At the end of Back to the Future Part III, Marty asks Doc if he and his newly revealed family will be going back to the future. “Nope, already been there,” Doc answers, as his train lifts off the ground with a hover conversion he presumably got on that trip and flies away.
It’s the final line of in the trilogy and opens to the door to a whole new adventure. When did Doc and his family go to the future and what happened there? Well, now, a new IDW comics series is going to tell that story.
Scheduled for release December 27, Back to the Future: Tales from the Time Train is a new comic from IDW which is co-written by Bob Gale and John Barber, with art by Megan Levens.
“We were talking about it with our editor, with IDW, and the idea of doing a story about Doc, Clara, Jules and Verne — his whole family — it seemed like a good starting point for a good story,” Barber told The Hollywood Reporter. “It picks up right at the end of Back to the Future Part III from Doc’s point of view.”
Well, sort of, according to franchise co-creator Bob Gale.
“We’re trying to make sure none of the fans call us out for screwing up the continuity of it,” Gale added. “At the end of Back to the Future Part III, when the Time Train flies away, Marty says, ‘Where you going now, Doc, back to the future?’ Doc says, ‘Nope, already been there.’ I said to John, ‘Well, we’ve gotta pay that off. Doc’s already been to the future? We’ve got to show that.’”
Which, of course, would’ve happened before the ending of the third movie. And after, kind of. Plus the animated series covered some of this. Time travel is confusing.
All kidding aside, doing a comic with the Browns as the main characters is a smart idea. It allows the writers to tell stories in-between the films, since Marty and Jennifer meet the Browns several years after the boys are born, as well as future stories, of where the family goes after. There’s no end to the potential.
Anyway, the first issue of the new series will be out December 27.
Update: Here’s the cover.