Longbox Rediscoveries

Once upon a time, in the late eighties, independent comics companies were thriving. Comico. Eclipse. First Comics. The black and white explosion was hitting. Comics publishing was seeing an unusual surge and it was a fun and interesting time to be a comics fan.

One of the later additions to the game was NOW comics, founded by Tony Caputo. Although the company did publish some original material, such as Ralph Snart Adventures, it mainly published licensed books such as Speed Racer, Racer X, The Real Ghostbusters, and The Green Hornet. They also published a Terminator comic well before Dark Horse laid claim to the property. NOW's Terminator ran seventeen issues, along with two mini-series, All My Futures Past and The Burning Earth, which featured Alex Ross' first comics work.

I recently ran across issues 1-3 and 10-12 of the ongoing series. The story takes place in the future during the time of war with Skynet. It follows "Sara's Slammer" a team of guerrillas on the run from "gators" (their nickname for terminator)as they try to stay alive and take down the terminator network..

The writing (mostly) by Ron Fortier and the art (again, mostly)by Thomas Tenney are rough around the edges, but the book had a certain charm. It's clear that these are fans creating books for fans. One of the standout characters is Konrad, a synthetic off world worker droid which is, at first, misunderstood by the Slammers.



Issue eleven is highlighted by a depiction of Skynet's persona as a holographic version of a nightmarish ringmaster.



Issue twelve introduces John Conner to the series.

Although Dark Horse's Terminator was slicker and more sophisticated, NOW's version did have its own appeal. I don't know how much today's readers might enjoy these books, but for Terminator aficionados, this run is worth seeking out.



And for those interested, IBooks has a trade out of the previously mentioned The Burning Earth. Terminator fans and Alex Ross completists will want to check it out.