WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Transformers vs. The Terminator #1, by David Mariotte, Tom Waltz, John Barber, Alex Milne, David Garcia Cruz, and Jake Wood, on sale now.

The Terminator franchise is one of the most famous instances of machines rising up and destroying humanity in all of fiction. With a legendary cyborg played by Arnold Schwarzenegger, this film series has fascinated and horrified generations of sci-fi enthusiasts. Even today, Terminator exists as a dire warning, a parable about the dangers of relying too much on technology, a sword of Damocles that grows ever closer to descending upon humanity.

However, in Transformers vs. The Terminator #1, the forces of Skynet find themselves facing extinction, hunted by a force that's far superior to their own: the Transformers. Another franchise that is just as culturally significant, Transformers also deals with a host of sentient machines.

Typically, the Transformers franchise focuses on the Autobots, led by Optimus Prime, in an invisible war against the Decepticons, headed by the malicious Megatron. Transformers vs. The Terminator casts both these franchises in an entirely different context, with shocking results even as early as the first issue.

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Terminator vs Transformers

The story begins with a scene that's strikingly similar to The Terminator. Under the cover of darkness, a lone figure flees from robotic menaces in a post-apocalyptic landscape. As the ruins of both humanity’s civilization and mechanized hunters lie strewn about, it seems like this survivor may be the ever essential John Connor. But as he confronts one of the eponymous Terminators, something unexpected happens: the man converses with the murder machine like they are allies by speaking in binary code. Clearly, this isn’t John Connor, but one of the Terminators in human guise. Skynet is once again on the ropes in the future and only a well-placed assassin has a chance of turning the tables.

But just as the human Terminator prepares to use a time machine to go on its vital mission, Skynet’s fortress is breached by the forces with whom they have been at war: Transformers. Led by Starscream, the enormous robots are clearly more than a match for their skeletal opponents. Even though it would seem at first glance that the Decepticons and the Terminators would become fast allies and find common ground in their goal of destroying humanity, the nefarious counterparts to the heroic Autobots see constructs of Skynet as mere slave machines. Fortunately for the Terminators, their Hail-Mary gambit to send an assassin to the past is successful.

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Transformers vs Terminator

Arriving the Terminator arrives in the past, Transformers vs. The Terminator are greeted with another familiar scene: Sarah Connor working as a waitress, blissfully unaware of the sheer chaos about to be unleashed, just like the beginning of the first Terminator film. Instead of being swept away by Kyle Reese due to her role in saving humanity, Sarah joins the Terminator, who gives his trademark line, “Come with me if you want to live.” But this is not a reprogrammed killing machine, and its mission is to protect neither her nor her future son. Rather, its mission is to save Skynet, and Sarah is reduced to bein ga hapless bystander, an onlooker in a war that is far bigger than humankind.

Commandeering a vehicle like all good Terminators do, the machine and Sarah head for their real objective: a supposed volcanic eruption that turns out to be far more. It is, in fact, it is the wreckage of an alien ship that is transporting the invading Transformers. Apparently, preventing this landing is exactly what the Terminator was supposed to do, but arriving too late to stop the robot invasion, it decides to engage in a secondary mission as it approaches what looks to be a fight between Megatron and Optimus Prime.

Whatever the result is between these machines, humanity is in for a wild ride.

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