Brooke Bunny
A new “Back to the Future” comic series will explain how Marty and Doc came to meet in 1982.
Hitting shelves in October, the release will overseen by the trilogy’s co-writer Bob Gale and written by IDW regulars John Barber (“Transformers”) and Erik Burnham (“Ghostbusters”). The first issue will feature doodles by “Batman ’66” artist Brent Schoonover as well as “Ghostbusters”‘ Dan Schoening.
Gale tells CBR, “They came back to me with some story pitches, but they were overly focused on time travel and didn’t feel like they were really “BTTF.” So that got me thinking about what we could do in a comic series that would fit squarely in the “BTTF Universe” but not feel like an attempt to do “BTTF Part 4” or “imitation BTTF” or “BTT: The Clone Saga.”
The answer was based in the movies, particularly “Part II,” in which we see two sequences that happen “in between” the existing 1955 scenes from “Part 1”: The bit in which Biff gets his cleaned-up car back and then harasses Lorraine as she picks up her dress for the dance; and the conceit that there were two Martys doing different things during the dance.
Much the way “Part II” showed different, unseen aspects of the original movie, the comic will do the same. And then there were the fan questions. Bob Zemeckis and I had been asked many times, “How did Marty and Doc meet?” and “How did Doc’s house actually burn down?” So I thought that a series focused on tales in these areas, dealing with the characters as we know them from the movies, answering some of these questions, would be worthwhile. Maybe these stories could enhance or fill in things from the trilogy.”
While the first issue will deal with Marty and Doc crossing paths for the first time, the second will reportedly fix on how Doc got involved in the Manhattan Project and how his house was burnt down.
Years ago a telemovie, said to be titled “Back to the Beginning” was rumoured to be in the works and it would’ve covered similar ground – exploring how Marty and Doc became buddies, and so on. I don’t think there’s been any concrete confirmation on whether that project was real or a fanboy dream though.
