Terminator: The Burning Earth is a five-issue comic book mini-series written by Ron Fortier, illustrated by Alex Ross, and published by NOW Comics. The five issues were all released in 1990, and later published in a trade paperback collection that same year. In the 2000s, iBooks released a digitally remastered collection; in 2013, Dark Horse released a new trade paperback and digital collection.
The Burning Earth series features new characters fighting in John Connor's Resistance army against Skynet.
Overview[]
In 2041, John "Bear" Connor and the human Resistance race to stop Skynet from using its nuclear stockpile to finally annihilate the human race.
The story continues from Skynet's perspective of completing final tests of the Aurora model terminator.
Official synopsis from Dark Horse Comics' trade paperback:
The war is forty years old.
No one remembers what year it is supposed to be.
The self-aware computer defense system Skynet's extermination of humanity nears completion with only three percent of the human population remaining. Seizing the opportunity for total annihilation, Skynet prepares a nuclear strike, even as a new model 808 Terminator sets its sights on an aging John Connor and his remaining resistance fighters. Their only hope is to take the fight to Skynet's mainframe at Thunder Mountain.
Issues[]
| Issue | Chapter title[1] | Pages | Date | Official synopsis |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Welcome to Hell | 36 | Mar 1990 | The first issue in volume two of THE TERMINATOR! Consider it chapter two! It's ten years later and John Connor is considering suicide! |
| 2 | A Better Mouse Trap | 36 | Apr 1990 | See the inside of Skynet and how it thinks! Skynet decides to launch a full scale nuclear attack! A female Terminator is born! |
| 3 | King of the Mountain | 36 | May 1990 | The bombs are getting ready to fall, and Connor's rebels decide to walk right in the front door of Skynet! |
| 4 | The Last Day | 36 | Jun 1990 | Skynet makes its move!! John Connor's brave band of fighters is thrown from the frying pan into the fire -- to be safe from the bomb blasts, they are forced to take refuge in the heart of Skynet itself! |
| 5 | The Heart of Skynet | 36 | Jul 1990 | The stunning conclusion of this blockbuster mini-series!!! Inside Skynet, John Connor and his band battle their way toward the Central Processing Unit! |
Characters[]
| Resistance | Skynet |
|---|---|
|
|
Mentioned[]
Collections[]
The Burning Earth series has been collected as a trade paperback a number of times from Caputo Publishing, iBooks, and Dark Horse Comics.
| Title | Format | Pages | Date | ISBN | Publisher | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Terminator: The Burning Earth: Graphic Novel | Trade paperback | May 1990 | 0-942759-04-4 | Caputo Publishing | ||
| Terminator: The Burning Earth | Trade paperback | 128 | Jan 2004 | 0-7434-7927-0 | iBooks | Digitally remastered collector's edition |
| Terminator: The Burning Earth | Trade paperback | 128 | Jan 2006 | 1-59687-820-7 | iBooks | |
| Terminator: The Burning Earth | Trade paperback | 136 | Nov 2013 | 978-1616552770 | Dark Horse Comics | |
| Terminator: The Burning Earth | Digital | 978-1621158592 | Dark Horse Comics |
Chronology[]
- 2029 - Terminator: All My Futures Past, NOW Comics, #1-2 (Aug. 1990 - Sep. 1990)
- 2031 - Rust, NOW Comics, #12 (Aug. 1988)
- 2031 - The Terminator, NOW Comics, #1–17 (Sep. 1988 - Feb. 1990)
- 2041 - Terminator: The Burning Earth, NOW Comics, #1–5 (Mar. – July 1990)
Continuity notes[]
- Patch and Gerry from "From the Journals of Timothy Reese, Mexico, 2067" return for this series, as well the surviving characters from The Terminator issue 17: Escape to the Silver Dollar".
Notes[]
- The Burning Earth is a radical visual departure from the earlier NOW Terminator series. Whereas the seventeen-issue series was more cartoonish in its style, Alex Ross' artwork is far more realistic, cinematic, and dark. Also, while the other series was more free with its Endoskeleton and HK designs, The Burning Earth rigidly adheres to how they are portrayed in the first movie.
- Terminators in this series are far less gregarious and emotive than in the seventeen-issue NOW series. Nevertheless, one Terminator in issue five clearly exhibits fear when it realizes that it's about to blown up.
- This series features a new form of Terminator, the Sweeper, which appears in jet black segmented armor and has a single red, glowing eye piece. The Terminator RPG would give background detail for this new unit and classify it as Series 000.
- The final scene of the series suggests either that Skynet's destruction as not complete or that a number of Terminators could act independently of the supercomputer's direct control. There was never an official follow-up to the story.
Trivia[]
- The series is Alex Ross' first published comic work.
References[]
- ↑ Chapter titles are from Dark Horse's trade paperback. They might not be part of the original comic book issues.
- ↑ Alex Ross stated in a Wizard Magazine retrospective on his career that one of his key interests in the project was that he once had a crush on original Sarah Connor actress Linda Hamilton: "I was such a huge 'Beauty and the Beast' fan and I was so deeply in love with Linda Hamilton that I thought I'll do it for Linda 'cause I love her so". In light of this, it is noteworthy that his hyper-realistic art style (although still in its early development) depicts the adult John Connor with a striking resemblance to Hamilton, something especially noticeable on the cover of the final issue. -Wizard's Alex Ross: Millennium Edition Special,1999 , p.53
- ↑ Comic was written before series/model number designations were clarified. This model of Terminator is described in The Terminator RPG and is a different version of a T-808 than the version in the Card Game
External links[]
- Terminator: The Burning Earth - YouTube from Alex Ross Official Channel
- Dark Horse Comics: The Terminator: The Burning Earth TPB (2013 edition)