‘Out of Time’

Written by Declan Shalvey; Art by Luke Sparrow

Colours by Colin Craker; Letters by Jeff Eckleberry

‘Buried Alive’

Written by Sal Crivelli; Art by Colin Craker

Letters by Jeff Eckleberry

Packager and Editor Nate Crosby

Dynamite Comics

Harper and Penny have been on the run for decades. Escaping an unstoppable robotic killer, they’ve hid in the mountains of Alaska, together, in as close to happiness as anyone can get. But their hunter has never stopped looking for them and time is running out.

The Terminator franchise is always more interesting the more it focuses on the human side of the war. The excellent recent Terminator Zero showed that and so does this wildly ambitious first story. The focus breaks away from what you’d expect instantly. There’s no John Connor here, instead, Shalvey has a terminator go back in time to pursue a couple who we’ve not seen before. There’s no convenient info dump, no reprogrammed Terminator to explain the stakes. Just two terrified people, pursued by an unstoppable killer whose true nature only we know. That leads to some spectacular, tense action sequences including a framing gunfight and a fantastic sequence involving a small plane which Sparrow and Craker brings white knuckle horror to. One of the best single panels here is just a flashback to that, and the inhuman image of a terrified human in a plane in mid-flight looking at a metal arm clutching the outside of the window is glorious nightmare fuel.

The binary certainty of human vs Terminator is subverted again and again and it’s great. We don’t know why the Terminator has been sent to kill these two. We don’t know if this is their only experience of one and there may be two Terminators in play. The first sequence shows a naked endo-skeleton under water which might have time jumped directly there. Or it might be the Terminator we see at the end. Is that a plasma rifle we see one of the humans use? What’s in the box they’re focused on burning so the Terminator doesn’t get it? We don’t have answers, we do have the fear we may not get them and we are desperate for answers. It’s a brave move and one I’m thrilled to see pay off.

Even then it’s not the last gambit the comic plays. A back up serial strip, written by Sal Crivelli with art by Craker and Eckleberry sets up another pair of Terminators in a very different spot and time. There’s not much of a story there, yet, but it’s early days.

Verdict: This is a book made of brave choices set in a world that’s defined by those. I have no idea if it’s going to pay off but it’s off to a hell of a start. 9/10

Alasdair Stuart