GREAT SCOTT! It’s October 21st, 2015! You know what that means right? We are living the exact time Doc Brown and Marty McFly went to in Back to the Future 2! We have to do something special for this monumental occasion. It is only fitting that we should review IDW’s Back to the Future #1 comic!
This issue had 2 short stories about Doc Brown’s life. In the first story, “When Marty Meets Emmett”, Doc is in his laboratory with his family in the wild west 1800’s. Doc starts telling the story about how him and Marty met to his kids. Without spoiling anything, this story takes a “Back to the Futurish” turn of event. The best way I could describe this story would be bland. From the most part, it felt painfully uneventful. Even with the mini twist in this story, nothing happened. The greatest part of this story was the very beginning. Doc was trailing off by giving a small history lesson about the Brown lineage and what happened to all of his land before he got into the main plot. That was more interesting than the story itself! The art that Brent Schoonover did for book also felt plain as well. It did not bring anything to the story. Most of the known characters like Marty McFly and Needles were painfully bland although, Doc was his iconic self. Â Â
In the next short story, “Looking For A Few Good Scientists”,  it takes the reader to the 1940’s where Doc Brown was a teacher at a University. Doc finds out that there was a scientist who was building a team for a special project. Wanting to desperately join the ranks, Doc does what he has to do to be noticed and tries to get into the group as well. This story is a little bit better than the previous one, but not by much. It shows a small piece of Doc’s history as a scientist and integrates him into a major point in history. The story and art was done by the same team that did IDW’s Ghostbusters (Erik Burnham & Dan Schoening) which would mean that the redesign of the character would happen. Doc himself is pretty unrecognizable from the most part but, his personlity is there.Â
The excitement to see Back to the Future in comic form has gone away from reading this book. I was expecting this 4 part mini series to be more eventful. Even with Schoening art style in the book, it does not save the reader in feeling engaged. I was expecting the beginning of a new adventure of some sort but, it seems that it is tying loose ends by doing short stories. Hopefully the 2nd issue will pick up steam (Like the time travel train!).