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.