Characters appearing or mentioned in this story

 

Marty McFly

Citizen Brown

Edna Brown

guard (unnamed)

George McFly

Lorraine McFly

Jennifer Parker

Danny Parker, Jr.

Biff Tannen

Clara Clayton (mentioned only)

Teen Emmet

Edna Strickland

Ernest Philpott

Artie McFly

Mad Dog Tannen (mentioned only, presumed deceased)

Trixie Trotter

Kid Tannen

Detective Parker

Cue Ball

Beauregard Tannen (in photograph only) 

Jules Brown (mentioned only)

Verne Brown (mentioned only)

Einstein (mentioned only)

 

Didja Notice?

 

1986

 

George's keyboard is a Nemotech MPX 125. Nemotech is a fictitious manufacturer.

 

The combination on the locker door in Marty's holding cell is 2-8-18-32. These numbers are the same as the maximum number of electrons that can be held in each of the first four shells of an atom, K, L, M, N.

 

After her first Citizen Plus treatment, Jennifer remarks she never wants to spray paint a Buick or listen to rock music ever again.

 

How is Marty able to play his electric guitar in his holding cell when it's not plugged into an amp?

 

Jennifer mildly criticizes Marty for wearing Calvin Klein underwear. He wore this same brand in Back to the Future.

 

When Marty puts on the unconscious guard's uniform and helmet, Jennifer tells him he's "a little short for a stormtrooper." This was a line spoken by Princess Leia to Luke Skywalker when he rescued her from the Death Star holding cell while dressed in stormtrooper armor in the 1977 film Star Wars: A New Hope.

 

A can of ALT cola is seen being drank by the operator of the Citizen Plus device. This is a fictitious brand with a can design meant to look similar to TaB cola, a diet soda once made by Coca-Cola.

 

When Citizen Brown doesn't respond to the Citizen Plus treatment he's subjected to, Edna orders the overall stimulation levels increased by a factor of 1.21 kilokarls. A kilokarl appears to be a fictitious unit of measurement (I probably don't need to explain the "1.21" again!). Edna also orders the somatosensory fluids increased by 17 percent. "Somatosensory" refers to the sensory nervous system of a living body which responds to environmental changes such as temperature or pressure.

 

The Citizen Plus helmet used in the treatment room appears to be based on Doc's mind-reading helmet seen in 1955 in Back to the Future. The giant speaker in the room is also similar to the giant amplifier Marty accidentally overloaded at the beginning of Back to the Future.

 

Biff's prisoner number in the Citizen Plus holding room is 687523.

 

At the Citizen Plus control board, Marty finds an "equalizer"-like component that is labeled with controls for optics, volume, tactile, gastrosensory, and olfactory.

 

Citizen Brown tells Marty he had the DeLorean towed to his secret lab near Clayton Ravine. In this timeline, Marty and Doc never went back in time as seen in the three Back to the Future movies, so Clara Clayton still died there, giving the ravine its modern name (instead of the old west name of Shonash Ravine or the time-changed name of Eastwood Ravine).

 

Citizen Brown tells Marty he has to fix the DeLorean on his own because Marty's assistance in the repair efforts could cause some sort of temporal paradox after they return to 1931. Huh? Why would Marty helping to fix the time machine be a problem?

 

As Citizen Brown remarks he has to fix the DeLorean on his own, Marty retorts, "What am I supposed to do, just hang out here in Bizarro Hill Valley until you fix the time machine?" "Bizarro" refers to the Bizarro World of the DC Universe in comic books published by DC Comics. Bizarro World is sort of a "negative" version of the Earth of the mainstream DC Universe, where characters and even physical laws often behave the opposite of the ones we know.

 

Edna tries to convince Marty that Emmett is useless without her to inspire him, saying, "Emmett couldn't even build a dog feeder without me to guide him," to which Marty retorts, "Yeah? Well, he did that, too!" Doc's dog feeder was seen at the beginning of Back to the Future.

 

When Citizen Brown shows up with the repaired time machine, he tells Marty it took him six months, his entire family fortune and a sketchy deal with a gang of Libyan nationals. Doc says something similar about his family fortune and Libyan nationals to build the time machine in Back to the Future. 

 

1931

 

Citizen Brown says Edna made him tear down the old Town Theater in 1971 because the movies were corrupting the younger generation.

 

Citizen Brown asks Marty if he remembers the movie Public Enemy and quotes from it, "Why, you dirty rat, no-good, yellow-bellied stool!" The Public Enemy is a 1931 American gangster film starring James Cagney. Citizen Brown is combining a couple of quotes said by Cagney in this film and 1932's Taxi!

 

When Marty tells Citizen Brown he's using the alias "Carl Sagan" in 1931, Brown asks, "The billions and billions guy?" Doc Brown was seen using the alias in "It's About Time". The name refers to real world astronomer and astrophysicist, Dr. Carl Sagan (1934-1996). On his famed documentary science TV series Cosmos, Sagan was known for his use of the phrase "billions upon billions" in his descriptions of the numbers of stars in the galaxy, etc.

 

When Marty and Citizen Brown arrive in October 1931, Frankenstein is still playing at the Town Theater, as it was back in May. Would it really still be playing in the same theater almost four months later??

 

Teen Emmett has abandoned his rocket car idea for the expo and is working on a mental alignment meter instead with Edna Strickland's guidance.

 

When they find that the DeLorean has malfunctioned and taken them to October 1931 instead of August, Citizen Brown fears that if they try to go back the two months to August they could find themselves stranded in the Cenozoic Age or, worse, the Mesozoic. The Cenozoic Era is the era we live in now, which began 66 million years ago. The Mesozoic Era took place just before it, 252 to 66 million years ago.

 

The grounds of Hill Valley High School are used to host the expo on October 12-15, which is a Monday-Thursday. Why do we no teenage students there? Kids should be in attendance at school during this time of the year.

 

One of the exhibitors at the expo is Ernest Philpott, the man who accused Marty of making eyes at his girlfriend Eunice at El Kid in "Get Tannen".

 

Edna remarks that Emmett may not be Clark Gable, but he cleans up surprisingly well. Gable (1901-1960) was an American film actor.

 

Marty tries to get Edna to dismiss Emmett as a suitable beau by pointing out some of his past "misdeeds" like stealing plutonium from Libyans (Back to the Future) and hijacking a train (Back to the Future Part III). Edna retorts that there hasn't been a train hijacking in Hill Valley since the days of Mad Dog Tannen, which suggests she's heard of the very hijacking that Doc (and Marty) pulled off in the third film of the trilogy.

 

Marty tries to claim to Edna that Emmett was the Valentino of Hill Valley High. Rudolph Valentino (1895-1926) was an Italian actor of the silent film era known for his American-made films, his good looks, and his romantic stylings that drove women mad with lust.

 

Trixie refers to her futuristic helmet as an "aureolee". I'm not sure what she means by this. In French, auréolée means haloed, so maybe she is referring to the shiny helmet as a kind of halo.

 

Citizen Brown builds a chronometric analyzer and hooks it up to the time circuits of the DeLorean to find the problem in the circuits that's causing the car to arrive at different times than what was programmed.

 

Trixie says her costume as hostess of the expo is that of Techne, Muse of Progress, and implies that her character is from Homer. Techne is an Ancient Greek word for "making" or "doing". Techne as a mythological character appears to be a fictitious concept. Homer was an Ancient Greek writer and author of numerous works about that culture's history and mythology.

 

Trixie mentions Madame Curie as a female scientist who changed the world. Marie Curie (1867-1934) was a Polish physicist and chemist who, along with her husband, discovered the radioactivity of radium. She was the first woman in the world to win a Nobel Prize, as well as the first person, and the only woman, to win the Nobel Prize twice, and the only person to date to win the Nobel Prize in two scientific fields.

 

Discussing the trial of Kid Tannen with Marty, Trixie says, "You know what they say, 'The wheels of justice grind slowly but infinitely fine...'" This is a quote used in various forms on occasion in justice situations, largely based on words from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's English translation of the 17th Century German poem "Retribution" by Friedrich von Logau, "Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceeding small."

 

The Cars of the Future banner at the expo declares that it's brought to you by Statler DeSoto. In 1955, the dealership will be Statler Studebaker and in 1985, Statler Toyota.

 

An exhibit at the expo is brought to you by Hal's Hardware, serving Hill Valley since 1895. Possibly, this is the same store that goes on to become Hal's Bike Shop in 1955, Hog Heaven (selling motorcycles) in 1985, and The Bot Shoppe in 2015.

 

When Marty absconds with the wheeled platform of the model train of "Future Hill Valley" to use as a skateboard, he ponders whether it can ollie. An ollie is a skateboard trick in which the rider and board leap up into the air without the use of the rider's hands.

 

Officer Parker was apparently promoted to Detective after busting Kid Tannen four months ago.

 

A crate for Peabody Farm Apples is seen in teen Emmett's workroom. The Peabody Farm was where the twin pines breeding experiment was being performed by Otis Peabody in 1955 in Back to the Future.

 

A calendar provided courtesy of MacPherson Instruments of San Diego, CA is seen in Emmett's workroom. MacPherson Instruments appears to be a fictitious company.

 

Emmett has a number of volumes of the Law Journal on a bookshelf in his workshop from when his judge father was pressuring him to enter the legal profession in the recent past, as seen in "It's About Time".

 

Emmett's mental alignment meter helmet has red, yellow, and green lights on it like the time display of the DeLorean.

 

One of the photos shown to participants in the mental alignment meter diagnosis is of Trixie Trotter.

 

The top card on Emmett's deck of mind map cards is for Red Thomas. Red Thomas is the mayor of Hill Valley in 1985 in Back to the Future.

 

Emmet has a placard for the expo with his photo on it and the caption, "The Scientist That Caught Kid Tannen."

 

A copy of American Psychiatry magazine is seen on the ping-pong table in Emmett's workroom. This appears to be a fictitious periodical. In the following episode, "OUTATIME", we see that it is the April 1931 issue and has the cover story "Unlocking the Secrets of the Mind". Presumably, this was part of Emmett's research as he was building the mental alignment meter.

 

Marty hitches a tow-ride on his skateboard on the back of a truck here in 1931 just as he did on the back of a Jeep in 1985 in Back to the Future.

 

The Hill Valley of the Past exhibit appears to show a volcano in the middle of it! Hill Valley lies at the foot of the Sierra Nevada mountain range (as seen in the map in Back to the Future Part III) and that range does have several dead volcanoes, active millions of years ago, in it.

 

When Marty sees Cue Ball at the expo, the man's teeth are green due to eating Doctor Frinkle's Algae Cakes. When Cue Ball shows Marty the package, it actually says Oceanic Algae Cakes. Regardless of the name, they are a fictitious snack brand.

 

Just before Edna shows him the risque postcard of Trixie, Artie has a sheet of names in hand at the expo. As far as I can tell, there is no particular significance to the names.

 

The back of the risque postcard refers to Trixie as the Winsome Wench of Winnipeg. Winnipeg is the capital city of Manitoba, Canada.

 

Trixie tells Marty she was once in a play called The Parlormaid's Predicament. This is a fictitious play.

 

The Hill Valley of the Past exhibit seems to imply that Hill Valley has, or at least had, tar pits.

 

Another of the photos shown to participants in the mental alignment meter diagnosis is of John Wilkes Booth. Booth (1838-1865) assassinated U.S. President Abraham Lincoln on April 14, 1865.

Another of the photos shown to participants in the mental alignment meter diagnosis is one that Marty identifies as a Tannen, but he doesn't know who it is. It is Beauregard Tannen, a man Marty will meet in 1876 in "OUTATIME". Beauregard actually first appeared in the animated series episode "Brothers".

 

Yet another of the photos shown to participants in the mental alignment meter diagnosis is of Edna's little brother, Stanford S. Strickland when he was a little boy. The same photo was seen in Edna's apartment in "It's About Time".

 

Emmett's mental alignment meter seems to be a slightly more sophisticated version of the so-called "love tester machines" found in penny arcades since the early 20th Century.

 

Emmett explains that the white suit he's wearing is the one worn by Edna's grandfather on his wedding day. Edna's grandfather was Marshal James Strickland from Back to the Future Part III.

 

Emmett tells Marty he had been saving his marriage proposal to Edna until Valentine's Day, but decides he will propose to her at the expo tonight.

 

Citizen Brown's chronometric analyzer finally shows him that the chromium elements in the time circuits became unstable during the temporal shift, causing the errors in arrival time. He determines he would need to replace those elements with titanium, but remarks that, unfortunately, titanium won't be commercially available until the Kroll process in perfected in 9 years. The Kroll process was developed by William Kroll in 1940. While it's true that this process improved the extraction of titanium from ore greatly, it was still done through the Hunter process since 1910.

 

When Citizen Brown suggests to Marty that maybe they don't have to entirely wipe out his timeline and connection to Edna, who started out "with such pure intentions", Marty exclaims, "So did Nero!" Nero was the emperor of the Roman Empire from 58-64 AD known for his tyranny and atrocities against his perceived enemies.

 

After Edna dumps Emmett, Marty finds him sitting on the ledge of the clock tower. Marty thinks he's planning to jump, but Emmett assures him that's not the case, it's just that this is where he goes when he wants to be alone and think. This implies that Emmett was familiar with the ledge even before he climbed up there to connect the electrical cable for the lightning strike in 1955 in Back to the Future.

 

Trying to cheer up Emmett as an inventor, Marty mentions Edison and his invention of the light bulb. Thomas Edison (1847-1931) was an inventor and businessman, producing many electric products, including a practical incandescent light bulb.

 

The new statues on the ledge of the clock tower are the same sheepdogs seen in the alternate Citizen Brown timeline of 1986. When Marty convinces Emmett on the ledge to resume the life of a scientist and inventor, the dogs get knocked off the ledge and shattered, to be replaced by the cat statues seen in the "real" timeline, as mentioned in the developers' commentary. But, that would suggest that the dogs were placed there in 1931 in the "real" timeline in the first place, so what caused them to be replaced by the cat statues in the first place?

 

Emmett accidentally breaks a chunk of concrete off the ledge of the clock tower here and is left dangling. He makes a habit of it later in 1955 in Back to the Future!

 

Emmett speculates aloud what to use as a catalyst in the converter of his hover car invention, deciding on tungsten due to the temperatures in the converter and saying he can harvest the tungsten from all the light bulbs in his house. Tungsten filaments are used in most conventional incandescent light bulbs.

 

According to the Developers Commentary on the Back to the Future: The Game bonus features DVD, Emmett's levitating car is based on levitation research done by Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), a Serbian-American electrical engineer and physicist.

 

Notes from the comic book adaptation published by IDW Back to the Future: Citizen Brown #4 IDW Adapted by Bob Gale & Erik Burnham Script by Erik Burnham Based on the Telltale Games video game written by Bob Gale, Michael Stemmle, Andy Hartnell, and Jonathan Straw Art by Alan Robinson Inks by Alan Robinson, Salo Farias & Christian Docolomansky Colors by Maria Santaolalla Letters by Shawn Lee Cover A by Alan Robinson August 2016

 

Read the issue summary at Futurepedia

 

Additional characters in the comic not present in the game episode

 

Dr. Tipton

Citizen Gomez

Joey Baines

 

Didja Know?  

 

Back to the Future: Citizen Brown was a five-issue comic book adaptation of Back to the Future: The Game. The Citizen Brown title of the series is borrowed from that of episode three of the game.

 

Didja Notice?

 

1986

 

On page 2, Marty thinks of his arrival into the Citizen Brown dictatorship of 1986 Hill Valley as like something out of the Twilight Zone. The Twilight Zone was a TV series of 1959-1964, an anthology of fantasy, horror, science-fiction, and suspense.

 

Edna refers to herself with the Hill Valley public as "Second Citizen Brown."

 

On page 8, one of the police officers mentions Spring Street. This is the first mention of that street in Hill Valley.

 

It seems like Edna here is presented as slightly more twisted up than the one in the episode. On page 8, Citizen Brown says to a female, Citizen Gomez, and he afterwards remarks to Marty, "If Edna ever found out I had verbal intercourse with another female, she'd go beyond ballistic." And on page 18, he says that Edna almost divorced him in 1972 for helping a co-ed with her homework. If he's not even allowed to talk with other women by Edna's rules, he should have known she was not of the best mental/emotional mind for some time.

 

The Brown Institute for Social Science is revealed to be located at the Brown mansion, which never burned down in this timeline.

 

Marty's Uncle Joey works at the Brown Institute.

 

When Joey sees Marty, he remarks he thought he was in Sacramento. This is where this timeline's Marty is at according to the comic book version of "Citizen Brown".

 

Edna decides that both Marty and her husband must be killed in a staged terrorist bombing of the Brown Institute, confirming her fall into psychosis.

 

On page 12, Edna admits her culpability in burning down Kid Tannen's speakeasy and framing "Carl Sagan" for it. This occurred off-screen in 1931 in "It's About Time".

 

In the altered 1986, Citizen Brown had lost most of his hair on top, having only hair on the sides, unlike Doc's full head of long, silvery, flowing hair. But after Citizen Brown has spent six months repairing the DeLorean, he suddenly has his flowing locks on top of his head. Did he not "lose" his hair in the first place, but actually kept it shaved that way for some reason? Maybe he (or Edna) thought it made him look older and wiser to the city they ruled.

 

Biff and Edna are seemingly killed in this timeline when the time bomb goes off in Biff's hands while he's standing next to Edna. Marty and Citizen Brown have raced into the past moments before, so we don't see the outcome of the explosion in 1986.

 

1931

 

On page 14, panel 1, notice that the pedestrians on Main Street are gawking at the DeLorean as it cruises by. They've never seen a vehicle like that in 1931.

 

Like the previous installments of the game's comic book adaptation, the events of this one take place a month later than in the game, November instead of October. Also, notice that the banner for the Hill Valley Science Expo lists the event's date as December 18-20. In the game, the expo is held October 12-15. The December 18-20 date here in the comic is a Friday-Sunday, which makes more sense than the Monday-Thursday date in the game.

 

On page 17, teen Emmett tells Marty he's been on cloud nine ever since he's been dating Edna. The term "cloud nine" is an American idiom for being in a state of euphoria.

 

The man Marty talks to on page 20 appears to be Cue Ball, but he's not identified. The man tells Marty that Trixie is working at Schoening's Diner.

 

The expo is held at the Hill Valley Civic Auditorium here instead of at the high school as in the game.

 

In panel 3 of page 22, Trixie suddenly has a rose in her hair that wasn't there in the previous two panels.

 

When Trixie sets up teen Emmett to break up his relationship with Edna, she tells them she's pregnant with his child and tells Emmett to meet her at the Bluebird Motel to go over some baby names. But, the site of the 1955 Bluebird Motel is actually the Majestic Arms Inn in 1931, a hostel for the homeless and others who need a place to stay overnight; this was established in both the game and the comic adaptation of "It's About Time".

 

Here in the comic, the statues on the clock tower are panthers as seen in most of the BTTF stories, not the sheepdogs seen in the game (however they appear to be dogs in Back to the Future: Citizen Brown #5 when the town is seen fading away around Doc and Marty).

 

On page 25, Marty's narration remarks, "...you know what they say about assuming, right?" The saying is "When you assume, you make an ASS out of U and ME."

 

Memorable Dialog

 

this isn't a science-fiction movie.mp3

I always suspected digital watches were evil.mp3

now I never want to spray paint a Buick or listen to rock music ever again.mp3

that always worked with your mom.mp3

it's a police state.mp3

I hope the other me forgives me for stealing his guitar.mp3

Calvin Klein underwear.mp3

a little short for a stormtrooper.mp3

when you wake up you'll be a whole new person.mp3

this madness about time machines and altering the past.mp3

Bizarro Hill Valley.mp3

he did that, too.mp3

a sketchy deal with a gang of Libyan nationals.mp3

it happened in the brain of a different Emmett Brown.mp3

the billions and billions guy?.mp3

a means of conveyance in the first three dimensions.mp3

train hijacking.mp3

dead to rights.mp3

layabout.mp3

Frankenstein.mp3

how does Edna end up?.mp3

aren't you planning on overwriting me?.mp3

99 percent hype, 10 percent fraud.mp3

if there was anything in this miserable world worth illuminating.mp3

so everything you've told me has been a lie?.mp3

why did you ruin my life?.mp3

alone and unloved for a very long time.mp3 

 

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