#ghostbusters comic

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Dude I love the ghostbusters so much, like...it's unreal. Most of my opinions and enjoyment I have already voiced, but I have always wanted to talk about Eugene Visitor. And Maybe I have.

I'll do it again.

Greetings lethals and villains-it is spooky time and I decided to go chatter about a Halloween classic: the ghostbusters series. Granted I don’t consider the original Ghostbusters this sacred golden cow of cinema but it is one of those franchises that gives way to a lot of flexibility if the two animated series and comic lines have shown us anything. The first one has the best jokes, the second has the best storyline, and Afterlife has the most heart. I’ll admit I didn’t like Answer the Call….on its own terms. A lot of the scenes dragged on to get to the point or the jokes were repeated until they just lost all amusement. And there was just this undertone of unnecessary bitterness that just…why? I could even forgive the special effects if the writing was better. What is crazy is that it wasn’t the story or character concepts themselves that were bad because both Channel Awesome and Lego Dimensions could take those ideas and actually make them funny. Heck the IDW line did a mostly female team arc in their main Ghostbusters series about two years prior to the film and I highly recommend it.

Thinking about that; if they had used the basis of that story for the film-it would have been a huge improvement and maybe I’ll squawk about that one another day. One of the boons that came from Answer the Call was that a lot of the IDW Ghostbusters comics were on sale on Comixology way back in the days before Amazon and their meddling with the UI of the site. Which is really frustrating now especially when you live in the middle of nowhere and you would have to drive almost an hour to get my wings on comics and manga.

Which actually brings us to this mini series that is based off the Answer the Call team. This isn’t the first time they were featured in comics, that would be the crossover miniseries: Ghostbusters 101. Unfortunately that crossover is the weakest out of the six crossover specials but this is another discussion for another time. Though their comic journey would be improved in this 5 part miniseries and the Crossing Over event.

These issues would come out in 2018 and in timeline it would take place after 101 with the story written by Kelly Thompson and the artwork done by Corin Howell. The story begins inside a brownstone house and the team is fighting a ghost child. After the capture we see that something is up with Abbey. Back at base Patty is researching up the history of the place and finds something disturbing-that the house used to be come to a Doctor Kruger.

On the nose, I know-even the comic admits that and that he was researching nightmares. And then it shows Abbey being possessed. Holtzman brings out a new weapon and starts technobabbling like she did in the movie and Patty and Erin actually tell her to shut it. On a side note-one thing I will give the movie credit for is the variances of the proton functions and other tools. Sure they will use the basic wand shooters for most jobs-but when they are facing a different sort of enemy-they know they have to vary things up as we shall see later in the mini. Anyway, while they do recuse Abbey-Kruger uses Intimidate and then runs off. In the next issue they chase Kruger into the Empire State building but he is able to push back the capture streams. When they question why-Kruger gives them a demonstration of just what he is capable of even in his current power level by putting them each into their own personal nightmares. Erin is chased by giant bees. Abby is surrounded by clowns, Patty by creepy dolls, and Holtzman surrounded by automatons.

But if you look a second time there is a second nightmare underneath all that. Both Erin and Abbey have a fear of being laughed at and mocked by the scientific community despite their research and evidence. Patty being left behind by the others because she is not a scientist like the rest of the crew. And Holtzman being unable to escape the pressure of conformity. Again it is a nice little character moment that plays into the narrative without halting the plot.

Kruger leaves them behind and as Holtzman puts it afterwards he does not see them as an actual threat to his goals. But after a pep talk they head back to the firehouse to make a new plan and gather information. They realize the only way to really beat him is to either increase firepower (which they can’t do through legal means) or outsmart Kruger on his own turf-the latter being decided. After a joke about memory implantation and soup they discover they all share a singular experience from years ago and they can use that experience to level the playing field.

Back at the empire building they face off-though with some hiccups they manage to capture the field and have a plate of nightmare scrambled eggs. The end.

Honestly this comic is what the film should have been. It captures what is best about the franchise-a horror comedy that is still a fun adventure with some snark in the mix. In my opinion it addresses some of the issues of the 2016 film but fixes them in a more subtle way as opposed to shining a flashlight on them. I won’t go though every gag in this book but there is a clever running gag involving Kevin and the phones. The first time they didn’t receive calls because Kevin unplugged the phone. Later in the next book Kevin had cut the phone line but Abby had a storehouse of phones. And finally in the last book they bring up he can run the siren if he can master the phone plugged in. It’s a cute and clever bit of humor that varies it up enough and spaced so the gag actually works.

Though I wouldn’t say the comic is perfect. It’s biggest issue is that it tends to repeat the same story beats for the five issues. They encounter Kreuger, he scares them, he gets away-encounter, scare, escape-encounter, scare win. It really disrupts the flow even for a comic miniseries.