It’s the 40th anniversary of The Terminator, and I’ve been working my way through the early, 90s comics by Dark Horse. Having read Tempest and One-Shot, the next series in chronological order is Secondary Objectives. Is it any good? Let’s find out!

As a direct sequel to the first Dark Horse Comics Terminator series, Tempest, I had high hopes for Secondary Objectives.

Especially as we still have the time displaced resistance fighter, Mary, trapped in the past with a human/Terminator hybrid who’s trying desperately to override his machine side. It’s a really interesting premise, and one that goes to a different, more unusual place than any of the movies.

It’s worth noting that the creators at Dark Horse didn’t have a great deal of source material to work from when Tempest and Secondary Objectives were written; Terminator 2 had yet to be released, so the only Terminator film was the first at the time.

Yet Secondary Objectives, despite some very well drawn action and striking imagery, such as a bare metal T-800 dressed in a punky, metal-studded black leather outfit, is a dreadfully boring and oddly repetitive read, and it goes absolutely nowhere.

Two Terminators, having failed in the mission set for them in Tempest (to stop the Resistance soldiers from meddling in the past) are in the past/present and causing havoc, their secondary objectives having kicked in, with Sarah Connor now being their target for termination.

Sounds like it could be quite an exciting read, right? Well, it absolutely isn’t. There’s some unusual stylistic touches with the script, which repeatedly goes into great detail on a bystander’s life story before they’re often off-handedly killed by a Terminator, but it just serves as a reminder why we don’t do that with every minor character who’s killed in a story; what’s the point if they’re just going to be done away with on the next page anyway? And yet writer James Robinson repeats this pointless trick over and over again.

If it wasn’t the second part of a four series story arc, I’d say don’t bother, but if you’ve already read Tempest, the chances are you’ll also be going ahead with reading Secondary Objectives too. Just set your expectations to as low as they can go, and you won’t be disappointed.