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.

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.