With IDW Publishing's Issue 1 (of 4) in the TERMINATOR:SALVATION Official Movie Prequel comic series in stores, TERMINATOR:2018 takes a look at this opening illustrated preamble to McG's summer sci-fi epic in an attempt to divine how this graphic series will dovetail into the feature film.

Issue 1, titled Sand in the Gears, sets up the international destruction and desperation of the post-Judgment Day world in expectedly limited scope, if equally limited in action for a first chapter.  T-600 Terminators prowl the ruins of Los Angeles, Washington, Beijing and Riyadh, establishing the global graveyard of human supremacy on Earth.  Yet over the wastelands, the voice of John Connor crackles over the airwaves, broadcasting a grim but determined message of resistance against Skynet's mission of extermination.

Amid the ruins of Detroit, local resistance leader Elena Maric contacts her mirror counterpart in Niger, exchanging updates on the human struggle to survive.  The Nigerian engineer Bem Aworuwa monitors the machines' nearby uranium mining pit, the local focus of Skynet weapons program.

Issue 1's ties to the film franchise are loose at the start, filling in gaps while establishing the middle ground of the human/machine war in 2018, versus what the prior films showed us in 2029.  A personal if thin connection is established with Elena being a valuable soldier in John Connor's command, and her medical assistance is recognized by Kate Connor too, but neither are the focus of this opening issue.

Elena has great difficulty persuading one pocket of human survivors to join in the next operation by the resistance, indicative of the social breakdown post-Judgment Day.  Naturally the Skynet machines are tactically programmed to take advantage of such disorganization among their targets.

This first issue gives up glimpses of the new Terminator technology McG's film holds in store this summer: a pair of Sidewinder robotic snakes prowl the desert sands seeking human activity, and the rubber-skinned T-600 demonstrates its lethality with bloody results.  Hunter-Killers and a variation the T-1 tank fighter also fill in the established Skynet arsenal as the Terminators take the issue-ending fight to the humans.

Dara Naraghi's writing is sparse but pointed, if a bit weak at establishing separate voices for the major characters.  The story focuses much more on establishing plot than getting us involved with these survivors — though that's a tall order to fulfill in 22 pages.  Artwork by Alan Robinson serves the action quite well, but it ends up supporting a good deal of 'talking head' panels in this setup, which are the issue's weak point.  Such exposition is necessary for a comprehensible start-up story which lacks the dynamic cinematography of a feature film, but this opener could have used a little more ingenuity. 

IA Desert Showdown is promised in Issue 2, and the preview cover implies the battle action will step up notches from #1 once these characters are let loose in the global war. 

Issue 1 of the TERMINATOR:SALVATION Official Movie Prequel is a serviceable start to the comic series, but its expositional function overburdens its potential to get fans hyped for the film before its cliffhanger ending.  TERMINATOR:2018 looks forward to see IDW's series kick the sand out of its gears in the second issue.