Fans of the Terminator franchise are well aware of John Connor and his timeline-splitting impact on the overall universe, as he is the one who was promised to lead humanity to victory over the oppressive machines. While the Terminator series itself is seemingly always changing John’s fate due to the fact that consistent time traveling regularly reshapes the timeline, one story gives Connor the perfect ending fans were promised–it just didn’t happen in the movies (or even in the Terminator universe).
The importance of John Connor was spelled out explicitly in the first installment of The Terminator franchise, even if the nature of his existence was a bit confusing. In the future, an A.I. called Skynet effectively wipes out most of humanity before creating killer-androids known as Terminators to hunt down the humans who survived its initial assault. In this bleak future, there was only one ray of hope that shone through the darkness: John Connor. John was a military leader who commanded the last remnants of humanity against the machines, and under his leadership, humanity was starting to win. So, Skynet sent a Terminator back in time to kill John Connor’s mother, Sarah Connor, before the humans did the exact same thing with one of their soldiers, Kyle Reese, to ensure Sarah’s survival. While Kyle successfully protected Sarah from the Terminator, the two also fell in love and, together, gave life to John Connor. John Connor was so important to The Terminator universe that the very nature of his existence literally bent time and space–and while the movies failed to properly pay off this significance, one comic series successfully did it justice.
In Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator #2 by Mark Schultz and Mel Rubi, Ripley8, Call, and their crew of anti-Xenomorph revolutionaries have broken into a scientific laboratory/space station run by Terminators that is working towards merging Terminators with Xenomorphs to create the deadliest species in existence. In this story, readers are thrown into a world set after the events of Alien Resurrection, which (as it turns out) is set after the events of the entire Terminator franchise following humanity’s victory over the machines. Apparently, John Connor led the humans to victory, and society bounced-back from that apocalyptic landscape so thoroughly that they developed space travel and off-world settlements as shown in the Alien franchise. While this is a bit of a stretch, it still confirms that Alien and Terminator exist in the same continuity. However, as it turns out, the Terminators weren’t really defeated, they just went dormant–which is something John Connor brilliantly countered.
John Connor Became a Terminator-Killing Computer Virus
Following humanity’s victory over Skynet and the Terminators, John Connor copied his consciousness into a machine and effectively turned the virtual version of himself into a computer virus that could lurk within cyberspace and be on the lookout for Skynet’s lingering existence with the intention of striking the Terminators anytime they tried to launch a resurgence. In this issue, the Synthetic, Call, is able to interact with John after she plugs-in to the Terminators’ collective consciousness. While in this virtual world, John explains to Call everything that she could ever want or need to know about the Terminators–including their history, the importance of stopping them, and how to take them down. Essentially, without John Connor, the Alien crew would have no idea what they were going up against when facing-off against these futuristic Xenomorph/Terminator hybrids.
After John Connor saves his established Terminator universe, he ensures the safety of any other society that would follow and effectively saves the Alien universe as well–an ending that perfectly pays off John Connor’s initially implied importance.