Ghostbusters Comic Book

[Admiral_Young]

He did...but I guess what I mean is that they weren't goofy, like they were in this issue. They were in character if that makes sense and more natural than the ones I'm trying to point out. Maybe tomorrow I'll point out what I mean.

[Trekker4747]

Interesting "Easter Eggs" in this month's comic, bigger ones than normal. (There's usually a cut little detail you can catch if you look around in the art a bit.)

First is that Janine's date looks like Egon from "The Extreme Ghostbuters." Secondly, the Ghostbusters while in Chicago meet up with "The Rookie" from the Ghostbuters video game and still call him variations of "Rookie", his uniform still even says "Rookie" on it. (He's started up his own Ghostbusters franchise in Chicago.)

And the issue also begins a likely to be a very interesting arc where a rival Ghosbusting team has started up that claims it actually eliminates the ghosts rather than simply catching and then detaining them. It's likely this'll snowball into a big mess down the road as Egon claims this is impossible along the lines on the concept of the conservation of mass and energy.

Interesting tidbit, up until now it's mostly seemed like the comic book is set in the early/mid 1990s given the age appearance of the Ghostbusters and the timeline the book has tried to establish. Yet the rival Ghosbuster team's version of Ecto-1 is a late model station wagon, And when I say "late model" I mean the design of the station wagon is very present-day and not in line with car designs of the early 1990s.

[Anwar]

The whole plotline with the...Ghost Smashers? was it?

It's based off of the "Robo Buster" episode of the cartoon, if I'm right. That one featured a robot who also had the ability to "destroy" ghosts with Egon saying the exact same thing (the ghostly energies can't be destroyed)...the "destruction" of the ghosts had a...surprising side-effect. I think this arc will end the same way.

[Trekker4747]

Yeah, been a while since I've watched through the cartoon so I've little recall on the episode you speak of.

[Anwar]

It's on youtube, though I'm kind of hoping this comic series might use the Peoplebusters as villains for a story. They were a great antagonist group in the show.

[Trekker4747]

Well, I also have the cartoon on DVD, so.

[Admiral_Young]

Thread resurrection! I don't know if anyone is still reading IDW's Ghostbusters, but I did pick up New Ghostbusters #1 yesterday and really enjoyed it. This kind of felt like "Extreme Ghostbusters" but a better version of it. Basically what happens is that the guys are all abducted by ghost versions of themselves and dumped into some kind of extradimensional plain. Meanwhile Janine is forced to recruit and train replacements, which include herself as the "leader" and an FBI Agent named Melanie Ortiz whom I'm assuming is from Burnham's earlier run. She's friends...and I guess a potential romantic interest for Peter? Kylie Griffin who runs Ray's Occult bookstore and is a paranormal expert, and finally Ray Alexander who stole schematics and built his own proton packs and started up his own service until it went bad.

Walter Peck sees this as a chance to franchise these mostly female Ghostbusters and becomes their lisason to city hall. The deal is the only way they can remain active...Peck also knows the containment unit has a biometric security access that only the senior staff can use, so there is no way it can be shut down without them. All the girls want to do is find the guys, but the city wants them to continue to protect it.


There are a whole bunch of little easter egg details. The Viggo painting is shown, so is Peter's diploma from Columbia University. His name tag on his desk as usual. Jainine wears Egon's uniform, Ortiz wears Peter's, and Kylie wears Ray's. Nice start...I'll be following this.

[Trekker4747]

When the name changed on the book I stopped getting Ghostbusters as one of my automatic pulls at the LCS and when I looked into what was going on I was disappointed to say the least. I got into the book because it was, well, The Ghostbusters! I wanted to see Egon, Ray, Peter and Winston! Now... I don't know what to think. I've not picked up this new series, I may or may not give it a look but I have been trying to thin out my pulls. But, really, this was an odd choice for them to go in with the book.

[Anwar]

It's just a temporary arc, the guys will be back at the end of it.

I was happily surprised at the appearance of the Peoplebusters in the comic series, I thought they were one of the really good ideas in the cartoon. They seem to have combined them with the "Spectral Ghostbusters" that were also from the cartoon.

Though instead of being Ghost-Clones of the Busters (like the Spectral Ghostbusters were) or their Ghost counterparts from another universe (like the Peoplebusters were) these guys seem to be demons from our world that are summoned to "Bust" people throughout history.

[Trekker4747]

Anwar wrote:

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It's just a temporary arc, the guys will be back at the end of it.

I may check it out, but what I've heard suggests this arc is going to last a while. Strikes me as odd to change the name of the comic, makes it a bit harder to track what's going on. I was honestly confused when Ghostbusters stopped showing up in my pulls and when I looked into it I was like, "Huh. Well I don't want to read about characters I don't care about. Well, needed to thin my pulls anyway."

[Anwar]

This was just supposed to be the next issue of the series, like #17 or something. They just decided to relaunch it under a different name for some reason.

It will last 4-5 issues, so that could count as "a while" by some definition.

[Admiral_Young]

Yeah this isn't supposed to be permanent. Maybe even IDW's way of doing a type of "passing the torch" story since that has been rumoured for Ghostbusters III. Maybe this is Burnham's attempt at doing his own kind of GBIII. The guys are still around, they are just part of the sub-plot now and have to figure out where they are. It's not like they're totally gone from the book. That was never the intention with this. The back up story seems like it will be neat as well...basically what happens to the ghosts that are placed in the containment unit? We've seen episodes on this of course, and the art was of the cartoon versions as well from Burnham himself. Sam Hain greets the latest arrival. I thought the issue was quite fun myself.