Production
Reaves later said he wrote the entire episode himself, and that the shared writing credit with Steve Perry was a mistake on DiC's part.3
Len Wolfman, the comic's creator in the story, is an homage to comic book writers Len Wein and Marv Wolfman.
Cast
The regular voice cast includes Lorenzo Music as Peter Venkman, Frank Welker as both Ray Stantz and Slimer, Maurice LaMarche as Egon Spengler, Arsenio Hall as Winston Zeddemore, and Laura Summer as Janine Melnitz. Guest voices were provided by Peter Cullen and Mike Gomez.
Plot
Ray learns that his favorite comic book, Captain Steel, is being cancelled the following month and is crushed. The rest of the team rushes in expecting a major emergency. When Winston guesses that Gozer has returned and Egon guesses the Containment Unit has been destroyed, both nods to the first film, Peter storms off in frustration. Ray explains that Captain Steel was his hero and one of the reasons he became a Ghostbuster.
The team is soon called to the office of the comic's creator, Len Wolfman. Ray brings 50 comics for him to sign. Wolfman had been drawing his final Captain Steel issue when the characters came to life and demanded more control over their fates. Wolfman tried to write them out by drawing in a comet whose radiation reduced Steel and Dr. Destructo to ordinary people. Captain Steel refused that ending, jumped off the page into the real world, and flew off to protect New York City. Some of the Ghostbusters are skeptical of Wolfman's account.
For his first act, Captain Steel apprehends two jewelry store robbers, but when he drops them at the police station with no evidence, the thieves slip away during his argument with the desk officer. The Ghostbusters catch up with the Captain, and when Peter tries to zap him, Steel mistakes them for supervillains. He disarms them with his heat vision, bends a steel pole around the group, and flies off carrying them. Dr. Destructo, who also escaped the comic, blasts Steel and makes him drop the team. To save themselves from the fall, the Ghostbusters aim their throwers at the water below and cross the streams, creating a plume of water that cushions their landing.
Destructo tricks Steel and buries him under rubble. After Steel digs out, Ray wins his trust by showing a membership card to the Captain Steel fan club, and the two sides finally join forces to hunt down Destructo.
Destructo has seized the Ghostbusters' own Firehouse, intending to use its power grid for his schemes, and surrounds the building with a force field that neither the Proton Packs nor Steel's strength and heat vision can breach. Reasoning that any technology Destructo built had to originate in his creator's mind, Egon proposes asking Len Wolfman for help. Wolfman draws a device that can disrupt the force field, and Captain Steel pulls it off the page, agreeing to return to Wolfman's panels once the crisis is over. Egon uses the device to punch a hole in the field, and Steel shatters the rest.
The team confronts Destructo near the Containment Unit. Ray slips behind him and hits a control panel button, opening the grid and pulling Destructo in. Captain Steel, also a non-living entity, uses his super strength to resist the pull, but Destructo has no such powers and is trapped like a conventional ghost. The publicity from a real Captain Steel flying over New York generates enough interest to keep the comic in print, so Steel agrees to return to the page, and Wolfman promises to write him a new villain. Wolfman then asks the Ghostbusters if they would star in a comic of their own. Ray is thrilled, but the others leave in a hurry.
Notes and references
Several gags reference other comics and films. Captain Steel's disguise prompts Peter to note that he only changed clothes and put on glasses, a nod to Superman's Clark Kent, and Ray quotes the classic "Look, up in the sky!" line. Dr. Destructo references the Comics Code, the comic industry's self-regulation body. Peter jokes that they will be busting the Tooth Fairy next; later in the same season the team befriends a former Tooth Fairy named Buster in They Call Me MISTER Slimer.
Captain Steel appears once more on the series as a form taken by the Copycat in the episode The Copycat.
The episode aired between Ragnarok and Roll and They Call Me MISTER Slimer.
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Eatock, James & Mangels, Andy (2008). The Real Ghostbusters Complete Collection booklet, p. 23. CPT Holdings, Inc.
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Marsha Goodman (1986). Episode Call Sheet and SAG Report, "Captain Steel Saves the Day" (1986).
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Spook Central Episode Guide, "Captain Steel Saves the Day." Michael Reaves: "The writing credit is split between myself and Steve Perry, but that was a mistake on DiC's part, I wrote the whole episode."
