Luke Owen reviews Ghostbusters #16 from IDW…
Stop us if you’ve heard this one before; a Sumerian god has invaded the City that Never Sleeps, causing all manner of chaos. People are possessed. Blood rains from the sky. Dogs and cats… you get the picture. This is where you call the Ghostbusters, they break out their neutrona wands and cross the streams, taking care of business and saving the day, right? Maybe not this time!
The latest Ghostbusters on-going storyline Mass Hysteria has been a way for IDW to celebrate the 30th anniversary of this classic comedy with the people who appreciate it the most – the fans. While Burnham’s stories are always good for anyone to just dive into, this is really a story arc that uninitiated may find no joy in. Case in point, Ghostbusters #16 is page after page of references, call backs and nods to the franchise as a whole. So if you’re not a Ghostbusters aficionado, you may find nothing worthy of note here. But if you’re a fan of the the men who are here to save the world, you will have a blast.
Ghostbusters #16 basically plays as a tribute to the final scene of the original Ghostbusters. The whole team have arrived at Dana’s apartment only to discover that Tiamat has possessed the body of Miss Barrett as well as Louis Tully. So they must work their way up the many flights of stairs in order to do battle with this demon on the roof – sound familiar?
As a tribute, Ghostbusters #16 works like a dream. Burnham’s script is chock-full of little winks to the readers and artist Dan Schoening once again has a blast with the artwork. It’s been clear for sometime that the pair of them grew up on the spin-off cartoon series The Real Ghostbusters are there is a really cute moment in this issue for anyone who played with the toys during their formative years. The new recruits don’t really shine too much in this issue, but even that is made light of and acknowledged which further shows just how skilled the pair are at getting this kind of story right.
The only downside to this is that, while it’s a great tribute, you can’t really say it’s a great comic. It has its moments, but if you take out all of the references, the whole thing is very empty. Furthermore, we’re four issues into this 8-issue arc and they’ve already beaten the boss – only for the “next issue tease” telling us she’s coming back, making the whole thing seem redundant.
But isn’t this all the point? If Ghostbusters #16 is a tribute to the end of Ghostbusters, whose to say that the next set of issues won’t be tributes to Ghostbusters II, The Real Ghostbusters or even The Extreme Ghostbusters? And you can make the argument that the issue is hollow without the nods and winks, but Burnham thrives on this and so do Ghostbuster fans.
As said at the start of the review, if you’re not a fan of Ghostbusters, this won’t be the comic series to turn you on to it. But if you are, then chances are you’re already reading and loving it.
Luke Owen is one of Flickering Myth’s co-editors and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published May 29, 2014. Updated April 12, 2018.
