Back to the Future "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" Part 6 Back to the Future: Tales from the Time Train #6 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 May 2018

 

The final confrontations between time travellers, Nazis, and royal mutts at the 1939 New York World's Fair.

 

Notes from the Back to the Future chronology

 

This story opens on September 21, 1939.

Characters appearing or mentioned in this story

Doc Brown

Karl Heinrich

Jules

Verne

Albert Einstein

Clara

Fritz

Baratarian guards

Marty McFly (mentioned only)

Einstein

Prince Rufio

Minnie

Lawrence

Miss Kendall

Johan

Johan's mother (mentioned only)

Johan's grandmother (mentioned only, deceased)

Queen Jorgansen (mentioned only)

Fair Man

Didja Notice?

The "Story so far" paragraph at the beginning of this issue states that the Nazi agents plan to take the Browns (thinking they're the Einsteins) back to Berlin. Berlin is the capital of Germany.

On page 3, a woman at the fair suggests to her husband they go see Elektro again. As related in the study of "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" Part 2, Elektro was a robot (built by Westinghouse) exhibited at the 1939 World's Fair.

On page 7, a woman asks her husband if he thinks the sun worshippers are still out. "Sun Worshipper" was one of the nude shows that could be seen at the fair.

On pages 9-13, the Brown family has its showdown with the German agents next to the fair's tulip garden. This was an actual garden at the fair.

On page 9, Doc mentions President Roosevelt's Advisory Committee on Uranium and the Einstein-Szilard letter recently delivered to the president in August 1939 regarding the use of uranium in atomic fission. These are both parts of real world history that led to the Manhattan Project which developed the atomic bomb from 1942-1946. Leo Szilard (1898-1964) was a Hungarian-American physicist who conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933.

Doc tells Karl that he and his family are from the 25th Century, having traveled through a tunnel in time invented by Irwin Allen. Doc is mixing elements of two time travel related fictional series, Buck Rogers in the 25th Century (in which a 20th Century astronaut accidentally falls into a state of suspended animation and awakens in the 25th Century) and the 1966-1967 TV series The Time Tunnel, created by television and film producer Irwin Allen (1916-1991).

When Doc tells Karl he's from 500 years in the future, Karl remarks that's only halfway through the thousand year reich, so why isn't he speaking German. Adolf Hitler and the German Nazi party anticipated that their so-called Third Reich would last for a thousand years. Instead, it lasted for 12 years, 1933-1945.

One of the Baratarian guards who have been pursuing the "dognapping" Browns is revealed to be named Johan on page 10. His compatriot is not named.

On page 15, Fritz remarks to Karl that America stopped Germany from having a pavilion at the fair. This is not exactly true, though New York's Mayor La Guardia was resistant to allowing the fascists a presence at the fair, himself suggesting constructing a Chamber of Horrors exhibit culminating in "a figure of that brown-shirted fanatic who is now menacing the peace of the world." An indignant Nazi Germany pulled out of its plans to have a pavilion at the fair, citing budget pressures as the reason.

On page 20, Albert Einstein remarks that dogs are fascinating creatures, wondering what goes on in their minds. Doc mumbles to himself, "I struggled with that conundrum in 1955." Presumably, he is referring to his apparent attempt to read the mind of his 1955 dog Copernicus with the mind-reading contraption he built as very briefly seen when Marty first arrives at his house in 1955 in Back to the Future.

On page 21, Albert Einstein tells the Browns that he named his dog Minnie after the mother of the Marx Brothers, "...the greatest American geniuses of our era..." The Marx Brothers were a comedy vaudeville and film act of brothers Chico, Harpo, and Groucho, and, during the vaudeville years and for a few early films, Zeppo. The fifth Marx brother, Gummo, did not appear in any films, leaving the act after vaudeville. Minnie Marx was their mother and manager. I have not been able to confirm whether Dr. Einstein really was a Marx Brothers fan or not.

Also on page 21, Dr. Einstein states that one of his sons recently made his way to America from Switzerland. As mentioned in the study of "Welcome to the World of Tomorrow!" Part 4, Hans Einstein moved to the United States in 1938.

The final page of this story features images of the events from Doc's past time travel adventures as told in the films and the IDW comics.