse books than, say, a Marvel book. But that was an aesthetic thing, not a story thing.”

But part of capturing the vibes means that you’re often not continuing or building on anything directly, and while that’s exciting, it can be terrifying work. Still, he’d much rather doing something entirely new and novel (even if it’s not the most immediately popular or whatnot).

“I’m copying what Warren [Ellis] did when we did Moon Knight,” said Shalvey. “He told me that he read the first six issues of Moon Knight and that’s it, and then went on from there.”

Shalvey added, “I remember when I was pitching earlier, one of the stories was very similar to what they’d already done. And in that case, that’s fine. We won’t do that one. But at least my ideas aren’t based on something I’ve already read or I’m trying to redo something. I try to just stick right to the vein of my thinking. And if something else comes up, then I can always adjust. I wanted to do my take on it. I didn’t want to get too distracted by anybody else’s. In general, that’s what I do.”

It wasn’t just those books that informed Terminator; Shalvey also leaned further into the mega-hit that is Thundercats. He’s interested in this idea of giving yourself certain permissions.

“For the first year, I definitely wanted to have me and Drew [Moss, artist] do something of our own,” said Shalvey. “I think Thundercats might open up a little bit more now that we’re a year in. I think I’d like to watch that newer series and read some more books. But I assumed it was good. It looked like it was really up my alley. And I was worried if I did watch it that I’d end up copying stuff or I’d try and avoid stuff because I liked it too much. So I just stuck to my own ideas. I’m just taking the machine itself and running along with it and not getting into the lore of Sarah Connor and all that stuff. It’s been done to death. And there’s other places to go, and so I’m happy to go to those places.”

All of this leads up to perhaps the most vital part of Shalvey’s work on Terminator. More than telling human stories, bucking tropes, or just telling something new, he wants to engage fans in a fresh way. More specifically, he thinks giving them all the good stuff actually ruins the story.

“I’m doing a Mystique book, and, like, do I do all the stuff that people want to see? I think my instinct is to not give it to them and then give it to them later,” said Shalvey. “Like in that first issue of Alien, it only really shows up at the end. Because you’ve got to do a lot of ground work with the other characters first. I think it was David Simon who said that the reader wants dessert, but what they need is dinner.”

That’s not to say that Shalvey doesn’t want to give fans the big-time action they crave.

“I wanted Luke and I wanted Colin Craker to color it, and I want to see how that looks,” Shalvey said of Terminator. As for Alien, he added that the if he’s doing that book, “I want to draw the fucking Xenomorph…so I’m going to give [artist Andrea Broccardo] a really cool splash page that doesn’t hurt the story, but otherwise build it up. 

Shalvey added, “There’s a page in Terminator #1 where we see a downed Hunter-Killer. I want to see the future stuff; I want to write that stuff. That’s going to be so cool. But, you know, doing it in issue #1, I think will just completely undercut any sense of excitement and build up.”

Rather, it’s that Shalvey has seen the “other side” of storytelling, and there’s a rather important process to all of this. 

“If it’s Old Dog, it’s different because nobody knows what it is,” said Shalvey. “But really iconic franchise stuff, you’ve got to hold off because once you give it to them, that you’ve pulled that cord and you can’t pull it again. So it needs to feel like it’s deserved. Like, a Terminator shows up and it’s walking and talking and doing a dance at page two, well, then you’ve got a lot of work to do to try and pull back on the next page.”

Shalvey added, “It’s a case of, ‘I know what you want, but you’re going to have to wait for it.’ But when you get it, it’s going to be real cool. And I find that’s the case with the recognizable characters — the more iconic it is, the more I think you have to do that. You can’t get more iconic than a Terminator robot or Xenomorph.”

To an extent, Shalvey’s approach is very much a reaction to what he thinks is a deluge of fan service in recent years, and how that can affect otherwise promising releases/titles.

“It’s why so much fan service stuff is completely unsatisfying in the long run, you know? And we’re going through a very cultural moment where we’re getting a lot of fan service,” said Shalvey. “How many reboots and stuff has happened where the thing you want as a fan, you get it and you’re like, ‘Huh.’ Like, ‘I really want an Obi-Wan TV show. I got it. I don’t feel great.’ As a writer, I want to get there, but I don’t feel like we’re ready for it yet. I feel like that’s something we need to work toward.”

Shalvey added, “I think it would be very easy to just fall into, as I was saying before, those fan attractions. I can’t do that. So that affords me the space to just go in this direction and not have to explain myself.”

This perpetual need for fan service is very much engrained across the larger “industry” of pop culture and its endless nostalgia mining.

“I’m doing all this press and they’re like, ‘Do we see these known characters? Are we going to see Skynet?’ It’s all the stuff that people want to see,” said Shalvey. “But I’d argue we’ve seen plenty of that at this stage. So let me try to do something different and give you something you’re not expecting. And, hopefully, I’m going to earn the respect of a reader by giving them a beautiful looking book.”

Shalvey added, “We’re actually going over here. We’re not taking 17 steps over here. We’re taking one step over there, which again is due to licensing restrictions, but I’m actually quite happy with those restrictions because it would be tough to make that bold decision creatively on my own.”

It’s a lesson that, as you might’ve already guessed, was further forged and/or hone with Shalvey’s other comics projects.

“If we had just done what people probably said they wanted, we would have just done a Moon Knight superhero book where he’s fighting Werewolf by Night,” said Shalvey. “But I think what we did was way more interesting. And as a result, it created a whole new interest in the character that wasn’t there before. I don’t want to do character part seven. I want to do a version of a character you didn’t know you wanted, but then when you got it, and you loved it. Now, the difference between that happening is actually making the thing that people like, so it’s all up in the air. We’ll see if I can pull that off.”

As such, Shalvey recognizes that he, too, needs to put in the work if the book can resonate and achieve its potential. 

“It’s something I realized with Thundercats,” said Shalvey. “I’ve been in comics for over a decade now, and I’ve drawn some of the biggest characters. I’ve been very, very lucky. And writing a book like Thundercats that sold the way it sold meant that people probably picked up that book hadn’t a fucking clue who I was. So you’re starting from ground zero, which is good in a refreshing way. And, similarly, I’m going to assume most people who are reading Terminator don’t have a clue who I am. So I can’t just assume they’re going to just go along with me.”

And, sure, he’s also fully aware of the kind of message that this “make them wait” approach might facilitate.

“I’m trying to do something interesting and different,” said Shalvey. “And, hopefully, I can surprise you with stuff you’re not expecting while giving you some stuff that you want to see. It sounds very Machiavellian. I haven’t really talked to other writers about this, but it does sound like I’m basically trying to emotionally abuse the audience.”

But it’s all in the vein of using his storytelling skills and experience to do something truly impactful.

“I could just give into my weaker fan instincts and just jump in on this,” said Shalvey. “But I’ve told enough stories and I’ve drawn enough stuff that you want to build something. Also, I have the advantage of knowing that I can. I know that I have a year on this book. If it was five issues, it might be different. Robots everywhere. But I think that I can build to something more satisfying. Mystique’s actually very different. Mystique is very fan service-y because I’ve got five issues and I can draw whoever I want. So if I want to draw Beast, I’m going to draw Beast.” 

If there’s ever any uncertainty about his work in Terminator, Shalvey continually leans into his other titles for “guidance.” Not just in that he has experience with time travel or giving readers a big pay off. That he’s doing truly meaningful, valuable work.

“I guess what’s cooler with the work-for-hire stuff is that I’m getting asked to do stuff that I would read anyway,” said Shalvey. “Like, I would read this Terminator book and I don’t think I’m such a lunatic that I’m the only one who would like this. I think I have a good mix of indie sensibilities and mainstream that I can do both.”

Shalvey added, “Well, it’s funny that I’m half-pushing Old Dog via Mystique, because they’re both very similar books. They’re both superhero espionage books. Now, I did pick Mystique…but that’s completely within my sensibilities. I’m very much enjoying Mystique. I’m getting to basically do Old Dog-type storytelling, but then I can draw these characters that I love and pop them in. So that’s very satisfying in a storytelling way and an X-Men fan service type of way.  And Terminator is telling a story very much in the tone and the pacing in how I ride with Old Dog even. What I’m hoping is that those type of projects will help to create our own. It wasn’t planned this way, but again, there’s a lot of creative crossover there, I would say.”

And there’s no denying the results that Shalvey’s achieved with his approach to comics and storytelling. It wasn’t always an easy road, but he’s happy and excited about his career’s momentum. 

“I think I’ve been very good in general for picking the projects I do and that I don’t do,” said Shalvey. “And I think after COVID, I had some moments of insecurity and of what I would do next. I think I made the choice to write and draw and some cool stuff came up to draw. But I feel like this is a step I need to make. And I’m very glad I did. It’s now weirdly turned into the case where I could probably stop drawing now and just write full-time and do covers and I’d be fine, which is nuts. Like, that is not where I saw my career going.”

Shalvey added, “So I get to do a couple of covers and I get to come up with ideas and try to build a look of the book and have an artist do all the backbreaking work. That’s pretty cool. And, of course, you become far more prolific when you’re writing because you can do lots more stuff. So now I’m in a place where I’m writing three books and drawing one of them and doing covers for all of them.”

Still, as much as his career goals and daily work might have shifted, Shalvey is still very much the same to this core.

“If I could just choose, I would just draw. Drawing is what comes to me naturally. I think the writer I am comes from me being a visual storyteller,” said Shalvey. “So I couldn’t be writing without being an artist first. And writing is easier, and you get way more credit than what’s deserved. But it is also more mentally taxing. And I struggle with it. Like, I find it hard to do more so than drawing, which just comes to me more naturally. But I find myself, if there’s a script to do or a cover, I would just maybe do the cover because I could just go right into its own.”

Shalvey even still has issues with prioritizing his workload, saying that in balancing art versus writing duties, he’s constantly saying, “Like, ‘I can crank [a script or pitch] out in an afternoon.’ Really, it’s, ‘No, Dec, it takes a week.'”

And that perhaps speaks to everything we’ve touched on so far. Not only why Terminator is likely going to be different, but where that comes from, why it matters, and why Shalvey may be best suited for this task. He is, at the end of the day, a true nerd like so many of us, and his love and fandom inform every aspect of this Terminator project.

“I’m a big sci-fi guy and I love my action movies and whatnot,” said Shalvey. “I just really enjoyed them.”

Terminator #1 is due out October 9 via Dynamite.