In recent weeks, as it’s the 40th anniversary of The Terminator, I’ve been revisiting the original Terminator comics, published by Dark Horse in the early 90s. Given that they were written and illustrated at a time when the only material available was the very first Terminator movie, they hew very closely to the formula laid down in James Cameron’s 1984 classic. That is to say, they very much feel like the darker toned, ultraviolent and horror-adjacent first film, rather than the more action packed T2, which, like John Connor in The Terminator, had yet to be born.

So how do you go about rebooting The Terminator in a new comics series, given that there have now been six Terminator movies, a Netflix animated series and even a live action TV show?

Well, the good thing is that writer Declan Shalvey knows what not to do; the trap that the numerous sequels have fallen into is to focus on John and Sarah Connor, along with (aside from one notable exception, though he does still appear) the Schwarzenegger model T-800 (the T-101 being that particular model’s serial number, if we’re getting into the details).

Shalvey wisely takes us away from that, and even away from the theatre of war entirely, with a tense and fairly low key tale of time finally catching up with an old couple, living out in the countryside away from the majority of the devastation. It’s a story that spans decades, from pre-Judgment Day America to way past the nuclear event that kicks off the war against the machines.

It’s brilliantly told, with phenomenal artwork from Luke Sparrow and Colin Craker (with the latter also on colouring duties, and providing a nicely naturalistic look to the story).

Though seemingly done-in-one, there’s a mystery at the centre of the story of the husband and wife which isn’t resolved by the end. Could we see this continue? This is a thread I certainly wouldn’t mind revisiting.

There’s also a backup story, Buried Alive, which is just two pages long. It’s set to be continued in the next issue, thankfully, because I genuinely don’t have a clue what actually happens in it! It’s very bizarre, and I’m not sure if it’s me being slow or the art not making the story clear, but I genuinely don’t know what transpired by the final panel.

Still, it doesn’t take away from just how engaging and brilliantly told the first story is; Out of Time, as it’s named, is a great way to kick off an entirely new run of Terminator comics, and dodges so many pitfalls that the majority of film makers involved with the saga have seemed powerless to avoid.

Note: I’ve also got to point out the ridiculousness of Dynamite’s publishing strategy. There’s a cover gallery at the back of the comic, and I saw it had an entire page of variant covers for Terminator #1, thinking to myself that it was a silly number of different covers on offer. There are two more pages of variant covers after that one…