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Back to the Future
"Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" Part 4
Back to the Future: Tales from the Time Train
#4
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
March 2018 |
Everyone searches for Einstein.
Notes from the Back to the Future chronology
This story opens on September 21, 1939.
Characters appearing or mentioned in this story
Jules
Verne
Einstein
Prince Rufio
Karl
Heinrich
Fritz
Albert Einstein (mentioned only)
Adolf Hitler (mentioned only)
Miss Kendall
Lawrence
Baratarian guards
Doc Brown
Clara
Marty McFly (mentioned only)
Minnie
Didja Notice?
On page 4, Karl remarks that Albert
Einstein fled Germany six years ago. This is true. He fled
after the rise German Chancellor Hitler in 1933 and accepted
a residency at the Institute for Advanced Study, in
Princeton, New Jersey.
Thinking that Jules and Verne are Einstein's
sons, Fritz comments that German intelligence had told them
the children were in Switzerland. Einstein's real children,
Hans and Eduard, lived with their mother, Marić, who
divorced Einstein in 1919, in Switzerland, though Hans moved
to the United States in 1938, so would be in-country at the
time of this story.
On pages 5-8, we get a glimpse of the
Wonder Bread pavilion,
mentioned by Doc in
"Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" Part 2.
Illustrated characters from Alice in Wonderland are
seen in the Wonder Bread pavilion.
Alice in Wonderland is an 1865 novel by Lewis Carroll
about a girl transported to Wonderland, a hidden, surreal,
and semi-mystical world that does not run by the same rules
as the normal world.
On page 7, Doc comments to Clara that the
wheat field in the Wonder Bread pavilion is the first one in
New York since 1875. This is, indeed, how the wheat field at
the World's Fair was billed.
Upon entering the New York wheat field, Doc says to
Clara, "We're not in Kansas anymore," and "There's no place
like home." These are both quotes from the 1939 film version
of The Wizard of Oz. Doc is making an ironic
comment with the first quote since Kansas is known for its
wheat fields.
On page 8, panel 5, the
General Motors
Building of the World's Fair is seen in the background.
On page 13, Doc and Clara run past an exhibit featuring an
automobile with a transparent,
Plexiglas body. This was a
1939 Pontiac, often called the Ghost Car, built for the
World's Fair to show off the vehicle's durable frame and
lush interior appointments.
After passing the Ghost Car, Doc and Clara enter the
Futurama. This was a World's Fair exhibit where guests rode
a moving sidewalk that took them over a diorama of a
futuristic vision of the United States.
On page 15, when the Barataria guard falls off the skywalk,
Doc assures Clara he'll be fine, saying, "...one time Marty
fell off a cliff that must have been six times as high and he
was fine...of course I was there to save him..." When did
this occur? We don't see it in any of the
Back to the Future
stories told so far.
Back to Back to the Future
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