Book Review: Back to the Future: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines

Back to the Future: Untold Tales and Alternate Timelines by Bob Gale

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects the initial four issue mini-series of the Back to the Future comic book series as well as the fifth issue. It's written by Bob Gale, the co-writer of Back to the Future, and he gives the entire book an authentic feel.

Gale decided to write a series where there was no real thru storyline. The stories are all things that occurred before the movies or in between films, thus the title. Were given more short vignettes such as how Doc and Marty met and we get to see the newspaper that led Doc to a cheap used Delorean as well as how Doc's how burned down. These stories aren't bad, but they're not particularly funny or brilliant. There's a reason why they didn't film this. Still, the book is never bad or boring, but most of it was kind of so-so. The best most of the stories did was be slightly amusing. However, if you're a bigger Back to the Future buff than I am, you may enjoy this more than I did.

However, the last of these Untold Tales story is really good and addresses a great question as to what happened when Doc went back to the future and how did he get the money for all the improvements to the DeLorean. It's actually pretty finally.

The final issue blew me away. It gave us Clara's story. I'd just always thought of her as the woman who married Doc Brown who was a schoolteacher, but Gale gives her a very moving and poignant backstory that draws on a lot of ideas from the movie and show the challenge she faced growing up a woman with her interests in the 19th century. It also offers more insight on Doc's trip to the dystopian 2015. This issue is outstanding and makes the entire book worth reading.

So overall, I'd give it a 3.5 star rating.



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