Transformers/Back to the Future issue 1

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Publisher	IDW Publishing}}
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First published	October 7, 2020}}
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Cover date	October 2020}}
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Written by	Cavan Scott}}
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Art by	Juan Samu}}
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Colors by	David García Cruz}}
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Letters by	Neil Uyetake}}
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Editor	David Mariotte and Chase Marotz}}
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{{#if: BTTF TF 1 cvrA.jpg | {{#if: IDW Publishing | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: October 7, 2020 | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: October 2020 | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Cavan Scott | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Juan Samu | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: David García Cruz | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: Neil Uyetake | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: David Mariotte and Chase Marotz | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: | {{#if: |

{{#switch:{{#sub:xx|2|14}}|dark cybertron=}}

Marty McFly returns from his first adventure through time, certain that he's put things right—until a Decepticon plot turns Hill Valley upside-down!

Synopsis

It's a quiet night in the small Californian town of Hill Valley—a quiet night for everyone, that is, except for Marty McFly. Just an average 1985 teenager on the run from some furious Libyan terrorists, Marty commandeers his friend Doc Brown's customized DeLorean and attempts to shake off his pursuers in the parking lot of the Twin Pines Mall. But none of the humans involved in this little drama realize that they're being watched by the Decepticons Rumble and Ravage, who've infiltrated the town to find a new weapon to use against Optimus Prime and the Autobots. Unfortunately, Rumble reports, their reconnaissance mission has turned up nothing of the sort... nothing, that is, until Rumble sees Marty's car speed up, disappear, and leave a fiery trail in its wake! None of the Decepticons know what to make of this development until Soundwave orders Ravage to scan the area. Ravage detects the presence of trans-temporal particles, and Megatron deduces that the humans must have invented time travel. A befuddled Rumble corroborates this theory as he watches Marty return from the past and reunite with Doc; gleeful at the prospect of a new weapon to use against their Autobot foes, Megatron orders the two to steal the time machine.

Ravage tracks the two humans back to Marty's house in Lyon Estates, and the pair watch from the shadows as Doc gets ready to make a time trip thirty years into the future. Realizing that this might be their only chance to steal the DeLorean, Rumble prepares one of his signature earthquakes and prepares to nab the car amidst the confusion... only for Bumblebee to speed out of the darkness, transform, and order the two to surrender! Bumblebee has no clue what the villains are planning, but is bent on taking them down—although, as Optimus reminds him from the Ark, they can't afford to let the nearby humans know about their existence. Indeed, when the two humans overhear the scuffle between Bumblebee and Ravage, they investigate, but only find an ordinary Volkswagen, and a cassette lying in the middle of the road. When Doc picks up Ravage, curious as to the contents of the tape, Bumblebee reverses towards the pair, scares Doc into dropping the cassette, then runs over the Decepticon as Marty yanks Doc to safety. Despite Marty's concerns over a potential assassin, Doc dismisses the incident as insignificant, more concerned with his impending time trip as he bids Marty goodbye and takes off into the future. Bumblebee watches the light show from the shadows, but when Prime orders him to return to base, the Autobot trundles off, while an exhausted Marty sneaks into his house and falls asleep...

Only a few hours later, however, Marty's father George drags him out of bed at five in the morning and sternly reminds his son that they can't be late for their shift. Marty's confused by his father's words and the sight of his family wearing identical jumpsuits, and doubly confused when the looming figure of Blitzwing herds the McFlys and their neighbors aboard a futuristic transport, which shuttles them downtown into the ruins of what was once Hill Valley's town square. In this timeline, however, Marty's home has become a slave camp where humans toil to produce energon cubes for the new rulers of Earth: the Decepticons! Marty knows that something's gone wrong with the timestream, but his words only put his family on edge, and supervisor Biff Tannen orders him to shut up and get to work. At that moment, however, Starscream arrives, demanding an explanation for why the Hill Valley work camp is below its energon quota. As Starscream lays into Biff, Marty ignores his father's advice to keep his head down and makes a stand against the aliens by using a trash can lid as his improvised weapon against the Cybertronian. Unfortunately, Marty's attack only bounces off Starscream's armor, and the Decepticon flier promptly gives chase.

Luckily, Marty finds an abandoned skateboard amidst the rubble; he evades Starscream's energy blasts and hitches a ride on Long Haul as the Decepticon carries away a load of energon cubes to gain speed, but not even the expert skateboarder can dodge Starscream's blasts forever; when a glancing blow knocks Marty off his feet, Starscream closes in for the kill. It seems like the end... until a sonic boom and a blast of light heralds the arrival of a familiar DeLorean, which promptly knocks the Decepticon into an abandoned building. At first, Marty thinks that Doc's returned to help fix everything... up until the DeLorean transforms and tells him that he needs Marty's help to save the future!

Featured characters

{{#if:* Bumblebee (9)

Optimus Prime (10)
Hound (11)
Gigawatt (22)|

{{#if:* Bumblebee (9)

Optimus Prime (10)
Hound (11)
Gigawatt (22)|| style="background:#ffdddd;" valign="top" |
Bumblebee (9)
Optimus Prime (10)
Hound (11)
Gigawatt (22) }}{{#if:* Ravage (3)
Rumble (4)
Megatron (5)
Soundwave (6)
Blitzwing (16)
Scrapper (17)
Thundercracker (18)
Long Haul (20)
Starscream (21)|

Autobots }}{{#if:* Ravage (3) Rumble (4) Megatron (5) Soundwave (6) Blitzwing (16) Scrapper (17) Thundercracker (18) Long Haul (20) Starscream (21)\|	Decepticons }}{{#if:* Libyan terrorists (1) Marty McFly (2) Doc Brown (7) George McFly (12) Linda McFly (13) Dave McFly (14) Lorraine Baines-McFly (15) Biff Tannen (19)\|	Humans }}{{#if:* Einstein (8)\|	Others }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}{{#if:\|	Misc }}
Ravage (3) Rumble (4) Megatron (5) Soundwave (6) Blitzwing (16) Scrapper (17) Thundercracker (18) Long Haul (20) Starscream (21) }}{{#if:* Libyan terrorists (1) Marty McFly (2) Doc Brown (7) George McFly (12) Linda McFly (13) Dave McFly (14) Lorraine Baines-McFly (15) Biff Tannen (19)\|	Libyan terrorists (1) Marty McFly (2) Doc Brown (7) George McFly (12) Linda McFly (13) Dave McFly (14) Lorraine Baines-McFly (15) Biff Tannen (19) }}{{#if:* Einstein (8)\|	Einstein (8) }}{{#if:\|	}}{{#if:\|	}}

Quotes

"The space-time continuum is full of infinite possibilities and alternate timelines in its unending nooks and crannies. These include events and histories that could have happen, have happened, may never happen, have been erased from existence or exist entirely as conjecture. How then do we classify this tale? For now, suffice to call it entertainment. As a physicist, I can speculate no further."

—Doc Brown's prologue

"An audio cassette?"
"Hey—does the time machine have a tape player? It might be Van Halen!"

—Doc and Marty

"Hello? Hello? Anybody home? Think, human, think. Hill Valley is behind on its quota. Maybe Megatron was wrong to trust you."

—The bully becomes the bullied as Starscream yells at Biff

"Marty—wait! What are you doing?"
"Oh, you know me, Mom—just goofing around!"

—Lorraine objects to Marty taking on Starscream

"Marty McFly, I need you to come with me. To save the future! To save everything!"

—Gigawatt

Notes

Continuity notes

IDW Publishing previously published multiple Back to the Future comics between 2015–2018, and, much like the company's other licensed properties, used the films to springboard an expanded universe that picks up where [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Back to the Future Part III|{{#if:||Back to the Future Part III}}]] left off: a 25-issue ongoing, two miniseries, and a comic adaptation of the [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Back to the Future: The Game|{{#if:2010 video game|2010 video game|Back to the Future: The Game}}]]. In a cute touch, this comic opens with a note from Doc Brown himself, who points out that, although this comic isn't canon with regards to IDW's main Back to the Future universe, the space-time continuum is infinite...
This story spins out of the ending of the [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Back to the Future|{{#if:first film|first film|Back to the Future}}]], and the comic opens with a condensed retelling of that movie. Rumble and Ravage watch Marty escape the angry Libyans whom Doc had swindled to build his DeLorean time machine and accidentally travel back in time to 1955, then watch him return and reunite with Doc Brown, revealed to have survived his seemingly-fatal death by wearing a bulletproof vest after Marty warned his younger self, thirty years in the past, of his death in 1985. This is, therefore, the "second" iteration of the Back to the Future timeline, but see "Errors", below...
The next scene sees Marty return to his house in Lyon Estates while Doc prepares for a trip to the year 2015. Just like in the movie, Doc describes the 30-year trip through time as a "nice round number", and, after their encounter with Bumblebee, Marty tells Doc to find his 47-year old self in 2015 and warns him about the DeLorean's bumpy re-entry.
Back to the Future ended with Marty returning home to find his family had drastically changed as a result of his adventure in 1955: his father had become confident and assertive, his mother more comfortable with herself, and his two siblings led successful lives. In this Decepticon-ruled timeline, however, that transformation hasn't happened, and the McFlys remain dowdy and meek.
Biff Tannen, on the other hand, has enjoyed quite the leg up in this new timeline. No longer just George's jerkish boss, the longtime bully has risen to become coordinator of the energon-processing slave camp that was once Hill Valley. In an ironic reversal, however, it's Starscream who delights in pushing the human around; at one point, he raps on Biff's skull with his finger and sarcastically demands to know if anyone's home, which was Tannen's preferred method of belittling his victims in the movies.
As Marty contemplates rebellion, George warns his son to remember "what happened to Needles." Though Douglas J. Needles was a very minor character in the films, he became a recurring antagonist in IDW's Back to the Future comics and even scored a spotlight issue of his own... although it seems unlikely that we'll run into him in this timeline!

Transformers references

Rumble compares the parking lot battle to the "gladiator pits back home", referencing the gladiatorial bloodsports that have become a key part of Megatron's backstory in the last decade. Indeed, Rumble and Frenzy took part in these underground fights in IDW Publishing's Megatron Origin comics.
While most of the other characters are drawn to resemble stylized versions of their cartoon character models, Soundwave stands out—the buttons on his waist immediately mark him as being based off his 2007 "Music Label" toy. Just like IDW's concurrent Transformers comic, Transformers vs. The Terminator, and My Little Pony/Transformers: Friendship in Disguise!, he speaks using the rectangular, blue-tinted speech bubbles that originated in IDW's rebooted Transformers universe.

Back to the Future references

Catchphrases abound: Marty describes the new Hill Valley as "heavy"; Biff Tannen calls Marty a "butthead" while his own "Hello? Think McFly, think!" routine gets turned back on him by Starscream, and it's Gigawatt who gets to sling Doc's famous exclamation: "Great Scott!"
The second half of the comic begins with a new spin on a running gag from the Back to the Future film series: Marty falls asleep in an alternate time period, then one of his family members wakes him up. In the first film, this was his teenage mother in the year 1955; in the [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Back to the Future Part II|{{#if:second|second|Back to the Future Part II}}]], it was an alternate version of his mom in a dystopian 1985; in Part III, it was his great-great-grandmother in the year 1885. In this comic, his father George gets the honor.
The post-apocalyptic Hill Valley includes the famous courthouse that was central to the plot of the first movie. Though the rest of the town is in ruins, the courthouse still sports its famous clock, frozen at 10:04 PM after lightning struck the building in 1955.
Marty's escape from Starscream homages the chase scene in the first Back to the Future film, where he escaped from the teenage Biff and his gang. Just like in that movie, Marty makes his getaway on a skateboard and hitches a ride on a passing truck. The chase ends when Gigawatt's arrival sends Starscream flying into an abandoned fertilizer building, continuing a running gag from the movies where the film's antagonist (Biff Tannen in the first two, his great-grandfather Buford in the third) gets covered in manure.

Real-life references

When Doc and Marty find Ravage in his alternate mode, Marty wonders if the cassette might have [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Van Halen|{{#if:Van Halen|Van Halen|Van Halen}}]] on it. In a rather unfortunate coincidence, this comic was released only a day after the passing of the band's lead guitarist and namesake, [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}Eddie Van Halen|{{#if:Eddie Van Halen|Eddie Van Halen|Eddie Van Halen}}]].

Errors

The first act of Back to the Future features a car chase in the parking lot of Twin Pines Mall that leads to Marty accidentally travelling back to November 1955. While in the past, he runs over one of the pine trees growing on the farmland that existed before the mall was built; as a result, Twin Pines Mall is now "Lone Pine Mall" when Marty returns to 1985. Doc is wearing his bulletproof vest, clearly establishing this as the "second timeline" created as a result of Marty's interference, but the sign on page one still shows the "Twin Pines" logo.
On page two, Soundwave sports white shoulders and forearms with red stripes. When he next appears on page three, however, he's colored with solid blue shoulders, and the red stripes on his forearms are positioned to match his Music Label toy.
In the first Back to the Future film, the DeLorean uses plutonium to generate the (say it with us now) 1.21 gigawatts necessary to power the onboard flux capacitor. At the end of the first film, Doc Brown goes to the year 2015; he returns in the cliffhanger ending, having installed a futuristic "Mr. Fusion" generator from that era to power the time circuits in lieu of the plutonium chamber. In this comic, however, the DeLorean already has the Mr. Fusion generator on page one, perhaps due to the comic's artist using Gigawatt's toy as a reference point.
On page seven, Optimus is missing his horns.
When Marty returns home, the clock by his bed reads "12:20". In the original Back to the Future film, however, he went to Twin Pines Mall and had his time-travel adventure at 1:21 AM. Marty did set the DeLorean to return to 1985 a few minutes before he left, but not that early!
It’s never explained how Marty retained his memories after the timeline changed around him, since he wasn’t the one mucking about in the past. This is especially noteworthy as this issue was brought up in the second film! When Marty expressed concern about leaving Einstein and Jennifer in post-apocalyptic 1985, Doc assured him that neither would have any memory of Biff-world as the timeline changed around them.

Other trivia

In a curious bit of toy-accuracy, the DeLorean is missing the "DMC" logo on its front grill throughout the comic—an omission that probably owes something to Gigawatt's real-world toy not being licensed by the [[wikipedia:{{#if:|:}}DeLorean Motor Company|{{#if:||DeLorean Motor Company}}]].

Covers (9)

Cover A: Doc and Marty encounter Gigawatt, by Juan Samu and David García Cruz
Cover B: Slaves of the Decepticons, by Philip Murphy
Retailer incentive cover A: Bumblebee, Marty, and Doc, by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado
Retailer incentive cover B: Live-action photo of Gigawatt's toy
Jolzar Collectibles exclusive cover: Marty runs from the Autobots, by Diego Galindo
Scorpion Comics exclusive cover A: Marty and Doc Brown encounter Optimus Prime, by Livio Ramondelli
Scorpion Comics exclusive cover B: Megatron menaces Marty, by Livio Ramondelli
New York Comic-Con exclusive cover: Gigawatt joins The Pinheads, by Andrew Griffith and David García Cruz
Big Country Comics exclusive cover: Doc, Marty, and Gigawatt take a trip through time, by Hugh Rookwood