Story
Rebecca Morales picks up threads from her earlier interviews before sitting down with Egon. She revisits a moment with Janine Melnitz at the Empire Diner, a scene with Ray Stantz at the American Society for Psychical Research library on West 73rd Street, and a Central Park conversation with Peter Venkman, all of which touch on her central subject: Egon's peculiarities, his diet of junk food, and what his colleagues make of him. Winston Zeddemore accompanies the main action, meeting Rebecca outside the Firehouse alongside Officer Mike from the 41st Precinct.
The crux of the issue is the story Egon tells about the team's first real use of the Containment Unit after capturing Slimer at the Sedgewick Hotel. The field had not been properly neutronized, a procedural error Egon openly acknowledges. As a result, Slimer escapes confinement in the Firehouse basement and steals a prototype Proton Grenade that Egon had been developing. Egon warns the others that discharging the grenade inside the building would be effectively the same as crossing the streams. The Ghostbusters chase Slimer to nearby Tribeca Park, just steps from the Firehouse on Beach Street, and recapture him.
The issue ends on an unnerving note. During the events inside the Firehouse, an unidentified possessor entity briefly surfaces. It takes hold of Egon and delivers a warning: his doom is coming. Burnham later confirmed this moment was written with awareness of the story that would become Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and it functions as deliberate foreshadowing of Egon's eventual fate in that film.
Cast
Equipment
Locations
- Firehouse (Hook & Ladder No. 8)
- Tribeca Park (Beach Street, adjacent to the Firehouse)
- Empire Diner
- American Society for Psychical Research (5 W. 73rd Street)
- Central Park
- Sedgewick Hotel (flashback)
Covers
Cover A features Egon alongside the Subway Ghost and is built around nods to the first film. The composition is a redesign of Dan Schoening's earliest Ghostbusters fan art from his DeviantArt account. Visual references include Egon's Twinkie analogy from the film's EPA confrontation scene and the trepanation reading that Peter jokes about throughout the story.
Cover B is designed as a Janine desk-file dossier. Details embedded in the art include the Ghostbusters' 555-2368 phone number, the Firehouse's 18 N Moore Street address, mycology references (Egon's fungus hobby appears twice, including a Post-It note from Janine about his "Fungus of the Month"), the Casio Micro-Mini Calculator from the film with the year 1984 displayed on its screen, and a blue bottle labeled with Louis Tully's date of birth as 4/18/53, the same birthdate as actor Rick Moranis.
Cover RI by Timothy Lattie depicts Egon and Janine in a composition referencing an iconic promo image from the television series Twin Peaks (which was previously referenced in the IDW story "Who Killed Laura Parr?"). Janine's outfit is based on a stock outfit from the initial run of The Real Ghostbusters animated series. Janine is wearing a Real Ghostbusters Haunted Watch from 1988. The final published version differs from the solicited version: Janine's dress was changed from her Ghostbusters II appearance to the animated outfit, and Egon's Ghostbusters mug was replaced with a plain white mug alongside a red thermos matching the one from the 1985 Ghostbusters logo lunch box.
Development
The Year One mini-series was announced on October 4, 2019, when editor Tom Waltz made a cryptic social media post tagging Burnham, Schoening, Delgado, and Lattie alongside four character-specific covers. On October 26, Burnham revealed he had only Issue #4 left to write. He hinted on November 16 that he would begin the script the following week. On January 3, 2020, he announced that Waltz had approved the script. In a January 20 interview, Burnham described Issue #4 as covering the team's first experience with the Containment Unit going wrong, with a confrontation between Egon and Slimer as a centerpiece.
April 2020 solicitations described Egon being interviewed at the damaged Firehouse. Tom Waltz posted two completed pages on March 25, 2020. The original release was pushed back; the new date of July 1, 2020 was confirmed on May 26. Burnham later confirmed he had finished writing the issue in late 2019, before the end of the year.
References
