We’ve reached the end of the Back to the Future (BTTF) modern day comic books, at least for the moment. This last set – not including Tales from the Time Train – is issues 19 to 25, spanning two arcs (“Hard Time” and “Time Served”). However, as that second arc follows off the first, it’s sensible for me to cover them together. As per usual, stories are by John Barber & Bob Gale, and the art by Marcelo Ferreira continues from issue 18. (In issues 22, 24 & 25, Athila Fabbio also has an art credit.) The above banner is from the cover of Issue 21. We begin where Issue 19 mentions Professor Marcus Irving and Doc Brown repairing the DeLorean (for more information there, you could read my prior BTTF column).
JAILBIRD JOEY
Hey, remember Marty’s uncle? It’s 1986, and we see him being released from prison. Moreover, Joey Baines will be staying in Marty’s room until he’s “back on his feet”. Marty’s peeved, but his brother Dave remembers Joey was Marty’s favourite uncle. This prompts Marty to wonder what it was Joey did to get incarcerated. A two page spread shows Marty asking around, with Doc Brown in particular imploring his assistant to “stay away from Joey”. Jennifer Parker researches with Marty in the library, learning Joey broke into the house of one Mrs. Ellsworth, her money was stolen, and Joey wouldn’t give up any accomplices.
When Marty gets home, he finds a package for Joey, one which contains a ripped painting and the message “together we can find the loot”. He hides the package. Issue 20 starts with some Baines’ family time, which Marty soon flees to crash at Doc’s. Doc is out, but Marty tells Professor Irving everything… which prompts Irving to take Marty back in time to 1972. The Professor is hoping they can save Joey on the night of the theft, much the way he himself was saved. But when they go to scout out the Ellsworth place, they find Doc Brown there – with his mother. She remarried and took on a new last name. The two decide it’s better to return to the present, only now the DeLorean is missing.
Issue 21 begins with Irving wondering whether his interaction with Doc caused time travel to never be invented. But Marty’s not fading away, so he counters someone simply stole their car. They split up to check both possibilities, Irving having some walkie-talkies to stay in touch. This ends with Doc chasing Irving off again, convinced that he’s in league with Colonel Lomax (from issue two), while Marty ends up spying on the Baines residence, overhearing a conversation there before seeing Joey run off. This leads to Joey encountering Marty, and both of them running into Biff Tannen and his gang, ending the “Hard Time” arc.
THE BROWN FORTUNE
In issue 22, thirty-five year old Biff is baffled by the resemblance of Marty to Calvin Klein, from 1955. Marty doubles down, saying Calvin was his dad, and that his parents left town after he was conceived. Which is when Professor Irving calls, Biff grabbing Marty’s walkie-talkie. A bad connection makes Irving think he’s talking to Marty, and Biff think they’re looking for someone named Dorian. Mention of Doc’s name then makes Biff think they’re also after the missing Brown fortune.
Irving heads off with a group to see if the DeLorean got towed, while his appearance at Doc Brown’s garage has caused 1972 Doc to return home. Meanwhile, Biff takes Marty and Joey to “Dorian Ellsworth”‘s home, saying that if Joey wants to be part of his gang, they’ll go in and grab the old lady’s money. It’s supposedly in a cigar box. All threads begin to come together in issue 23, when Joey admits to Marty (aka Kevin Klein) about why he wants to be in the gang with Biff. (See the issue for that!) They break in as Doc is dozing, Joey saying to grab a few things, so that the police don’t know what they broke in for. Marty takes a painting.
Unfortunately, Joey trips Doc’s “anti-gravity device”. Fortunately, Marty escapes with the device still suspending Joey in the air. Unfortunately, the power cuts out, bringing Mrs. Ellsworth in on the chaos. Fortunately, they make it to Biff, but unfortunately the police are on the way too. Biff bolts, and Irving (who escaped the police himself – again, read the issues for his subplot) picks Marty up in a van. This leaves Joey holding the bag, literally, as he says this was his fault and opts to stay behind. Oh, and the cigar box is empty.
BACK TO THE FUTURE
Marty makes an interesting assertion near the start of issue 24, stating “I spent fourteen years blaming him [Joey] for letting down mom, but now he’s going to prison because he didn’t turn me in! I was his accomplice!” (More on that below.) Biff, still with the walkie-talkie, chases down the van Marty and Irving are in. When his gang eavesdropped, and realized Joey didn’t have the money, they figured Marty got it. But Marty only has the painting. Biff rips it free, and heads off with a threat, only to have Doc show up. The 1986 Doc.
Apparently Doc modified his DeLorean remote to include nonlinear recall, and so when he brought the car back to the future, he knew the time they’d travelled to. He returns Marty and Irving to 1986, saying they should go home. Except there was a map on the back of the painting – the same one Marty had hidden back in issue 19! So when Marty takes his ripped piece to the painting at his home… Biff (who left the package) and Joey show up. They want to see if the Brown fortune is buried where the ‘X’ is marked.
The four of them drive out to the location, Marty and Irving forced to do some digging. Soon a large box is unearthed, and Biff gets excited – only to have Joey punch him. Joey admits he wanted Marty to see him doing the right thing. He’ll be returning the money to Mrs. Ellsworth’s son. But it’s not money! It’s the “anti-gravity device” in the box, and Biff gets suspended as he makes a grab for it. In the process, Marty and Irving get knocked off a cliff. Fortunately, they get rescued by Doc in the DeLorean, who finally tells his side: he had buried the money, but then dug it up years ago.
In a final twist, the “anti-gravity device” is the component Doc needs to complete the time train, so he’ll be heading back to 1893 (and the sequel book Tales from the Time Train). They do release Biff, but leave him in the woods. Finally, Joey heads off to New York, deciding it will be a fresh start, parting on good terms with his family.
IN SUMMARY
The most interesting thing I found about this set of issues is the element of predestiny that’s woven in. In particular, Marty’s assertion that “he was the accomplice”. Except we know that’s not how time travel works in the BTTF universe – malls and ravines get renamed thanks to actions in the past. Marty could NOT have originally been part of Joey’s arrest, so presumably Biff (or one of his gang members) was the accomplice. But then what prompted Biff to decide to go to Ellsworth’s that night? And most damning of all, what about the ripped painting?
Related, we have the “anti-gravity device” being found at the end, sending Doc back into the past… to become the Doc from the end of the third movie, who arrives in the time train. So if this arc had not happened, meaning they had not dug up the box, what might have been the event prompting Doc to seek it out? (He says he’d forgotten about burying it.) Or was this arc predestined… making Doc’s final assertion in the third movie that “your future hasn’t been written yet” a bit suspect?
More than any of the previous arcs in the comic, this one made me question how history unfolded before the time travel occurred. We never get to see it, having only a few references that might piece things together. I wonder, would anyone who didn’t know the movies (or who didn’t think to consider them) have had similar issues?
At any rate, other aspects like characterization remain well done. Irving still has some of his germ phobia (though he seems to be getting over it), George and Lorraine were well portrayed (George also has a whole subplot I didn’t discuss), and the loose end of Joey (and his cake) was a pretty clever way to bring in Lorraine’s family. We only ever knew about them from the dinner scene in 1955 (after Marty was struck by the car). The art style is also on point, including different colouring for the few flashback scenes that occur.
So, do you have any opinions on Joey being used as a plot device? How do you feel about the temporal elements as they were portrayed? (Personally, I’m wondering how Doc’s DeLorean recall mechanism knows how to grab the most recent version of the car, particularly if it jumps around in time a bit… and is there a passenger sensor?) Finally, would you be up for seeing Marty and Professor Irving on another time travel adventure, as Doc is off doing his own thing? Thanks for reading, and please do let me know your opinion, if you have the time.
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