‘Ghostbusters 101 #4’ Review
Written by Erik Burnham | Art by Dan Schoening | Published by IDW
Two teams of Ghostbusters are fighting the clock, trying to understand why their dimensions are being pulled together… even as the merging itself causes such a surge of psychokinetic energy that more ghosts than ever are coming out of the woodwork! Today’s secret phrase is: Hurry, Ghostbusters!
Now that the Ghostbusters’ universes have come together this book has hit its stride. In a way it makes you wish the previous movie went this route so we could see some of the major characters interact. Although coming from seperate dimensions did lead to some funny quips like Patty calling out the fact that Winston looks very much like a younger version of her Uncle. That could have easily been a throwaway but based on some major a sides it actually may lead to some major plot elements.
The interaction between these characters is what has made the book so far. Well, that along with the coloring that caused all of thse pages to pop. Specifically, the coloring used for the ghosts gives a lot of life to this series. Here the team travels to Ellis Island to take on the latest disturbance, which some thought may, in fact, be ghost pirates. Oh how glorious that would have been, but alas that did not occur.
Where this series has benefited is not focusing on the fact that you have one male team and one female team. Instead, it has been more on how you have a team who has been doing this for years working side by side with green rookies. Holtzmann’s itchy trigger finger for example causes things to get worse before they get better.
On the negative side is how a major problem is solved with a very simple solution. It is not uncommon for that to happen in comics. Reed Richards has a habit of creating a new crazy invention to solve whatever unsolvable problems the Fantastic Four are facing, but simply having a big gun to solve your major crisis is not very satisfying. Even if that gun was set up early on in the first few panels. When you have a group of major scientists there should be more to it than big explosions.
***½ 3.5/5
