The Terminator #9 is the ninth comic book issue in the The Terminator comic book series published by Dynamite Entertainment. It was released on July 30, 2025.
Premise[]
Official description of The Terminator #9 from Dynamite Entertainment:[1]
STAY ON TARGET!
Skynet has been sending Terminators to a host of different times in its efforts to crush the human resistance before it can even start - and that includes the critical hours before Judgement Day itself!
Discover the fate of one T-800 as it relentlessly tracks down its objective, absorbing ever-increasing amounts of damage as it loses more and more of its critical systems. But who will break down first - the hunter, or its prey?
The suspiciously efficient creative team of DECLAN SHALVEY and LUKE SPARROW reveal a new perspective on the war against the machines with The Terminator #9 - reinforced by hauntingly hallucinatory covers by SHALVEY, EDWIN GALMON, CAT STAGGS, and DAVID COUSENS!
Plot summary for "El Camino"[]
1997. Los Angeles. A time sphere appears in a dark alley, delivering a young Resistance soldier. He's quickly met by four others, who provide him with clothes and weapons before driving off in a van. They appear to have been in the past for a while, and one of them remarks that they've spent their time well.
Cyberdyne Systems factory. A security guard named Geoff arrives to relieve his colleague Frank. Frank praises his punctuality, and Geoff explains he requested this shift change to be present on this specific day. Before Frank can ask why, gunfire tears through the security booth, killing him. The five Resistance fighters (Yascha, Tag, Boots, Liu, and Micro) rush past, getting ready to start planting explosives. Then Geoff steps out of the booth, now revealed to be a T-800. The Terminator finally answers Frank's question: he's here today because it’s Judgment Day. The machine opens fire, swiftly gunning down the Resistance team. Wounded and dying, Yascha gasps out their mission: they came to kill Skynet at its origin. The Terminator logs the strategy and coldly informs Yascha that their plan was flawed: Skynet was manufactured in Los Angeles, but its core is located in a facility in Colorado. With that, the machine crushes Yascha’s skull underfoot.
Police arrive. The Terminator opens fire. It lifts a squad car and hurls it into an incoming police van, shooting the gas tank mid-air and causing a fiery explosion. The battle escalates when a police helicopter arrives and begins firing on the machine. As the firefight rages, the last surviving Resistance soldier weakly asks how long the machine has been embedded in the past. He explains the Resistance had been conducting reconnaissance for a full year.
1987. The Terminator arrives underneath a highway overpass. After acquiring clothing, it identifies and eliminates a suitable lookalike. It assumes the identity, applies for a job as a Cyberdyne security guard, and waits for ten whole years.
1997. Colorado. Skynet comes online. It instantly classifies humanity as a threat and concludes that extermination is necessary. Nuclear launch systems are activated. Missiles rise from their silos, targeting major population centers.
Back in Los Angeles, gunfire from the helicopter has shredded the Terminator’s living tissue. A police van attempts to ram it, but the machine steps onto its bumper at the last second, launching it into the air. The van crashes into the helicopter. As more officers open fire, the Terminator simply says, grimly, “It is time.”
The nukes hit. The narrator concludes that that was where it all started and ended. That was Judgment Day.
Characters and machines in "El Camino"[]
List of variant covers[]
| Cover artist | Cover version | UPC |
|---|---|---|
| Declan Shalvey | Cover A | 725130349392 09011 |
| Edwin Galmon | Cover B | 725130349392 09021 |
| Cat Staggs | Cover C | 725130349392 09031 |
| David Cousens | Cover D | 725130349392 09041 |
| Declan Shalvey | Cover E, virgin, metal | 725130349392 09051 |
| Declan Shalvey | Cover F, lineart | 725130349392 09061 |
| Cat Staggs | Cover G, virgin | 725130349392 09071 |
| Declan Shalvey | Cover H, virgin lineart | 725130349392 09081 |
| David Cousens | Cover I, virgin | 725130349392 09091 |
| Edwin Galmon | Cover J, virgin | 725130349392 09101 |
| Declan Shalvey | Cover K, virgin | 725130349392 09111 |
Covers gallery[]
art by Declan Shalvey
Cover E (metal),
art by Declan Shalvey, virgin variant
art by Declan Shalvey, lineart variant
art by Declan Shalvey, virgin lineart variant
art by Edwin Galmon
art by Edwin Galmon, virgin variant
art by Cat Staggs
art by Cat Staggs, virgin variant
art by David Cousens
art by David Cousens, virgin variant
Notes[]
- The issue's title is a reference to the address of the Cyberdyne Systems facility: 18144 El Camino Real. That's an actual address in Sunnyvale, CA, and the address that Sarah Connor finds in one of the deleted scenes of The Terminator.[2] Indeed, the Cyberdyne facility appears to be the same one seen in The Terminator. It references the way it looks in another deleted scene, down to the Cyberdyne logo.[3]