Terminator: The Burning Earth was originally published in 1990 by NOW comics as a five-issue mini-series featuring new characters fighting in John Connor's Resistance army against Skynet.

Overview

In 2041, John "Bear" Connor and the human Resistance race to stop Skynet from using its nuclear stockpile to finally annihilate the human race.

The story continues from Skynet's perspective of completing final tests of the Aurora model terminator.

Issues

Issue #01

Issue #02

Issue #03

Issue #04

Issue #05

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Creative team

• Written by Ron Fortier
• Illustrated by Alex Ross

Chronology

• 2031 - The Terminator (NOW Comics), #1–17 (Sep 1988 - Feb 1990)
• 2041 - Terminator: The Burning Earth, #1–5 (Mar – July 1990)

Continuity notes

• Patch and Gerry from "From the Journals of Timothy Reese, Mexico, 2067" return for this series, as well the surviving characters from "The Terminator issue 17: Escape to the Silver Dollar".

Notes

• The Burning Earth is a radical visual departure from the earlier NOW Terminator series. Whereas the seventeen-issue series was more cartoonish in its style, Alex Ross' artwork is far more realistic, cinematic, and dark. Also, while the other series was more free with its Endoskeleton and HK designs, The Burning Earth rigidly adheres to how they are portrayed in the first movie.

• Terminators in this series are far less gregarious and emotive than in the seventeen-issue NOW series. Nevetheless, one Terminator in issue five clearly exhibits fear when it realizes that it's about to blown up.

• This series features a new form of Terminator, which appears in jet black segmented armor and has a single red, glowing eye piece.
  • It is unknown whether these are just T-800's in armor, or a whole new type of Terminator. The evidence seems to support the latter, as they appear to be considerably weaker than other Terminators as they are easily destroyed by an impact from a fast-moving car or pickup truck, are not good at climbing, and are completely destroyed from a high fall.
  • The heavy use of these Terminators could indicate that Skynet was beginning to run low on resources and could not produce as many high quality Endoskeletons as before. Such a situation might partly explain Skynet's desire to end the war quickly after decades of wanting to prolong it as a form of game, as well as the fact that nearly all traditional Terminators were used to guard Skynet's mainframe, including the faulty Aurora model.

• The final scene of the series suggests either that Skynet's destruction as not complete or that a number of Terminators could act independently of the supercomputer's direct control. There was never an official follow-up to the story.

Trivia

• The series is Alex Ross' first published comic work.

References