The Terminator #2 // Review
1976. Vietnam. U.S. Involvement in the conflict is over. So what the hell is a T-800 unit from the future doing there? Why send it back to the end of the war? Writer Declan Shalvey takes a six-fi series from the 1980s back to the 1970s in The Terminator #2. Artist David O’Sullivan brings the action and confusion to the page with a heaviness the feels every bit as percussive as it should. A terminator unit is in Vietnam after the fall of Saigon. Anything could happen. It’s going to be bloody.
The target is a guy named Edward Dugan.He doesn’t want to be there. He doesn’t want to encounter a killer from the future either, but that’s exactly what he’s going to have to do. He’s got a family. He just wants to get back to his family.It’s going to be a challenge to make it home to U.S. in time to enjoy the energy crisis, disco and the rise of heavy metal. Edward has got an inhuman AI killer from the future after him. He has no idea what he’s up against. He won’t know what hit him…unless something goes wrong for the metal from the future.
Shalvey doesn’t move that far beyond a traditional Vietnam narrative. There’s a bit of a focus on a few actual Vietnamese as the terminator unit arrives, THAT feels like a distinctly different twist on the traditional U.S. Vietnam war narrative. Otherwise it feels largely like a collision between aspects of the original movie and the Vietnam war, which is actually kind of a weird juxtaposition that could be interesting as Shalvey continues it moving forward into the rest of the story.
O’Sullivan Isb’t being called upon to put anything on the page that hasn’t been there before. The Vietnam war has been on the comics page quite often. The terminator has had quite a few appearances there as well. The real challenge is to put them both on the page in a way that feels natural and insightful.O’Sullivan is doing a pretty good job of bringing the right elements together, but there isn’t a great deal of insight generated by the juxtaposition of the two main elements. It’s interesting. Any true insight in the imagery may have to wait until the story becomes a bit more clear next issue..
It’s a bit disappointing that they aren’t looking into continuing the anthology format that the first issue was leading in. Multiple different Terminator stories every issue would have been a lot of fun. As it is, the Shalvey story has some distance to cover before it can justify what it seems to be trying to do. Shalvey could take it in a lot of different directions, but only a few of them might actually turn it not something of any thematic depth. Vietnam is a tricky thing to bring to the page without oversimplifying complexities. Throw a terminator unit into the mix and things could get very silly very quickly.
