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Back to the Future
"When Marty Met Emmett"
Back to the Future #1
IDW
Story by Bob Gale
Story and script by Bob Gale and John Barber
Art by Brent Schoonover
Inks by David Witt
Colors by Kelly Fitzpatrick
Letters by Shawn Lee |
The origin of the Doc/Marty friendship.
Read the story
summary at
Futurepedia
Notes from the Back to the Future chronology
This story has bookends placed roughly around 1890, after Doc
and Clara are married and have their sons, Jules and Verne.
Didja Know?
The title of the story borrows from the well-known 1989 film
When Harry Met Sally..., though that film is about two
friends who become lovers! It seems a little awkward to use it
here!
Characters appearing or mentioned in this story
Doc Brown
Clara
Jules
Verne
Marty McFly
Needles
The Tabascos
music store clerk
Einstein
Didja Notice?
On page 3 of the story, Doc points out to his boys the patch
of land in Hill Valley that will become 1640 Riverside Drive
owned by the Von Brauns in 1915.
Doc says the Brown mansion burned down in 1962. He doesn't
go into any detail at all about how it happened. I
speculated in the
Back to the Future
study that Doc might have burned it down himself for the
insurance money so he could continue his research and
inventing.
On page 3 of the story, Doc reveals that his middle name is
Lathrop.
In the final panel of page 3, the drive-thru depicted is
that of the Burger King in front of Doc's garage/home as
seen in
Back to the Future.
Marty first met Doc on October 2, 1982.
Needles comes to Marty's house to "borrow" his interocitor
tube for his guitar amplifier. An interocitor tube is a
fictitious gadget, similar to a vacuum tube. The term
"interocitor" is known among science-fiction geeks as a
multi-functional device in the 1955 film This Island
Earth.
Needles' band as a youth is called The Tabascos. This is a
play on the name of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, the band
fronted by the actor who played Needles in
Back to the Future Part
II
and
Back to the Future Part III,
Flea.
On page 7 of the story, a partially-seen
poster in the music store says "Bomb Town". This is a
reference to the Lindsey Buckingham song "Time Bomb Town"
that was heard briefly in
Back to the Future.
The "M" of a Marshall amp is also seen in this
panel.
On page 8 of the story, the chain-link fence around Doc's
property has a sign on it reading, "KNOW ENTRY", an early
indication that Doc has set booby-traps on his property than
could be circumvented with some ingenuity and critical
thinking.
Marty has a different skateboard (with a flame pattern on
it) than the one seen in
Back to the Future.
Doc remarks that his dog, Einstein, is an excellent judge of
character.
Upon their first meeting, Doc tells Marty to call him
"Doc...as in 'What's up, Doc?'" "What's up, Doc?" is the
famous catchphrase of the Warner Bros. cartoon character Bugs
Bunny.
On page 14, panel 1 of the story, it appears that Doc has a
tendency to let Einstein's food bowl pile over with meat
even in 1982, just as in 1985, as seen at the beginning of
Back to the Future.
Doc mentions that he's invented a device called the
Static-O-Matic Hair Chair.
Panel 3 of the last page of the story is
what appears to be meant as a photograph of Doc, Marty, and
Einstein standing next to the DeLorean time machine. The
only time they could have taken this photo is after Marty got
back from 1955 at the end of
Back to the Future,
before Doc dropped him off at his home.
Notice also that Einstein is raising his paw in a
wave in the photo.
The photo is based on a publicity still taken for
Back to the Future Part II.
 |
Notes from the
DeLorean Time Machine: Doc Brown's Owners' Workshop
Manual
(The page numbers come from the 1st
printing, hardcover edition, published 2021) |
Page 21 references this story in
Doc's journal entry of
October 2, 1982.
Back to Back to the Future
Episode Studies
