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Back to the Future
"Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" Part 3
Back to the Future: Tales from the Time Train
#3
IDW
Story by Bob Gale and John Barber
Script by John Barber
Art by Megan Levens
Colors by Charlie Kirchoff
Letters by Shawn Lee
Cover A by Megan Levens
February 2018 |
Jules and Verne become separated from their
parents while Nazi agents search for all
the
members of the
Brown family; Einstein assumes the throne.
Read the story
summary at
Futurepedia
Notes from the Back to the Future chronology
This story opens on September 21, 1939.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this story
Miss Kendall
Einstein
Lawrence
Baratarian guards
Prince Rufio
Karl
Heinrich
Albert Einstein
Doc Brown
Clara
Jules
Verne
Marty McFly (mentioned only)
Marshal Strickland (mentioned only)
Fritz
Fair Man
Frank
Adolf Hitler (mentioned only)
Didja Notice?
The uniforms worn by the royal guards of Barataria are very
similar to British Beefeater uniforms.
On page 1, Lawrence mumbles about his six years attending Le
Cordon Bleu, only to find himself now stuck in a 3-year
contract to cook for a royal dog.
Le
Cordon Bleu is a chain of culinary schools famous around
the world.
On page 5, Doc and Clara begin a tour inside the Trylon and
Perisphere, which includes a diorama called Democracity, a
model for the utopian city of the future. Democracity was an
actual exhibit at the 1939 New York World's Fair.
On page 8, Jules and Verne climb on top of the shoulders of
a giant statue at the fair to try to scope out their
parents' whereabouts. I've been unable to identify the
specific statue. We see only a little bit of it here and it
does not appear to match any of the known statues at the
1939 fair.
Also on page 8,
Jules makes reference to Occam's razor. "Occam's razor" is a
principle which suggests that the simplest possible answer
that fits the facts of a puzzle is probably the correct one.
It was devised by William of Ockham (1287–1347), an English
Franciscan friar and philosopher.
Page 9 introduces Fair Man, a
superhero mascot for the fair. This appears to have been
created for the comic and not a character who actually
appeared at the fair as far as I can find. Fair Man may be an
oblique reference by writers Gale and Barber to the
"Superman Day" event that took place at the fair the
following year on July 3, with an unidentified actor
portraying the super-hero throughout the day. |
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Jules briefly thinks that Fair Man is an actual costumed
crusader, not a myth "such as Paul Bunyan." Paul Bunyan is a
fictitious larger-than-life character of American folklore,
a giant lumberjack who performed superhuman labors.
On page 11, Fritz exclaims,
"Mein Gott in Heimmel!" This is German for "My God in
Heaven!"
On page 15, Jules and Verne, while searching for their
parents, visit the Jack Sheridan's Living Magazine Covers,
giant Underwood typewriter, and nudist exhibits, as well as
the AT&T
Bell System pavilion. These were all actual exhibits at the
fair.
On page 18, Doc surmises that Barataria must be a
Balkan-esque principality that briefly existed before his
time and after Clara's time. The Balkan peninsula of
southeastern Europe is known as a volatile region of
changing borders, principalities, and governments.
The statues seen poised in the foreground of the Trylon and
Perisphere on page 22 are George Washington and the Four
Freedoms. The Four Freedom statues are representative of
Speech, Press, Religion, and Assembly.
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