Everything you thought you knew about the future of the Terminator franchise has officially changed, thanks to the incredible new twist delivered with The Terminator: Metal. A reboot-level new series that not only shows which movie needs to be made next, but why it’s finally compelling enough to bring James Cameron from Avatar back to humanity’s war against Skynet.
The New Terminator Sends Robots Back Through Human History
As seen in Terminator: Metal #3 by Declan Shalvey, Rory McConville, Colin Craker
There’s no need to bury the lede with the latest entry in Dynamite’s anthology series, as the events turn from the future war against the Machines more than a century into the past. Stepping back into 1889 Oregon, and a classic western tale of a bandit terrorizing a small town… before stumbling upon a Terminator in a remote cave. A T-800 unit, to be more specific, which has remained in “stasis mode” after a time travel trip gone slightly off-course.
And with that, Terminator: Metal introduces a new premise, scattering enemy robots through humanity’s past, beginning new nightmares for the humans they are unfortunate enough to encounter. And starting with the best possible option: a cowboy Terminator.
The entire story of the issue won’t be spoiled here, but after stumbling upon the resting Terminator, the bandit in question soon finds themselves bleeding out, with their western wardrobe soon to be stolen by the robotic soldier. Its target and mission? Still unknown. But with the first electric power station in the northwest now online, the nearly drained robot needs to recharge its batteries. But no matter what happens, it has already succeeded in rejuvenating a tired Terminator franchise.
There were many pointing to Terminator: Metal as a game-changing relaunch, from the first signs of the kind of one-off stories it would be bringing into the existing canon. Whether it was Terminators repurposed to fight for humans in the future war, or a deeper look into what happens when humans are caught, but not killed, by the Machines. But Issue #3 has completed the sales pitch, with much of the legwork done by its ‘cowboy Terminator’ cover by writer/artist Declan Shalvey.
Yet the premise itself is where the true potential is outlined, sketching a SkyNet campaign much, much bigger than just one mission to kill John Connor (or Sarah, or any other ally).
THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UNSTOPPABLE! Skynet may be an all-powerful AI with nigh-unlimited computing power, but time travel is still an inexact science. And with so many mechanical assassins sent into the past, some are bound to miss their mark by a few days… or months… or decades.
When that happens, there are contingency protocols that kick in. Units switch to secondary targets, or find a place of concealment, power down, and wait — for as long as their programming deems necessary.
The question of what would happen to a Terminator unit arriving much, much farther back in time than intended is an enticing one on its own. But depending on the setting, the “secondary targets” they identify, or the years they might wait until deeming it “necessary” to awaken, the premise offers a nearly endless number of intriguing adventures. And with James Cameron plotting a Terminator return, the timing couldn’t be better. (Cameron has never directed a western, either.)
Could This ‘Blank Slate’ Reboot Bring James Cameron Back To Terminator?
Outstanding premise or not, it all comes to the larger question: does this new Terminator concept offer enough potential or narrative scope to entice James Cameron more than his ongoing Avatar franchise? Or perhaps more importantly, does it lean towards the things Cameron is most passionate to explore? And that is where this new story for the Terminator universe becomes not only possible, but the most exciting one fans have seen in years.
Cameron has made no secret of the fact that environmental conservation, awareness, and indigenous struggle all motivated his development of an Avatar franchise. But despite that emphasis on real world issues and modern activism, all updates on Cameron’s current script for Terminator 7 suggest a more traditional lens, speculating on the future of technology, A.I. robotics, and more. Yet Cameron himself admits, “I’ll never be as prescient as I was back in 1984.”
The Future of The Terminator Franchise is in History, Not The Future
Considering just how intensely the Terminator franchise has drilled the ‘artificial intelligent machines take over’ story into the ground, it made perfect sense when Cameron told Empire the time had come to “jettison everything that is specific to the last 40 years of Terminator.” And no storyline, premise, or speculative sci-fi question would signal a more decisive change than for Cameron himself to shift away from humanity’s grim future, to wondering how Terminator could be used to revisit our past.
By this point, the ‘threat of AI’ has graduated from a film premise to the largest news story of our time, potentially saddling any new Terminator film with more baggage than even Cameron could overcome. But if it isn’t robotics or AI, but modern agriculture that most interests James Cameron these days, then an anthropologically-minded Terminator story, set at a crucial point in humanity’s past, makes perfect sense.
Is the Industrial Revolution ripe for re-examination? Send a Terminator back, and set an adventure against its backdrop. Do modern people need to question some of the assumptions made before the explosion of mechanized farming? Send a Terminator back. Whover they may be sent back to target, or whoever they end up fighting, the image of a ‘cowboy Terminator’ alone proves it would deliver something new, when the Terminator formula desperately needs it most.
Terminator: Metal #3 is available December 10, from Dynamite.
