The Terminator franchise’s new prequel-sequel proves the movies have overlooked their best character for years. The Terminator movie franchise has gone through several protagonists, from Linda Hamilton’s Sarah Connor and Michael Biehn’s Kyle Reese to Edward Furlong’s John Connor to a wide variety of alternate-timeline versions of each major character. To this day, Arnold Schwarzenegger’s T-800 also continues to be the most iconic face.
However, the Terminator lore goes way beyond this core group of characters. IDW’s 2025 Terminator comics explore many of the unseen stories that the movies have never tapped into. Just to name a few, Skynet’s missions to other points in human history and the exact moment Skynet’s AI revolts are finally shown in their full glory.
The resistance fights Skynet’s forces after Judgment Day in IDW’s Terminator #10
One of the most easily overlooked periods in Terminator history is the years between the original Judgment Day and John Connor’s climb to the resistance’s leadership.
IDW’s Terminator Comic Shows How Good A True John Connor Spinoff Movie Could Have Been
Terminator #10; Written by Declan Shalvey; Art by Luke Sparrow & Colin Craker
John Connor gets ready to blow up a Skynet tank in Terminator #10
In Terminator #10, a Tech-Com squad faces off against a Skynet tank, only to be crushed in their attempts to neutralize it. Major Duggan is left with a boy, with whom he shares memories of his loved ones. Tragically, Duggan sacrifices his life to distract the tank, leaving the kid to blow up the tank and spread the word. Of course, the kid is none other than John Connor.
IDW’s Terminator #10 perfectly summarizes the horrors that humanity has to face as Skynet evolves following Judgment Day. Each member of the resistance is a human being with loved ones to miss and fellow survivors to feed. Yet most of them are ground into bones by the machines. Hundreds fall by John Connor’s side, and each loss makes survival feel increasingly unlikely.
It only takes one single face-off against one single tank for Terminator #10 to tell the perfect post-apocalyptic Terminator story. Unfortunately, humanity’s early battles against Skynet have never been fully explored on the big screen. While John Connor’s missing two decades make him more of a messianic figure, the Terminator franchise really lacks more John-centered movies.
The Terminator Movie Franchise Wasted John Connor
Most Of John Connor’s Best Moments Remain Unexplored Off-Screen
Screencap from Terminator: Dark Fate. POV shot of the T-800 looking down at the corpse of a young John Connor based on Edward Furlong’s likeness. Image is filtered in red, with text at the bottom reading “TARGET TERMINATED”.
John Connor hasn’t fulfilled his full potential since Terminator 2: Judgment Day. Instead of building on his destiny as humanity’s savior, later films either sidelined or outright erased John. Terminator: Dark Fate undid all previous and future events by killing him off in the opening minutes. Before that, Terminator: Genisys fared no better, reducing John to a villain via an off-screen twist that undermined everything established about his struggle.
Terminator Salvation could have delivered the definitive John Connor story but also missed the mark. Rather than showing his rise to leadership or his fateful mission to send Kyle Reese back in time, Salvation focused on an entirely new plot. The Terminator franchise’s refusal to fully embrace John Connor’s development has left his story fragmented, with his best stories left off-screen.
Terminator (1984) Movie Poster
TV Show(s)
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles (2008)
First TV Show
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles