‘Terminator’ flashback: ‘Terminator 3’ Beckett series (2003) (Comic book reviews)

After a three-year hiatus (which, oddly, was packed with novels), the “Terminator” franchise returned to comics in 2003 with a six-issue series tying in with “Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines.” Whereas Now’s and Dark Horse’s “T1” comics and Malibu’s “T2” comics aimed to continue the saga with serialized adventures, Beckett Comics takes a more stylized approach with vignettes relating to the third movie.

While I like the coloring on the books, I found the art mediocre and the stories — written by Ivan Brandon — inconsequential and filled with continuity head-scratchers, although the prequel, “Before the Rise” (Issues 1-2), is pretty decent. That’s followed by the shortened movie adaptation “Eyes of the Rise” (Issues 3-4) and an alternate-timeline prequel called “Fragmented” (Issues 5-6).

One interesting bit of trivia is that these are the first comics – other than Marvel’s “T2” adaptation — that were allowed to use Arnold Schwarzenegger’s likeness. This is more notable with the cover art than the inside art.

CHARACTERS

John Connor: In “Fragmented,” we see him boozing it up at a dive bar, presumably not long before the events of “T3.” He leaves a note for someone that he’s gone out to shoot some pool, so perhaps he has a roommate. Or possibly this takes place before his mom died, and it’s a note to Sarah.

Sarah Connor: Not in this series.

Kyle Reese: Not in this series.

TERMINATORS

T-800 or T-850, model 101: In “Before the Rise,” Resistance fighters – on John Connor’s orders – capture and reprogram an Arnold-model Terminator. We see a metaphorical perspective of what’s going on inside the cyborg’s head, as a young boy tries to teach him that he’s on the humans’ side now.

T-950s: In “Fragmented,” John is protected by one T-950 and pursued by another. As the number suggests, these units are an iteration between the T-850 and T-1000, as their arms can turn into guns, but they aren’t made of liquid metal.

T-1002: In “Eyes of the Rise,” in a scene before the movie adaptation starts, the T-X fights this unit in a test area reminiscent of “X-Men’s” Danger Room. It is liquid metal, and is distinguished from a T-1000 in that it can form into deadly shapes (such as being covered with spikes) more quickly than what we saw from the T-1000 in “T2.”

T-X: She’s the point-of-view character in “Eyes of the Rise.”

CONTINUITY AND CONTRADICTIONS

“Before the Rise” chronicles the Resistance’s attempts to capture and reprogram a Terminator on John Connor’s orders. After many deaths and injuries, they succeed in doing so, and the unit (a model 101 of the T-800 or T-850 series) saves them from a small Hunter-Killer, yet they declare the reprogramming a failure for some inexplicable reason. Still, because we metaphorically see inside the robot’s head, it’s safe to say this is the most detail we’ve gotten from any “reprogramming a Terminator” yarn so far.

Previous chronicles of the Resistance reprogramming Terminators include Danny Dyson doing so over the course of decades in “Nuclear Twilight” and Danny, John and Jade reprogramming T-800s and T-1000s in the Russell Blackford trilogy. In the “T2” novelization, the reprogramming of the T-800 is mentioned, but not with specifics of how it’s done or who does it. John’s tech-genius friend Snog reprograms the Uncle Bob T-800 in “The Future War.” And we know from exposition that Kate reprograms the T-850 after it kills John in “T3.”

“Eyes of the Rise” is an adaptation of “T3,” but only of the scenes featuring the T-X. It was apparently produced before the film was finalized, because the T-X is in her human – rather than endoskeleton – guise in the final scenes. And while we see the fight between the T-X and T-850, the background is generic rather than a bathroom setting.

TIMELINES AND TIME TRAVEL

As “Eyes of the Rise” begins, the T-X is sent back from 2031 to “present day” (2004), contradicting the “T3” novelization where she is sent back from 2029. Also, she is sent back from the Colorado mountain headquarters in the book, but from a pyramidal building in the comic that calls to mind the Los Angeles-based time-displacement facility from other “Terminator” yarns.

“Fragmented” is hard to figure out, as two Terminators pursue John Connor pre-Judgment Day. John doesn’t mention these Terminators in “T3.” Most likely, this is a timeline where these two Terminators come back between the events of “T2” and “T3,” but “after” — in meta-time — the “T3” as chronicled in the movie. As it turns out, the male Terminator is bad and the female Terminator is good, yet John notes that he’ll eventually call the male Terminator a friend; is this because it’s a 101 (Arnold) model of a T-950? The art doesn’t seem to suggest that. Like I say, this one is hard to figure out. While the male T-950 is destroyed, the female is not, which is more evidence that this is an alternate timeline from the movie, since she plays no role in “T3.”