Someone must have managed to harness 1.21 Gigawatts, because Back To The Future’s DeLorean is about to roar back into action. After writer and director Robert Zemeckis and Bob Gale recently gave the whole “over our dead bodies” speech about the possibility of a remake or sequel in their lifetime, it now looks like that ban doesn’t extend to comic books. io9 reports Bob Gale himself is set to help pen a new comic—but rather than a retelling or a sequel, the stories will focus on filling in the gaps in the narrative of the trilogy.
Published by IDW and assisted by veteran comic writers John Barber (Transformers) and Erik Burnham (Ghostbusters), the series is taking a somewhat unusual tack. It will “embed itself into the ongoing events of the films, filling in gaps from the different time periods Doc and Marty visit and offering explanations for some of the movies’ different elements.” That sounds pretty vague, but it’s not even the most unusual part: Instead of a continuous story, every issue is going to be “two separate tales, creating an anthology of short stories set in the BttF universe.” The first issue, for instance, will both detail how Marty and Doc met, and also explore Doc Brown’s time working on the Manhattan Project during WWII. It’s unclear how exactly this is “filling in the gaps” of the movies, since no one was really faulting the films for failing to explain why Doc learned so much about plutonium in the first place, but sure, why not.
A team of rotating artists will handle the pencils, beginning with Brent Schoonover and Dan Schoening. The first issue comes out in October, meaning you still have plenty of time to re-watch the series over and over, memorizing it in preparation to cackle with Comic Book Guy-like glee with you discover the first continuity error in the books.