Every week, I write a summary of an issue or two from the IDW Back To The Future comic book series. This is for anyone who missed an issue and needs to catch up, or wants to collect the comics and can’t find certain issues. This will serve as a catch up for those that need to know the story so far. Warning! Spoilers ahead! Getting ‘Back To The Story’, let’s start where it all began in October, 2015…… Issue #1!
Back To The Future #1 (Released On: October 21st, 2015)
‘Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines,’ part 1: BTTF creator/screenwriter Bob Gale returns with all-new tales from the twisting and turning timeline that made Back to the Future a, well TIMELESS pop-culture phenomenon!
Take a trip back to 1985 and be there when Doc Brown and Marty McFly first meet, and then jump even farther back, to 1945, to witness Doc’s involvement in the super-secret Manhattan Project. Bullet Points: All-new canonical stories by Bob Gale, creator and screenwriter of Back to the Future. Scripts by John Barber (Transformers) and Erik Burnham (Ghostbusters, TMNT), with artwork by Brent Schoonover (Batman ‘66, Ant-Man) and Dan Schoening (Ghostbusters). Part of IDW’s Artist’s Edition Month promotion!
Story #1: ‘When Marty Met Emmet’
It’s sometime in the late 1800’s, and Doc is still working on making what will eventually become his time traveling train. Meanwhile, Clara and the boys (Jules and Verne) walk in on Doc. It’s at this moment that Doc decides to tell the boys what he’s up to. Getting them Back To The Future!
He begins by telling them a story that first starts off describing how he invented the flux capacitor, followed by the destruction and fire of Brown Manor, and finally……. How he met Marty McFly!
It seems that Needles and his gang/band (The Tabascos) need Marty’s Interocitor Tube for their amp. In the process of trying to steal Marty’s (after Marty kindly offers to rent it out to them for 5 bucks lol), it gets dropped and shattered. Needles and his gang then instruct Marty to steal them another one, or else he gets beat up! Marty declines…..until they call him chicken. Nobody calls him chicken! They then tell Marty he has till 4pm to meet them by the clock tower with the tube, and as a good measure, they take Marty’s guitar hostage.
Marty heads off to the local music shop to try to buy a new tube, rather than steal one. He finds that the store is completely sold out. When he inquires as to whom they were all sold to, he finds out they were sold to the elusive Dr. Emmet Brown via mail order. For the death ray he was rumored to be building no doubt. Still determined to get his hands on a tube, Marty heads to Doc’s residence to get a tube! Once there however, he finds out that getting in will not be so easy……
Marty, who now thinks that he is very clever, is now through the gate and on his way into Doc’s home. Should be a breeze now eh? Would be except he trips a trap while crawling through the window! Think of it as the old mouse trap board game. Boom! Marty is now stuck in the air, hanging up in a rope net. Still being the smart guy he is, Marty throws his skateboard at a button he see’s and presto! The net….with Marty still inside…..falls to the ground. Success! Marty is out of the bag (so to speak) and is now tackled by….. a dog? And it’s owner. Fate is now complete as Marty finally meets the Doc! Whoa! This is heavy!
Doc, impressed that Marty passed all of the challenges, offers Marty to be his assistant. Marty accepts immediately, but comes clean that he was there merely for the tubes. Doc is saddened for a moment that it was a robbery, but realizes that Marty really wouldn’t have met any harm and forgives him. After the air is cleared and the two decide to work together as friends and partners, Doc then confesses that he never even needed the tubes. All he needed was the box they came in, and the tubes were outside the house, in the trash.
Marty gets the tube he needs and takes it to Needles on time. He gets his guitar back, and thus ends the story of how Marty met the Doc!
To Be Continued……
Story #2: ‘Looking For A Few Good Scientists’
This is a story that looks at a young Doc Brown, and it takes place in 1943 at the California Institute Of Technology. Doc is seen busting into Robert’s office (The Dean Of The College) and proclaiming he knows he has been left out of the selection of men to be a part of a major think tank!
Robert admits that Emmet was indeed on the list of those chosen for a very highly classified project, but the interview process involved a visit by top military brass at….. Emmet’s apartment! Robert, knowing what kind of mess that could be, had left Emmet out. Emmet however decided that every problem had a solution!
The top officials meet with Emmet in his apartment (or is it?), and are blown away by how clean and organized it is. Not at all how they imagined it would be. After a small conversation, then men go to leave and step on mail on the floor by the door. A copy of Good Housekeeping, addressed to Mrs. Gomez. They’ll be in touch, they say as they leave. Doc, now sad but still determined to get his shot, is seen walking home to his real apartment. The other had been a neighbors place and a phony……
As he walks to his door, he see’s it’s open, and inside are the same two top officials waiting for him! They knew the truth…….
Emmet is invited to join with the Manhattan Project, which of course he happily accepts! To celebrate, Emmet busts a delicious treat from his refrigerator….. Jello…… with a mushroom in it. Get it! 😉
To Be Continued……
That’s it for this edition of Back To The Story! Up next, and coming soon……. issue #2!
Cheers, and Game On!
TheMaltyGamer
The Malty Gamer 