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Back to the Future
"Biff to the Future" Part 5
Back to the Future: Biff to the Future #5
IDW
Story by Bob Gale and Derek Fridolfs
Art by Alan Robinson
Inks by Alan Robinson & Jaime Castro
Colors by Maria Santaolalla
Letters by Shawn Lee
Cover A by Alan Robinson
May 2017 |
With Doc Brown's help, the Hill Valley
Citizens Committee journey into the past to stop Biff Tannen.
Notes from the Back to the Future chronology
This issue opens on May 1, 1983 and makes detours to May 16,
1946 and December 6, 1936.
Didja Know?
Biff to the Future was a six-issue comic
book mini-series published by IDW in 2017. It tells the story of
the alternate timeline created when Old Biff from 2015 gave his
teen self in 1955 the 2000 edition of Gray's Sports Almanac,
resulting in the dark 1985 discovered by Doc and Marty in
Back to the Future Part II.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this story
Biff Tannen
Lorraine Tannen
Marty McFly (mentioned only)
Doc Brown
Goldie Wilson
Mark Dixon
Stanford S. Strickland
Mrs. Blumberg
Einstein
Miss Hodges
George McFly (as a boy in 1946 only)
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen (mentioned only)
Creel brothers (mentioned only)
Thomas Tannen
Myra Benson
Match
babysitter (unnamed)
Gertrude Tannen (in 1936 only)
Skinhead
3-D
Didja Notice?
Cover A of this issue is the same art as panel 1 of page 1.
Lorraine gets her breast enlargements on
May 1, 1983.
On page 2, Lorraine tells Biff that Marty hasn't been
returning her calls and the boarding school can't reach him
either. What happened to him? The answer comes in
"Biff to the Future" Part 6.
On page 2, Biff says, "Children shouldn't be seen or heard."
Doc introduces his time machine to the citizens committee.
Instead of a DeLorean or even an automobile at all, the time
machine is actually a time chamber built into an old
refrigerator, possibly a
Philco
model judging from the V emblem on the door. In the first
draft of
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's screenplay for
Back to the Future,
they had Doc (then Professor) Brown build the time machine
into a refrigerator.
In panel 1 of page 3, Doc's mind-reading helmet is seen on
the workbench. Also, a large tarp-covered object in the
background looks as if it may be a DeLorean.
On page 3, Doc explains that a time traveller using his time
chamber has only four hours in the time they've travelled to
before they will be automatically snapped back to the chamber in
the time they travelled from. He demonstrates the idea using
a soda can that looks similar to a Coca-Cola can. In the
first draft of
Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale's screenplay for
Back to the Future,
they had the time machine run on
Coca-Cola, so this may be a
nod to that. (I'm glad they ditched the "running on
Coca-Cola" idea...a little too silly for my taste.) The soda
can seen here looks like it has a brand name something like
Coda; this is a fictitious brand.
On page 4, Strickland says he remembers a bullying incident
with Biff on May 16, 1946. He remembers the date because the
night before he'd celebrated his birthday by seeing The
Postman Always Rings Twice at the Essex Theater. This
would mean Strickland's birthday is May 15. When he goes back in time
here, he realizes he misremembered
and it was actually Gilda he saw the night before.
The third
version of The Postman Always Rings Twice was
released on May 2, 1946. Gilda was released
April 25, 1946. The Essex Theater is seen in the 1955 and
1985 versions of Hill Valley in
Back to the Future.
In this version of the timeline, Strickland becomes the
world's first time traveller.
On page 8, little Biff calls Strickland a "sex herbert".
In
Back to the Future Part II,
a sign is seen in front of the Biff Tannen Museum that reads
"Smoking Required". On Page 11, Doc finds out that
smoking really is required there. The ticket seller
tells him tickets are five bucks and cigarettes are three
bucks. When Doc informs him he doesn't smoke, the seller
tells him to just light and hold it!
On page 11, Doc sees an exhibit at the museum telling how
Buford "Mad Dog" Tannen shot and killed the three Creel
brothers on March 18, 1884. Doc makes use of this
information in
"Biff to the Future" Part 6.
Page 11 reveals that Biff's absent parents are (Thomas) Tom
Tannen and Myra Benson. They were officially married on
December 6, 1936 at the Hill Valley Church of the Heather. The name "Thomas" for Biff's father may be
a nod to actor Thomas F. Wilson who played Biff, Griff, and
Buford Tannen in the
Back to the Future
movies. In the storyline of
Back to the Future: The Game,
Biff's father is a similar-looking figure who was a local
gang boss by the name of Irving "Kid" Tannen. Possibly, he
started going by Thomas Tannen after a stint in prison for
his crimes to try to shed his criminal stigma. Maybe his
full name was Irving Thomas Tannen, but that is unconfirmed.
On page 12, Doc's plan to put the kibosh on the wedding of
Tom Tannen and Myra Benson calls for claiming that the bride
is already married to his son Melvin and that she is
pregnant with Melvin's child. Of course, there is no Melvin.
In the
Back to the Future
novelization, when Doc uses his telepathy device to try to
guess Marty's name, one of the names he guesses is Melvin
Petrucci.
When Doc arrives at
December 6, 1936, he sees that Things to Come is
playing at the Essex. Things to Come is a 1936
British science-fiction film written by H.G. Wells. It was
released in the U.S. on May 2, 1936.
After her wedding to Tom, Myra says she's going to
Reno.
On page 19, Biff is seen to be wearing a belt buckle with
his initials BT on it.
The last page of this issue features the front page of the May
23, 1983 edition of the Hill Valley Telegraph as
seen in
Back to the Future Part II,
with the headline "Emmett Brown Committed". The text in the
front page articles here is the same random sentences that
appear in the newspaper seen in that film.
Back to Back to the Future
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