The Terminator, Dark Horse Comics, 1990

The Terminator Comic Book series

Dark Horse, 1990

The first company to obtain a license to produce comic books for the 'Terminator' franchise was Now Comics, aka Caputo Publishing, which ran a series for 17 issues, from September 1988 to February 1990. Dark Horse took over the franchise that same year, issuing a four-issue miniseries from August to November.

 

Since that time the franchise has bounced around from one publisher to another, with mixed success. As of the end of 2025, Dynamite ended a 10-issue run.

 

I recently picked up the four-issue Dark Horse run from 1990. 

Back in those days Dark Horse still was very much an indie start-up, with a small staff, and the same creative teams handled multiple properties. For the Terminator series, the writer was John Arcudi, who seemingly wrote almost every licensed property that Dark Horse published in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The artist was Chris Warner, who also was involved with many titles in the Aliens and Predator franchise from that era.

 

The inaugural Dark Horse Terminator incarnation starts things off in Los Angeles in 2029, with another iteration of the storyline in which resistance fighters, under the direction of John Connor, infiltrate a Skynet facility with the aim of destroying a time travel apparatus.

Needless to say, the apparatus gets used; in this case, to transport both a team of resistance fighters, and a team of Terminators, to the Los Angeles of 1990. 

It's unclear if writer Arcudi had access to the script for the second Terminator film, which began photography in October 1990. But his storyline leverages the plot point in which the mangled remains and technologies of the first Terminator are exploited by avaricious entrepreneurs, thus setting the stage for the advent of Skynet and 'Judgment Day.'

The two teams engage in mayhem throughout L.A. as they vie to identify and abduct the magnate who is in possession of the Terminator remains. Having the police on their trails only complicates things, and there is quite a bit of violent action (some of it involving a ray gun that the Terminators manage to smuggle with them into their journey back in time).

 

 

Over-writing was an almost universal failing of comic books published in the 1990s but Arcudi avoids, it, keeping the plot relatively straightforward, with a few twists added in the final issue signalling that Dark Horse would be continuing the series (which they did in 1991-1992).

Warner's artwork is serviceable, no better and no worse than a lot of the artwork appearing in comic books that year, including one of the top-selling titles, Uncanny X-Men (below). 

 

The color printing, as was the case for many comics of this era, is less than ideal (although in fairness, my scans of these 35 year-old pages tend to shift the red tones towards the pink end of the spectrum). 

 

Uncanny X-Men #266, August 1990, from 'Major Spoilers'

Summing up, 'The Terminator' likely will appeal to diehard fans of the franchise, but others won't see much here to get excited about. You can pick up the 4 issues for under $10 each at online comic book stores. My advice is to spend a bit more and get the best of the Dark Horse Terminator incarnations, 1992's Robocop Vs. Terminator.

Book Review: Grindhouse The Forbidden World of Adults Only Cinema

December is Trash Cinema Month at the PorPor Books Blog

'Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of 'Adults Only' Cinema'

 

'Grindhouse: The Forbidden World of 'Adults Only' Cinema' (158 pp.) was authored by Eddie Muller and Daniel Faris, and published as a trade paperback by St. Martin's Griffin in November, 1996.

 

I remember picking this book up from the Border's Books and Records in Towson, Maryland, late in 1996, and finding the book amusing and very readable. 

 

It holds up well when re-read nearly 30 years later.

I should emphasize that 'Grindhouse' is not an overview of trash films per se, but rather, a historical and cultural history of the grindhouse experience in American popular culture. Attention is given to the memorable cast of hucksters and scammers who produced and promoted exploitation movies, and the legal machinations from the various authorities who were in decided opposition to this brand of moviegoing.

 

Chronologically, the history starts in the late 1920s, and goes all the way into the 70s.

 

For each of the reviewed decades, Muller and Faris focus on the particular genres of exploitation films that flourished in that era; for example, the 'nudist camp' films of the 50s, the 'roughies' of the 60s, and in the 70s, the 'swinger' films.

Muller and Faris prudently avoid using a self-consciously 'scholarly' or highbrow prose style. They understand they are writing first and foremost for the trash film aficionado, and keep their narrative flowing and informative. The authors make clear that for many of the films touring the grindhouse circuit, the actual content was considerably tamer, and less titillating, than what the posters and lobby cards promised. Sleaze entrepreneurs like William Kent, Kroger Babb, and Harry Novak always had an eye on maximizing their takes from the rubes, and adjusted the distribution, promotion, and advertising of their films accordingly.

 

 

There's all sorts of little anecdotes and tidbits scattered throughout the pages of 'Grindhouse,' and among my favorites, is an anecdote about Timothy Carey, an eccentric who is best known for his 1962 film The World's Greatest Sinner. A young Frank Zappa did the soundtrack for the film - !

 

For Muller and Faris, the early 70s saw the permanent transformation of the grindhouse circuit, as 'adult' films became mainstream in the wake of the success of movies such as Behind the Green Door, The Devil in Miss Jones, and Deep Throat. Suddenly, 'regular' people, including couples, were going to XXX theaters to take in 'adults only' cinema. And then, in 1975, came the initial notes of the death knell that soon would toll for the grindhouses:

 

....the world was introduced to the video cassette recorder, a device that accomplished what God-fearing prosecutors and Bible-thumping censors never could - it closed down hundreds of Adults Only theaters all across America.

 

One thing I quickly discovered with my re-read of 'Grindhouse' is that nowadays you can access the profiled films pretty easily by going online, unlike the situation in 1996 when you had to peruse the videocasette / DVD vendors to see what they had in their inventory. And the reality is that many of the films referred to in 'Grindhouse,' when viewed outside of confines of the theaters and social mores of the exploitation era, are quite forgettable.......

'Grindhouse' features a color portfolio of film posters and advertisements in the midsection of the book.

 

With used copies of 'Grindhouse' in 'acceptable' -grade condition starting at $50, getting the book is not a trivial purchase, and perhaps is best left to those aging Baby Boomers who constitute the majority of readers interested in things like the Russ Meyer films of the 1960s. I can't see people under the age of 40 being all that engrossed in the narrative of 'Grindhouse,' particularly in our modern age of streaming video. Somehow, the experience of exploitation cinema just isn't the same when viewed from the comfort of your sofa, as opposed to the discount movie theaters and drive-ins of the grindhouse era. 

 

In any event, hopefully this overview will give you a sense of what the book offers, and whether an investment of fifty bucks (or more) is worthwhile.

December is Trash Cinema Month

December is Trash Cinema Month at the PorPor Books Blog

I usually don't review trash cinema here at the Blog, as there are more than a few blogs and websites that do that on a comprehensive basis. However, as a change of scene, especially after reading nothing but horror fiction for my special 'Fall of 2025' postings, I thought I'd devote the month of December to reviewing print media associated with trash cinema (or, if you prefer, exploitation cinema, psychotronic video, sleaze movies, transgressive cinema, etc., etc.). 

These are among the books and magazines that I picked up back in the late 1980s into the early 2000s, an era before streaming, when renting VHS and DVDs was commonplace and fascination with trash cinema was moving from the underground into the mainstream.

Back then I lived in Baltimore, and the major video rental place that stocked trash cinema VHS and later, DVDs, was a six-store chain called 'Video Americain.' They first had a store in an apartment building in the Charles Village neighborhood, right next to where I lived. The shop later relocated a short distance away to a small plaza on Cold Spring Lane. 

 

It was a place I visited regularly, but sadly, it closed in 2014, done in by the advent of Netflix, Redbox, and streaming.

So, let's go back in time 30-40 years, to the days when you got your VHS or DVD rental from Blockbuster (or Video Americain) and you popped it into your console or your dedicated player and you hoped (at least, with VHS) that the previous renter had taken the courtesy to rewind the tape before returning it to the shop, and the film was watchable. 

 

And after you got done watching the tape you of course conscientiously rewound it and popped it back into the plastic box and set it on the hallway table because you knew that if you failed to return it to the rental place by its return day, you'd be charged late fees.......

Or maybe you were lucky enough to have a theater or two that would show 'midnight movies.' Or perhaps a local university, like the Homewood campus of Johns Hopkins, or the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), would screen something offbeat, and non-students were welcome to attend (nowadays you can't even open the front door of a building on these campuses without having an officially issued keycard).

In order to know which films would appeal to you, well, you relied on zines and books about trash cinema to guide your choices.......so here's stuff that I resurrected from the boxes in my basement.

One thing to note is that many of the trash cinema guidebooks first published 20-30 years ago, are long out of print, and copies that come up for sale at the usual online vendors have steep asking prices. With these overviews, I hope to give would-be purchasers some idea of what they might be getting for their hard-earned cash..........