Writers: Bob Gale, John Barber, Erik Burnham

Art:by Brent Schoonover, Dan Schoening, David Witt

Happy Back to the Future Day! We’ve made it to October 21, 2015. 30 years after a movie predicted them, we don’t have hoverboards or Jaws 19, but we might have a Cubs World Series win. More importantly, we still have Back to the Future, a movie franchise which continues to enamor us with time travel, mad scientists, and DeLoreans. Appropriately, IDW chose today–the day Marty and Doc arrived in the future in BTTF Part II–to release a comic based on the movie. More appropriately, it’s written by BTTF‘s original scribe, Bob Gale (with help from two scripters). So how does the story translate to comic form?

Well it’s…ok. Let me stop you right there–this isn’t going to be a bad review. The comic is just fine. These are Bob Gale’s characters and he knows what he’s doing with them. What you get in here works fine as an appropriate and well-done expansion of what’s really limited to under six hours’ worth of movies. (BTTF also had a short-lived animated series, a ride at Universal Studios, and, um, they’re doing some stuff with Lego Dimensions.) So everything you get in here is a worthy addition to the beloved movies. What’s a little disappointing, however, is that for a first issue, this story lacks any of the high-crisis explosiveness of the three films.

If you’re expecting another time-travel crisis that risks Marty and the Doc’s very existence, you’re not going to get that here. What we do get are two “prequel” stories to the franchise, with the first framed by a period that takes place between the scenes of the last film. “When Marty Met Emmett” is pretty much what it describes: it’s a flashback to 1982, when an younger teenage Marty meets the Doc for the first time after being bullied into breaking into his house. (As a bonus, the story is recounted by an older Doc telling the story to his children while they’re living in the Old West.) There’s not a lot of tension here–we know that these characters are going to be fast friends. This story is more a “life lesson” for Marty that’s fairly consistent with the character growth he experiences in the second and third films. Like I said, it’s a nice story, but not one that will make you grip your seat the way the films did.

The second story, “Looking for a Few Good Scientists,” flashes back even further and shows us the Doc as a frustrated professor at CalTech in 1943. The war in Europe is raging, and Doc is angry that he hasn’t been dragged into the war effort as his other fellow scientists have been. (I’m surprised that Gale didn’t raise the issue that the Doc might be a security risk, given that his family name was originally “Von Braun”–impliedly, he’s related to the German scientist who designed the V-2 rocket for Hitler.) This story presents a bit more tension as the Doc just might get drafted into the war effort whether he can help it or not, and it ends on a note that calls on the reader to come back for issue #2.

The art is commendable in both stories. In each case, Brent Schoonover and Dan Schoening have the tricky task of re-creating classic characters modeled on specific actors, while also having to imagine what they’d look like as younger people. Schoonover’s Marty has to look three years younger; Schoening’s Doc Brown has to lose twelve years. (I’m not sure Christopher Lloyd ever looked young.)  They pull it off–these characters look like themselves even if they limited by the abstract nature of comic art. It’s not Earth-shattering, but it does the job.

As an added bonus, there’s a one-page commentary from Gale at the end of the issue explaining his reasoning in writing the series. He explains that rather than going for “big events,” he’s using the comic to explore some of the gaps between the films. Additionally, he addresses the canonicity of this comic series, basically addressing that it’s “canon-ish” with the films themselves being the ultimate driver of the story. His ultimate message seems to be: hey, enjoy the story–we’re playing off the original and you’re going to have fun. That’s a pretty welcome message in an era where fans are constantly worrying about what “matters” and what doesn’t. As he explains–with time travel and history alteration involved, everything and nothing is canon–so just enjoy it.

Overall, this first issue isn’t a wild story, but it’s a good story that’s true to the source material and written by the original guy involved in it. If that doesn’t satisfy a BTTF fan, I don’t know what will.

Rating: a full 1.21 jigawatts.