Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle #7 Review

System failure? Read on to find out.

The official description from Dark Horse:

As the deranged Thomas Parnell employs the Terminator army to wreak havoc on both the human resistance and Skynet, the computer network calculates a single option for survival—and its plans require John Connor!

What’s impressed me about this limited series is the fact that the creative team, knowing full well that the movies are on the verge of a partial reboot, has decided to attack the remaining plot strands of a forgettable sequel. It’s not fair to completely discredit the legacy of that picture but as far as the thirty year old saga is concerned that particular outing just didn’t leave enough of an impact to be the future this title needed.

Even so J. Michael Straczynski has crafted something out of that rubble that feels worthy of its own film. By taking the primary characters and the narrative plot strands from Terminator Salvation that were never fully developed, we’re seeing a potential endgame. Nostalgia plays a bit of a roll as the heart of this property comes to the fore before this monstrous franchise faces a few revelations that make a lot of sense. The text flows smoothly as pieces line-up, but I have to say the one thing that unnerved me was the dialogue featured in conversation with the machines set in the past.

The panel work by Pete Woods continue to support the written word with a visual display that looks to the movie in order to lightly cement its character interpretations.  That right there is both a good and bad thing, as the renditions yielded here carry personality but without the author mentioning names instances of communication might be a tad bit jarring. But when you add in the colors by Matt Wilson and the designs of Skynet there’s no doubt that this was the right illustrator for this volume.

Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle #7 is a unique thing in the world of comics, as it tries to reach the full potential of these players and their lingering bits of storytelling data. Recommended.