The Good
Farrow Greene, a super-tough and cool, gun for hire is sent to deliver Dr Elise Fong, but there's a T-800 on the loose. It's pretty cool that this is set pretty much right after the first film, so we're still in the 80s, before the popularization of the Internet and contacting people and meeting people took a bit more finesse.
There's one pretty cool action sequence here which is reminiscent of a few fight scenes in Terminator, except the main character, Farrow Greene, can really hold her own against the T-800. At first, I had a bit of a problem with this because winning a hand to hand fight against a T-800 seems a bit too much, but the overall scene plays out extremely well and it is a lot of fun.
Jamal Igle does some great stuff with art here, along with Ray Snyder on inks, and Moose Baumann on colors. Each scene tells the story that Dan Jolley has scripted very well, and it has a nice sense of flow. I've always heavily enjoyed Baumann's color work, which is distinctive, but blends well with the art.
The Bad
This feels too familiar, like we've seen it before because we have. It's another case of a Terminator being sent back in time to kill someone and a protagonist having to stop it. It's not poorly executed by any means, but it does feel like watching a rerun.
There's a few other smaller problems within this first issue. First, I couldn't figure out why the T-800 cut all of its hair off after its first battle with Farrow Greene. Even if it's to change its appearance, this is still a giant hulk of a man. This T-800 is going to stand out no matter what length its hair is.
There isn't too much clarity with some of the things going on. To our best guess, Greene is some sort either assassin or bodyguard or repoman who is hired to protect/kill/deliver Dr Elise Fong. However, we find out who she was on the final page. She's told the last person that was hired screwed up. We don't really find out why she's there until the moment she confronts Fong. The phone conversation she has earlier makes it seem like she's going to kill Fong. I'm not a fan of this misdirection, which completely changes how we look at a character. It's fine if it's done over a longer arc and built on, but this is the first issue. We've just met Greene, and we already have a small turn.
The Verdict
Hopefully, this first issue is just opening to something larger and something a lot cooler because what readers are left with is the same Terminator story we've seen numerous times with a bit of a twist. The actual dialogue writing and art aren't bad at all, but the story feels so redundant that it's really hard to get excited the reader feels like is very similar to its predecessors. Keep your eye out for the continuation of this book but bare in mind this first one is a rough start.
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