Covers
Cover A
Cover B
Plot
On Christmas Eve, Woodrow Wainwright Fraser III, described as the grumpiest man in New York, hires the Ghostbusters. He has been visited each year by supernatural figures who demand he change his ways, and he has finally had enough. He offers the team $4 million to capture the ghosts once and for all.
What the Ghostbusters discover is more complicated than a standard haunting. The Ghosts of Christmas Past and Future have been visiting Fraser every year trying to rescue their companion, the Ghost of Christmas Present, who was enthralled by Fraser's hedonistic lifestyle decades earlier and has remained possessing him ever since. Peter Venkman pieces together the truth during the bust, and the team ultimately wrangle the Ghost of Christmas Present free from Fraser's body at the penthouse. Fraser's complex was built by the Fred F. French and Co. in 1927 on land formerly known as Goat Hill, intended as a residential utopia.
Gozer also appears in a new form during the story.
Characters
Equipment and Locations
Equipment appearing in the issue: Ectoplasmic Glasses, Ecto-1, Proton Pack, Particle Thrower, and Ghost Trap.
Locations: the Firehouse, Camp Waconda, and Fraser's Penthouse.
Notes and Trivia
- Cover A features Slimer and Ebenezer Scrooge, neither of whom appears in the story itself.
- The Ghost of Christmas Future is the only story entity to appear on one of the comic's covers.
- Egon's deduction, citing Charles Dickens to identify the ghosts, is noted as making this story non-canon to The Real Ghostbusters, in which the same trio of spirits was previously encountered.
- Gozer appears in a new form, which has been noted as potentially conflicting with a rule about Destructor Forms established in Ghostbusters: The Video Game.
- On Page 4, Peter mentions Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas. On Page 6, Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence are referenced in Fraser's backstory, alongside the Fortune 500 list. On Page 8, Peter mentions his freshman year at Columbia University.
- The RI cover can be spotted on Egon's whiteboard in Ghostbusters Volume 2 Issue #11.
- Cover B appears in the documentary segment "Who You Gonna Call: A Ghostbusters Retrospective" included in the Ghostbusters 1 and 2 Gift Set (2014) Blu-ray, at the 5:04 mark.
Writer Rob Williams, known for works including Cla$$war and Ordinary, described his motivation for the story in an interview: "It was genuinely a major thrill to write a Ghostbusters Christmas Special. It's one of my favourite movies and I figured a Christmas Ghostbusters story leant itself to the Scrooge tale, and the pitch was accepted by IDW. It was only when I was working on it that it was pointed out that a Real Ghostbusters cartoon had previously used the Scrooge tale as a template too." Williams later noted receiving a message from screenwriter Brian Lynch (Hop, Puss In Boots) saying Williams "had the voices DOWN" for the four main characters.
References
- IDW Publishing, "Past, Present, and Future" (December 2009)
- Spook Central, "The Complete SFX Guide to Ghostbusters" (2014 and 2016 editions), Rob Williams interview ("A Christmas Scare-All")
