The Terminator: Tempest

The Terminator: Tempest is a four-issue comic series set in the months following the events of The Terminator. Tempest collects the first part of four story arcs. Dark Horse Comics published the series in 1990 as individual comics under the title Terminator (Vol. 1) and collected them as retitled trade paperback The Terminator: Tempest in 1991. The Terminator Omnibus Volume 1, published in 2008, included The Terminator: Tempest.

Story[]

Organic Weapon Case — Using an organic weapons case

Gfg — The Terminators arrive in the past.

A nine-person Resistance cell, led by Colonel Mary Randall, assaults a fully functional Skynet network complex six months after John Connor destroyed the Master Control central node. Within this facility is a fully operational Time Displacement Chamber, larger than the prototype John Connor discovered. Their mission is to utilize the Time Displacement Equipment (TDE) to return to 1984 ^[1] and eliminate Skynet by killing key individuals in the Cyberdyne Systems hierarchy. The surviving cell members who reach the TDE chamber take off their clothes (as they would otherwise be destroyed during the time travel process), even though their mission intent was to also destroy the facility after their departure.^[2]

I825.M, a short, stocky individual with a scarred face, observes the cell's infiltration but does not interfere directly. After reporting the infiltration to the facility's Processing Command Center, he heads for the Incubation Chamber to activate the facility's defenders. Only three units are available for immediate activation: C890.L, C850.D, and HC875.S.

Three members of Colonel Randall's team are killed during the assault, leaving technician Lieutenant Koufaks to initiate the TDE and send the remaining five team members to the past. His orders were to destroy the unit to prevent Skynet assets from following. Unfortunately for Koufaks, just as he began shooting the controls for the TDE, which locked the unit's target time coordinates, the three Terminators activated by I825.M capture him. After interrogation, the Terminators elect to use Koufaks as a gun cabinet, slicing open his belly and inserting a Plasma Pistol, then cauterizing the wound shut.

The Terminators take Koufaks with them to the past using the partially repaired TDE. Upon arrival in the past, C890.L ripped the Plasma Pistol out of Koufaks's body, terminating him.

Arriving in 1984, Mary directs her team to acquire clothing, weapons, food, and housing, and then initiates surveillance on Cyberdyne to acquire targets needed to prevent Skynet's genesis. Mary gets a job as a waitress in the Oboy diner located near the Cyberdyne Systems facility. After enticing Dr. Ed Astin into a date, Mary and Alan kidnap Astin and force him to take them to Dr. Bertram Hollister's residence.

While the resistance cell has been acquiring its targets and establishing their safehouse, the Terminators worked to identify the individuals they must protect using the scant information Koufaks revealed during his interrogation. Coincidentally, I825.M is impersonating a cook in the Oboy diner at which Mary is employed and impersonates a police officer over the phone to obtain the DMV's vehicle registration information about the only Cyberdyne Systems name they have on file: Hollister's. While I825.M exercises his intelligence protocols to identify and follow Dr. Hollister to his home, the other Terminators assault an LAPD drug bust to acquire weapons and additional disguises.

Just as Mary and Alan invade Dr. Hollister's home with Dr. Astin in tow and prepare to assassinate him, the Terminators attack, and C890.L kills Alan with its Plasma Pistol. Astin and Mary flee with HC875.S in pursuit but are able to get away when HC875.S's leg begins to malfunction due to previously incurred damage that impeded its mobility. For his safety, C890.L and C850.D sequester Dr. Hollister in his secret warehouse laboratory.

Mary takes Astin to her safe house and they confront him with the knowledge of the future Judgment Day and Project Bellerophon's implications for Skynet's creation. Still disbelieving, he storms off.

Dr. Hollister thanks the Terminators for their protection but feels he is unable to continue his work without the Terminator remains he was studying to advance his Cyberdyne's research. C890.L states they have been instructed to assist him in any way possible and offers to obtain anything Hollister needs. Hollister requests the evidence held in the LAPD's basement evidence storage. C850.D is sent to secure the materials.

Astin heads back to Cyberdyne Systems but, confronted by C890.L, flees under fire and heads directly back to the resistance safehouse. This is, unfortunately, the intent of the Terminator, who secretly follows Astin to the location. In the ensuing battle, Naiomi and Raul are killed, and a pipe bomb removes HC875.S's remaining flesh. Mary, Bart, and Astin escape undetected, and C890.L assumes all targets have been terminated.

Meanwhile the surviving resistance members turn the tables and track C890.L to the warehouse lab. HC875.S sneaks out of the wreckage of the destroyed safehouse and steals a car to rejoin the other Terminator units protecting Hollister. Believing they are the only functional Terminators in the past, they are momentarily confused to discover that the requested evidence are actually the remains of the Series 800 Terminator Sarah Connor destroyed during the events of The Terminator.

Characters[]

Resistance Cell members[]

Skynet[]

Other Characters[]

Dr. Bertram Hollister: Cyberdyne Systems Project Leader "Project Bellerephon"
Dr. Ed Astin: Cyberdyne Systems scientist "Project Bellerephon"

Issue[]

There are four issues.

Chronology[]

References[]

↑ Although Tempest (and follow-up series Secondary Objectives, and The Enemy Within) explicitly took place in 1990, the editors admitted an error in Endgame #1's letter column and, with Endgame, retconned the entire series by centering on Sarah Connor's pregnancy and John Connor's birth. Endgame explicitly references several dates. Agent Lockhurst's assassination on July 25, 1984 occurs two months and five days before Lieutenant Sloan records the casefile entry on Catfish on September 30, 1984. Other explicit dates are October 1, 3, and 4, 1984. Sarah Connor, who became pregnant (according to the film The Terminator) in May 1984 is "forced" into the hospital in Odessa, Texas, due to pregnancy complications (i.e., potential for a premature birth). Without the retconn, Sarah would be pregnant for 6 years.
↑ If Lieutenant Koufaks had not been captured by the Terminators, he would presumably have gathered up the belongings left behind to pass on to other members of the Resistance.

[1] Although Tempest (and follow-up series Secondary Objectives, and The Enemy Within) explicitly took place in 1990, the editors admitted an error in Endgame #1's letter column and, with Endgame, retconned the entire series by centering on Sarah Connor's pregnancy and John Connor's birth. Endgame explicitly references several dates. Agent Lockhurst's assassination on July 25, 1984 occurs two months and five days before Lieutenant Sloan records the casefile entry on Catfish on September 30, 1984. Other explicit dates are October 1, 3, and 4, 1984. Sarah Connor, who became pregnant (according to the film The Terminator) in May 1984 is "forced" into the hospital in Odessa, Texas, due to pregnancy complications (i.e., potential for a premature birth). Without the retconn, Sarah would be pregnant for 6 years.

[2] If Lieutenant Koufaks had not been captured by the Terminators, he would presumably have gathered up the belongings left behind to pass on to other members of the Resistance.

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