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I love you, Penny. All the time.
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Major Harper Duggan was a man targeted for termination by Skynet. He was one of the first members of the Resistance against the machines.
History[]
Harper grew up off the grid, raised by his father and his mother, who had left the city for a secluded life in the countryside. In his youth, Harper was filled with anger, but meeting Penny Alekseev, the woman he would later marry, changed him. Leaving the isolation of the wilderness, Harper inadvertently drew the attention of a Terminator. The machine brutally killed his parents and began pursuing him and Penny, forcing them to flee from town to town.[1]
Eight years later[2], by 1979, the couple had found temporary refuge in Seattle and planned a desperate escape into the wilderness via a rented Cessna. But the Terminator was relentless. As Harper attempted to take off, the machine appeared on the runway. In a daring move, Harper rammed the Terminator, severing its arm. Despite the damage, the machine clung to the plane's side, tearing at it mid-flight. Harper managed to shake it loose, sending the Terminator into the water below, but the plane was severely damaged. Forced into an emergency landing, the couple crash-landed somewhere along the Alaskan coastline.[1]
Harper and Penny managed to survive Judgment Day, and in 1998 Harper became one of the first people to fight back against Skynet, leaving Penny on a cabin they had built by a remote lake up in Alaska. Harper led dozens of offenses against the machines, gaining the respect of his men and a reputation for understanding the enemy before anyone else did. He fought for three years, always feeling like he was still being hunted, until he was declared dead during a mission to disrupt enemy supply lines. The only survivor of his squad was a young recruit called John Connor.[2]
Harper retreated to the cabin, where Penny and him spent the following decades in hiding. Their peace was shattered in 2018 when, while fishing, Harper saw the now completely skinless T-800 emerge from the depths of the lake, still relentless after nearly forty years. Harper rushed to the cabin, ordering a terrified Penny to destroy a box full of compromising data[3] by burning it. Arming himself with a 12-gauge shotgun, Harper confronted the machine in a desperate attempt to buy Penny time. Though he fought bravely, the Terminator overpowered him, ending his life by crushing his skull.[1]
Notes[]
- In an alternate timeline, Major Harper Duggan of Tech-Com was captured by Skynet in 2014. The data in the memory box was used to start Operation Family Tree, an attempt to erase him and his wife from existence.[3]
- The relationship between Edward and Harper is not clear. The glitchy family tree that Skynet displays in The Terminator #8 could be interpreted as them being grandfather and grandson (unlikely given that they are around during the late 1970s looking the same age unless time travel was somehow involved off-screen) or brothers (leaving unclear why Joe is above Harper in the tree.) The comic ended with issue #10, leaving the answer uncertain.
Gallery[]
Appearances[]
- The Terminator #1
- The Terminator #8
- The Terminator #10
- The Terminator: Metal #3 (Mentioned only)