By David Wharton | 7 years ago

While most of us learned the name “J. Michael Straczynski” via his excellent Babylon 5 series, he’s also worked extensively in comics over the years, penning memorable series such as Rising Stars and Midnight Nation, not to mention playing in the Big Two’s respective sandboxes on titles including The Amazing Spider-Man, Thor, and Superman. Today he takes his talents into one of the most beloved fictional apocalypses around, the universe of the Terminator franchise. The first issue of Dark Horse’s Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle hits comic stands today, with JMS scripting, art by Pete Woods, and colors by Matthew Wilson.

The Final Battle will have everything you’d expect from a good Terminator tale: time hopping, murderous robots, future rebellion leaders who scream at directors of photography who walk onto the set during a scene. The 12-issue series is set in the aftermath of 2009’s Terminator Salvation, with an adult John Connor continuing to lead the human resistance against Skynet’s genocidal machines. Back in July, JMS told Comic Book Resources:

The story that I’ve always wanted to see visualized, and that I think other fans of the movies have eagerly anticipated, is the battle that set all of the movies into motion: the assault on Skynet, the Terminators going through and what happens afterward on both sides of the timeline. So the events weave in and out of the tapestry of The Terminator, showing what we know or what we think we know, then turning the camera around to show us that what we thought we knew may not be exactly what happens. … the story becomes about Skynet, but also about who and what we are as a species. Which is what always set this series of movies apart from the imitators: it’s not just about machines, it’s about what those machines have to say about us.

You can pick up Terminator Salvation: The Final Battle #1 at your local comic shop, or purchase a digital copy at Dark Horse’s online store.

A-listers J. Michael Straczynski and Pete Woods unite for the biggest Terminator story ever! Hopping between the future and the past, this sweeping, twelve-issue epic counts down the end of the Machine War — but not the one fans expect! Everything’s at stake, and the fates of Skynet and John Connor will be told!

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