Plot
A case brings the prime Ghostbusters to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where an investigation of a haunted artifact leads them deep into a supernatural emergency. The entity at the heart of the case claims connections to Atlantis, which it calls "Atlas' Land," a reference to the mythological Atlas, considered the first king of Atlantis, and turns out to be linked to Poseidon, also known by his epithet Ennosigaios ("Earth-Breaker"). The ghost can produce earthquakes and commands a flood of psychomagnotheric slime. The chase runs from the Met through the Firehouse, Penn Station, Battery Park, and Liberty Island, with Egon's body temporarily transmogrified during the confrontation. Janine Melnitz appears in her then-current role as Paranormal Contracts Oversight Commission (PCOC) liaison, a position she took on at the end of the Crossing Over series.
Ray classifies the entity as a Class 4 even though its true name is never established within the story. The guest cast includes Dr. Abner Polk, Chief Graver (a returning character from Volume 2), and brief appearances by Walter Peck via allusion and the Vigo portrait in the Firehouse background.
Covers
Cover A features a Poseidon statue head in the upper-right corner, rendered by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado.
Cover RI (interconnected) was part of a single large image spanning all four issues of the mini-series, with line art by Anthony Marques and colors by J. Bone.
Cover RE (convention exclusive, interconnected) was drawn by Dan Schoening and features a crowd of iconic Ghostbusters characters and entities: Gozer, the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, Vigo, the Scoleri Brothers, the Library ghost in her transmogrified form, Slimer, Zuul, Vinz Clortho, Ecto-1, and the four prime Ghostbusters with Proton Packs and Ecto Goggles. All four convention covers were sold as a bundle at San Diego Comic Con 2019 at Booth 2729.
A collected trade paperback, the Ghostbusters 35th Anniversary Collection TPB, reprints all four issues and corrects a balloon attribution error from page 8 of this issue (Winston's dialogue was mistakenly attached to Ray in the original printing).
Development
The path to this issue began in summer 2018, immediately after the Crossing Over event. On June 14, 2018, Burnham hinted that the next story would not involve a dimensional-travel component, and on July 18, 2018, he estimated it would arrive in 2019. By November 7, 2018, Burnham disclosed during a podcast that there was a pitch involving a new Ecto vehicle, a submarine, that had not yet been approved. That submarine idea influenced the Ecto Submarine imagery that appears in the finished issue even though the vehicle itself was not formally introduced.
On December 11, 2018, Tom Waltz publicly outlined the 2019 publishing plan: a four-issue weekly event in April celebrating the 35th anniversary of the original film, each issue starring a different Ghostbusters team with its own creative team. Three covers per issue were planned: a Cover A by the issue's own artist, interconnected Cover RI panels by Anthony Marques, and interconnected convention Cover RE panels by Dan Schoening. Waltz posted rough cover thumbnails and uncolored art throughout December 2018 and into early 2019 as production progressed.
On April 1, 2019, IDW published a preview article with quotes from Burnham and Editor-in-Chief John Barber alongside five pages of interior art ahead of the April 3 release.
