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Jun 22, 2023

10 Most Powerful Terminator Weapons Movie Fans Didn't Get to See

Terminators have had no shortage of increasingly powerful weapons throughout the franchise, especially outside the films. Here are the 10 strongest! Terminators are some of the deadliest androids in

Terminators have had no shortage of increasingly powerful weapons throughout the franchise, especially outside the films. Here are the 10 strongest!

Terminators are some of the deadliest androids in all of science fiction, as they not only have the strength and the numbers to take over the world, but they also have time travel technology to ensure that they will never lose that control, with a supreme artificial intelligence - Skynet - to command the legions of robot-conquerors. Try as they might, humans have never fully been able to get rid of the Terminators, and with the insanely powerful weapons Skynet has at its disposal, it’s unlikely they ever will.

While fans of the Terminator film franchise have seen some pretty insane Sci-Fi weaponry wielded by the machines, they haven’t even scratched the surface of what Skynet and its killer-drones are really capable of. Here are the Top 10 most powerful Terminator weapons movie fans didn’t get to see.

Most Terminators look like human skeletons made of metal, or else they’re metal skeletons covered in synthetic skin to make them appear human. Not this Terminator. In Terminator: The Enemy Within by Ian Edginton and Vince Giarrano, a Terminator designated C890.L travels back in time with another Terminator to eliminate a threat to Skynet. When the other Terminator gets, well, terminated, and C890.L suffers severe damage, C890.L cannibalizes the other for spare parts, and takes a bit more than it needs. C890.L fashions devil horns and spikes all over its robotic, skeletal body, making it way deadlier for close-quarter combat. Plus, it’s just way more intimidating.

In The Terminator: Enemy of My Enemy by Dan Jolley and Jamal Igle, readers are introduced to prototype Terminators that were manufactured in the modern day (or the past, depending on perspective). Since they were reverse-engineered from the arm of the T-800 that was destroyed in 1984’s The Terminator, these first-gen killer-robots were well-equipped to combat T-800s, should they ever encounter them. The weapon they’d use is an electric harpoon shoots from the prototype Terminator’s arm, embeds itself within the T-800’s frame, and releases an electric charge powerful enough to shut down the Terminator’s systems in a second. If Sarah Connor and Kyle Reese had one of these androids handy, the first Terminator movie would have been over in a matter of minutes.

This weapon (or, rather, ability) exists within the crossover continuity of Aliens vs Predator vs The Terminator by Mark Schultz and Mel Rubi. Within this established AvPvT sandbox, Terminators still exist as loose remnants in the universe, trying desperately to bring Skynet back online, and they use Xenomorph experimentation to accomplish that task. The machines decide that the only way to bring Skynet back is to create an unkillable legion of Terminators, so they merge Terminator tech with the malleable biology of the Xenomorph to create a Terminator/Xenomorph hybrid. Other than being absolutely monstrous, these creatures have an ability known as ‘absorption matrix’, which allows them to literally absorb their surroundings to enhance their bodies and adapt to battle conditions. Not only does this make them physically stronger, but it can also be directly weaponized by its usage alone, as the surrounding equipment they are absorbing becomes damaged during the process, which, under the right circumstances, could spell trouble for their enemies.

In the four-issue crossover comic series Transformers vs The Terminator (by David Mariotte, Tom Waltz, John Barber, and Alex Milne), it’s revealed that Terminators were actually created by humanity deliberately to battle Decepticons, as Megatron and his team of villainous Cybertronians invaded Earth with the intention of wiping out human civilization. In the end, humans didn’t survive, so the Terminators fought on for the planet that they believed they inherited with humanity’s demise. In that effort, Skynet did what it did in the movies and developed time-travel, sending a Terminator back in time to eliminate the Decepticons before they razed the planet. When it got to the past, the Terminator teamed up with the Autobots, who gave the Terminator a weapon known as a Cybertronian rifle. As one could imagine, this weapon has the strength to kill a Transformer, making it an immensely powerful firearm within Terminator canon.

Within these increasingly wild Terminator crossovers, Xenomorphs and Transformers aren’t the only entities Terminators learned from and adapted to, but also the Man of Steel himself, Superman. In Superman vs The Terminator: Death to the Future by Alan Grant and Steve Pugh, Superman intervened during a Terminator’s mission to the past to kill Sarah and John Connor, which alerted Skynet of Superman’s existence, and - more notably - his powers. So, with every additional Terminator Skynet sent back in time, they were equipped with Kryptonian-like abilities, including and especially heat vision. Usually, Terminators would have to find weapons in the past or embed them within their synthetic skin to then be reassembled later with every trip back in time they took. But here, the Terminators’ eyes are literal laser cannons, marking this as one of their more major upgrades.

Heat vision isn’t the only weapon the Terminators developed from studying Superman during this crossover, as it not only learned how to fight like a Kryptonian, but also how to defeat them in battle. Skynet figured out that Kryptonite was Superman’s greatest weakness, so it made sure to collect as much as it could after coming online to create a Kryptonite ray. This weapon downed Superman in seconds, and it works against any Kryptonian on Earth, giving the Terminators an edge against beings who are practically gods.

Another weapon first shown in Superman vs The Terminator: Death to the Future is the Neural Probe. This device is placed on the heads of whoever the machines want information from. It then enters their minds and downloads the contents onto its memory drive, effectively stealing every bit of information its victims have ever absorbed in their lives. While not the most dramatic weapon, it is one that would be immensely useful, especially for an artificial intelligence hellbent on conquering the planet. Imagine if John Connor was subjected to this device, or any other high-level resistance leader, Skynet would have all the information it would need to make its ultimate victory that much more inevitable.

Energy blades are used by one of, if not the deadliest Terminator model in the entire franchise: the T-Infinity. Along with many other weapons (especially one which will be discussed in greater detail next), the T-Infinity has energy blades that protrude from its wrists. Debuting in Terminator 2: Infinity by Simon Furman and Nigel Raynor, these weapons are powerful enough to cut through anything, and given the T-Infinity’s relative invulnerability, its energy blades could potentially cut down entire platoons of resistance fighters with ease.

The aforementioned ‘other weapon’ within the T-Infinity’s arsenal is a translocation unit, which has the power to teleport incoming attacks elsewhere, including against the attackers themselves. While this only works so long as the T-Infinity sees it coming, it’s a safe bet that it will, given that its entire purpose is to sense temporal anomalies that could negatively impact Skynet and then travel to those time periods autonomously and correct them. Therefore, Skynet losing this Terminator to an attack would be an example of a temporal anomaly that could negatively impact Skynet, since it wouldn’t have the T-Infinity anymore, meaning this robot pretty much always knows when and where it will be attacked. Overall, the T-Infinity is pretty much an unstoppable weapon itself, and its translocation unit is probably the most detrimental weapon it carries (even more so than the energy blades).

This weapon is number 1 on this list not necessarily because of its power in relation to all the others, but because it’s a weapon that would be the most useful to more soldiers overall - human and Terminator. The weapon is an Electro-Mech Fazer, and it has the capacity to down a T-800 with a single shot, so it’s plenty powerful in that regard alone. However, where it really stands out is that it can be taken with a time traveler back in time. Granted, it has to be disassembled and surgically implanted in someone’s body, and then reassembled when they get to their destination (as shown in The Terminator: One Shot by James Robinson and Matt Wagner), but the fact that it's even possible to travel through time with this weapon at all makes it stand out from the rest.

The Terminator movies certainly didn’t hold back in showing powerful weapons wielded by humans and Terminators alike, as well as the increasingly powerful models of Terminator introduced throughout the franchise. However, most of those couldn’t even come close to comparing to the weapons/models on this list, mostly due to the mind-blowing crossovers that integrated technology from a number of different franchises - something that could really only happen within the realm of comic books. Since that’s undeniably the case, it makes sense why these are the Top 10 most powerful Terminator weapons movie fans didn’t get to see.

Spencer Connolly is a Staff Writer for Screen Rant. With years of writing and journalism experience under his belt, Spencer joined Screen Rant in 2020. Prior to writing for Screen Rant, Spencer was a Photojournalist and News Producer. Throughout his career as a journalist and even his entire life, Spencer always had a deep love for comics and is now applying everything he has learned throughout his career to the fun and informative articles he writes for Screen Rant. You can follow Spencer on Twitter: @TheSpencerVerse.