The one constant in The Terminator franchise has been the artificial intelligence known as Skynet. Its decision to launch nuclear weapons at humanity leads to the event known as “Judgment Day”, and subsequently the war between man and machine. But what led to the creation of the T-800? How did Skynet perfect time travel? Declan Shalvey and Lorenzo Re finally unveil the answers in The Terminator #6…and they’re utterly horrifying.
Part of that is due to how Shalvey flips the narrative of the Terminator on its head. Most of the stories focus on the human race’s struggle to stop the machines; in The Terminator #6, readers are placed into Skynet’s shoes. And it turns out that Skynet, being an artificial intelligence that has time to think and plan, constantly refines its approach to the war. The original T-600s aren’t good infiltration units? They’re replaced. Synthetic flesh isn’t used to time travel? Use organic flesh (and the revelation of how Skynet gets that flesh will haunt your nightmares.)
Re’s artwork plays into the horror, starting with the very first page. It features what appears to be a man staring off in the distance, his back turned to the reader. Each panel pushes in further, and further, until the man turns around — and his flesh starts melting off to reveal the T-800 within. It’s a disturbing visual that finds itself being repeated across different pages, and even Shalvey’s cover for the issue which features a T-800’s skull glaring out of a mountain of dripping flesh.
Dynamite Entertainment
The other artistic element that makes The Terminator #6 a chilling book is Colin Craker’s colors. Craker paints the future in vivid shades; bright, crackling blue for the time spheres that take the Terminator to various time periods, searing orange flames that erupt with every explosion, and the bright purple of laser fire from man and machine alike. But it’s red that’s the most prominent color. It soaks the page in a sequence featuring Skynet’s human “test subjects.” It washes over a battlefield when Skynet deploys one of its laser weapons. And it’s most prominent in the glowing red eyes of the various Terminator models – one page slowly fills up with nothing but those cold crimson glares.
Topping it all off is Jeff Eckleberry’s captions, which bring a cold, gun-metal sheen to Shalvey’s script. There’s also a recurring theme throughout the issue; every time one of Skynet’s “tests” fails, Eckleberry has captions scroll across the screen that is reminiscent of a Terminator’s mission directives. As Skynet points out early in the issue, given enough time it will figure out a way to eradicate the human race. What’s being depicted in this comic is merely a sliver of the time it took to come up with its ultimate plan.
The Terminator #6 offers insight into Skynet’s way of thinking (or what passes for it) in a chilling story that boasts some of the series’ most disturbingly crafted artwork to date. One thing’s for sure: you’ll never look at the Terminator movies in the same way after reading this.
You must be logged in to post a comment.