Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle #3 continues the story of the resistance attempting to deliver the final blow against Skynet and end the terminator war once and for all. However they’re unaware of Skynet’s ultimate objective in sending the terminators back in time, and this issues opens up with it being revealed that they intend to kill Parnell but so they could put his body into cryonic suspension along with Dr. Kogan. This is so they can both be remade somehow in the future with better bodies without disease or pain. However Simon, the resistance fighter sent back, is in hot pursuit of Parnell and intends to kill him just because he knows Parnell is extremely important to Skynet’s plans. But it’s not an easy task as two of the other terminators sent back are also in hot pursuit and using their car to protect Parnell by creating hazards on the road to stay ahead of Simon. Despite being a fugitive, Parnell doesn’t know why Simon or the terminators are after him but when he learns that the terminators will do anything to keep him alive he asks how he can help, and a high-speed alliance is formed. And even though Simon is determined and knew he would be facing these odds, how can he possibly succeed now that an alliance has been formed? And if somehow he does, will that still be enough to stop Skynet’s hidden plans?

I really enjoyed the start of this series and loved the clear way the different storylines were handled in the present and the future, making for a very entertaining read. I felt the second issue was solid but the events in the future felt stagnant as it was basically John Connor discussing once again the importance of defeating Skynet. However most of the potential pitfalls when telling a story around well-known and established events were avoided as the current events and their endgame were still intriguing. This issue starts action-packed with pages of a high-speed car chase on a highway and despite that sounding cliché it’s actually quite entertaining, and useful to the advancement of the story. The alliance formed was very believable as Parnell’s survival is as dependent on the 2 terminators as their survival is dependent on him with this car chase serving as an allegory of that. And to see the terminators with different arsenals utilize them to some extent was definitely a joy, and I could appreciate the terminators being used in this issue this way. It wasn’t until this issue returned to the future did the unanswered questions in the story come back to the forefront along with the realization that questions have yet to be answered. Now it’s a 12 issue story arc so I don’t expect everything to be answered by the 3rd issue, and that factors into my enjoyment of this issue, however a little bit more clarity from events unfolding would’ve made this issue better. Things were set in motion in the future, which was an improvement, and the feeling of a final battle started to take shape as well. The only thing that held back some of my excitement regarding that was, once again, the lack of clarity regarding the context of these actions, and if ultimately they’ll even matter outside of what has already been established in the Terminator franchise.

SUMMARY

Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle #3 is an enjoyable issue overall despite a lack of progress in terms of clarity for the multiple events taking place in the present and future. It is a Terminator series so some gratuitous action is acceptable at some point. And with that being said I will be expecting the story arc to move forward next issue and at least one of the story threads to become a lot clearer or else the story will start to feel like filler until we reach well-known events. And if that occurs then the potential in the story threads introduced at the start of this series will be squandered, and that would be more unfortunate than Sarah Connor being on birth control when she met Kyle Reese.

Release Date: 2/5/14

Writer: J. Michael Straczynski

Artist: Pete Woods