About a quarter of the way through the movie Ghostbusters there’s a montage of the Ghostbusters growing not only in skill but in popularity. The trio goes from a novelty of the low budget ad, barely making ends meet, to having a business busy enough to hire a new team member and have a ghost storage closet full enough to terrorize New York. It’s simple but effective. At no point did it seem like there were any large gaps to be filled in, any looming mysteries that needed to be addressed. This doesn’t mean that it’s impossible to tell stories from that brief period, they just really need to leave an impact, justify why we are being asked to focus on the early days. “Ghostbusters: Year One” #2 attempts to tell a story to fill in the gap, and while there are some fun qualities, it ultimately falls short.
Written by Erik BurnhamCover by Dan Schoening
Illustrated by Dan Schoening
Colored by Luis Antonio Delgado
Lettered by Neil UyetakeIn anticipation of the new Ghostbusters feature film coming to theaters Summer 2020, we look back at the Boys in Grey’s first year on the job, showcasing never before seen adventures! Being interviewed for a book on the Ghostbusters, RAY STANTZ will relate some of his earlier days working with Venkman and Spengler, as well as tell the tale of their first concrete encounter with a ghost… and the eventual fate of that spectral librarian that chased them out of the New York Public Library!
One of the interesting things about the series as a whole is that the structure is solid. In theory, framing the stories as interviews for an eventual book allows for the stories to have different tones and focuses, each reflecting the individual Busters’ personality. “Ghostbusters: Year One” #2 focuses largely on Ray, the heart of the team (at least according to the comic.) The characterization of Ray is good. He reads as incredibly earnest and kind. Ray also seems to be the most altruistic of the bunch, agreeing to remove the library ghost pro bono, grateful for the help that Mr. Delacort gave them when they were starting their business. But Ray also is presented as a bit scatterbrained, which is largely presented in the way Ray presents his narrative. The issue is made up of a number of smaller vignettes with some serious prompting from Rebecca Morales to get to the story she needs for her book, showing the way Ray’s mind works. It is a mind that is always working, always coming up with ideas and theories, never in the same place for long. It works alright, but it could have been great.
It seems like Erik Burnham was trying to write “Ghostbusters: Year One” #2 in a way that is not non-linear but takes big skips in the timeline. It feels like this is designed to highlight Ray’s sometimes erratic way of thinking, a skill that proves useful in the final confrontation with the library ghost, but it’s still too clean. It would have been more interesting for Burnham to really mess with how the story is presented, having Ray throw in random asides that don’t necessarily match the story he’s telling. For instance, when Ray is first introduced, he’s telling a story about observing sponges migrating. It shows that Ray has always, to a certain degree, been interested in the unexplained, which justifies his desire to get into parapsychology. But it’s also not what the reporter is looking for. It just seems that once Rebecca gets Ray on topic, she gets the story she wants. But if the story had begun with Ray telling the story of the removal of the library ghost, but then talk about sponge migration, or how he and Egon developed the PKE meter, it would help give a clearer understanding of how his thoughts work, which also would help the resolution of the story land a little better. Ray will sometimes present ideas that seem out of left field but usually work. If the way he told stories matched the way he developed plans, there’s a chance that the story would be more memorable.
Continued belowThe actual ghostbusting ends up being one of the weaker elements in “Ghostbusters: Year One” #2. Of Ray’s four shorter stories, I found myself most interested in the short vignette about how the three of them met and became friends. It’s a perfect encapsulation of each of their personalities and what they bring to the table, with Venkman being a sleazy opportunist, Egon a no-nonsense cold brainiac, and Ray falling somewhere in the middle, enthusiastic but able to relate to others, bridging the gap and becoming friends. While it seems likely that the Egon issue will focus on the actual “making” of the ghostbusting equipment, it would have been nicer to see their friendship develop. By the time of the film, Ray and Egon seem closer than Venkman. We know that they are able to stop supernatural beings, it would be interesting to see how that natural teamwork developed. Having a story where we see the team grow and build would also work nicely with Ray being the “heart” of the team rather than a simple story of a busting.
That being said, though, the art of the supernatural was really good in “Ghostbusters: Year One” #2. Dan Schoening does a good job balancing the humor and horror of the spirits specifically. The highlight of the issue is his recreation of the librarian ghost transforming from a kindly old lady to a monster. While it’s a bit more exaggerated than in the film, it’s well done. This in large part has to do with the coloring. Luis Antonio Delgado does a magnificent job of coloring the world. There is a nice blend of lighting to really make the world feel real. Indoor settings will often have a muted tone, same with the flashbacks, and then he chooses to do a pop of color it really stands out. But when he’s coloring the ghosts and the ghostbusting equipment, that’s when the issue really looks great. There is this way of giving the ghosts a purple aura and the equipment a green aura that really makes them stand out, makes them feel like they don’t belong in a seemingly normal world. While the supernatural looks great, there were some problems with the regular character designs. Namely, they were inconsistent. While characters like Janine, the students, and the reporter all look normal, the Ghostbusters themselves have a weird caricature quality to them. This is especially true with the noses and the hair. It almost looks like Schoening is going for a blend of the actors themselves and the character designs on The Real Ghostbusters, and ends up with something that doesn’t really look like either. This really stands out when they’re interacting with other characters, making their oddly shaped features stand out that much more.
There are some fun moments in the comic, some quality Easter eggs of jokes from the larger series, but overall, “Ghostbusters: Year One” #2 feels unnecessary. There are little things they could have done to make it more memorable. Have multiple characters telling these stories together, having them contradict one another and play up the whole “unreliable narrator.” Show other aspects of them as a team outside of familiar ghosts that we’ve seen before. Focus instead on the decline of the business after the Gozer incident. There are ways to make a retrospective of the Ghostbusters fun, but in this case, the issue didn’t deliver.
Final Verdict: 4.9 “Ghostbusters: Year One” #2 has its moments, but there isn’t much to make this stand out as a Ghostbusters story.
