At its core, The Terminator is just a simple chase movie about an unstoppable robot, the woman it wants to kill, and the soldier trying to protect her. But around that straight-forward narrative, writer/director James Cameron sprinkled fantastic concepts about self-aware machines, a desperate human resistance, and the (im)possibility of changing our fate. 

While Cameron’s limited budget prevented him from showing much of the apocalyptic future from which the Terminator (Arnold Schwarzenegger) and Resistance fighter Kyle Reese (Michael Biehn) came to find Sarah Connor (Linda Hamilton), comic books faced no such restrictions. So it’s no surprise that the story continued in 1988 with an ongoing series from the now-defunct NOW Comics. 

While those stories focused on the futuristic Human Resistance led by Sarah’s son John, subsequent series — published primarily by Dark Horse Comics, but also sometimes by Marvel Comics and IDW — have explored both the expected and the absurd implications of the franchise. 

After 30 years and hundreds of issues, Terminator comics tend to fall into one of three categories. There are of course movie adaptations, which or more or less faithfully recreate T2: Judgment Day or Terminator: Salvation. More common are original stories set within the worlds implied by the movies, giving us new adventures of Sarah Connor in the 80s or John Connor in 2029, or even new humans to battle new Terminators. Finally, Terminators have appeared in a surprising number of crossover comics, doing battle with everyone from Superman to Ellen Ripley. 

As one might expect of a series that spans this many decades and publishers and creators, there are more than a few subpar Terminator comics. But even bad Terminator stories remind us of the concept’s vitality. There are hundreds of stories to be told about desperate humans and killer robots, especially when they can constantly change the past and the future. 

To give you a taste of this expansive alternate world of robots and resistance, here are some of the best Terminator comics ever published. 

Terminator: The Burning Earth (1990)

In the first Terminator comic book series, no one says “Hasta La Vista, Baby.” There’s no Myles Dyson, no time displacement chamber, and no protector T-800. That’s because the entire series ran before the release of T2: Judgment Day, and thus had only the first movie as a model. As a result, these comics tended to be sci-fi military tales, giving fans their first look at the fabled John Connor (nicknamed “Bear” here), and his fellow comrades-at-arms. 

When NOW lost the Terminator license in 1990, they decided to go out with a bang. Not only did editors charge regular writer Ron Fortier to finish the story, allowing the war to finally come to climax, but they gave him a secret weapon: future superstar artist Alex Ross, making his official comics debut. 

Fortier and Ross tell a uniquely nihilistic tale, in which Skynet launches its final gambit to detonate nuclear weapons and Connor leads the survivors of the Resistance on a desperate suicide mission. Ross’s murky blacks and the defeated voice Fortier gives Connor emphasizes the hopelessness of humans, a feeling accentuated by the frequent and unremarkable human deaths. The first Terminator epic ends with a bang, but there’s no joy or even terror in it — just a melancholy whimper. 

Terminator: Tempest (1990)

Although it was published before the release of T2, Tempest feels like a bridge connecting the first two movies. Like T2, Tempest features a human attack on a present-day Cyberdyne Systems, to prevent Skynet from going online. More importantly, Tempest features a “good guy” Terminator, who turns against his fellow machines to help the humans. 

But this story lacks the humor and boy’s adventure elements that made T2 so popular. Continuing the horror elements of the first film, the Terminators in Tempest are remorseless killers. Writer John Arcudi frequently pauses the story to remind readers what happens to regular people who stand in a Terminator’s way, giving artist Chris Warner an excuse to indulge his inner gore-hound.

More than any other Terminator story, Tempest reads like a glimpse at an alternate reality, where Cameron followed-up the first film with a violent sequel, resulting in a very different franchise.

Terminator: One Shot (1991)

Written by James Robinson and featuring moody, impressionistic work by legendary indie artist Matt Wagner, Terminator: One Shot may be my favorite Terminator spin-off. Instead of the further adventures of the Connor family or new advances in cybernetic technology, One Shot focus on the regular people caught in the machine’s crossfire. 

That said, the set-up to One Shot requires a bit of explanation. Set during the first movie, the story follows a second Terminator sent back to 1984 along with Arnold’s T-800. Where the Terminator we know found its Sarah Connors in the phone book, this heretofore unseen partner used the internet, and thus discovered a Sarah Connor that Arnold missed — because she was called Sarah Lang until marrying artist Michael Connor just a week earlier. Unlike her waitressing namesake, this Sarah Connor has a darker side, putting her at odds with both a hired killer and a Terminator suffering from mistaken identity.

Functioning like a mashup between the noir classic Double Indemnity and the original Terminator, One Shot shows us that these stories can be about more than soldiers and machines.

Robocop Versus The Terminator (1992)

Although they’ve become more common in film and television, crossovers remain a staple of comic book storytelling. So when the publisher Dark Horse Comics obtained the rights for the two of the most popular robot-based franchises, fans immediately demanded an android on cyborg battle. 

And, oh, did Dark Horse ever deliver. Written by Frank Miller and illustrated by Walter Simonson, Robocop Versus the Terminator wastes no time trying to justify the story and immediately sets up the battle. After a Human Resistance soldier discovers that Skynet based its Terminator design on cyborg police officer Alex Murphy, she travels to Detroit to obliterate Robocop, unwittingly bringing a Terminator along for the ride. 

To be frank, the specifics of the plot are a bit hard to explain, as they involve Murphy becoming a trans-chronal avatar of Skynet and eventually the ultimate weapon for the human resistance. The story folds and unfolds on itself and actions and reactions repeatedly remake the past and the future. But somehow, Miller and Simonson manage to deliver all the rock ‘em sock ‘em robot fun the premise promises while also exploring the original films’ themes of self-identity and self destruction. Plus, it introduces a little boy Terminator, so here’s hoping we’ll someday get a Chucky Versus the Terminator comic! 

Terminator: Death Valley (1998)

If this list has proven anything, it’s that Terminator is a surprisingly malleable concept, applicable to more than just sci-fi. Case in point: Terminator: Death Valley, which injects the time-traveling androids into a sweaty exploitation tale, set in the titular desert. 

Sure, there’s a standard Terminator plot here, in which two machines arrive from the future to kill Sarah Connor (still waitressing, but beginning to train for Judgment Day) and her boy John. But the Connors take a back seat to a variety of oddballs, including a young family trying to stay off the grid, a Satanic cult leader wanted for murder, and the man trying to bring him to justice. Writer Alan Grant’s plot needs a few gymnastics to bring together those disparate characters, but they work for such a sensationalist tale.

Death Valley manages to push the Terminator into new genres, while reminding readers of the franchise’s roots in low-budget horror. 

Aliens Versus Predator Versus the Terminator (2000-2001)

If Robocop Versus the Terminator does everything right, then Aliens Versus Predator Versus the Terminator does everything wrong. Not only is the book just as overstuffed as the title suggests, but it makes no attempt to engage with any of the films’ themes, and brings the franchises together in a haphazard manner. But you know what? That doesn’t matter one bit, because AvPvT is a pure blast. 

Set after the events of Alien Resurrection, the book follows Ellen Ripley (super-powered clone version) and android Call as they get caught in a battle between sleek, futuristic Predators and some Alien/Terminator hybrids. Why are these characters together? Why are they fighting? I don’t know and I don’t care. 

Despite some solid art by Mel Rubi and Chris Ivy, the script by Mark Schultz feels like it was taken from transcripts of playground arguments. In most cases, that would be a terrible way to make a story. But if that’s what it takes to see acid blood pour from a Terminator’s arm and onto a Predator hunter, then so be it.