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.1
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.1
Covers
Cover A features a Poseidon statue head in the upper-right corner, rendered by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado.1
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.1
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 2729.1
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).2
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.3
Trivia
- The narrator calls the Metropolitan Museum of Art by its common nickname "the Met" on page 1.1
- Peter alludes to Walter Peck and his court order from the first film, and later references Egon's speech about Ivo Shandor from the holding-cell scene.1
- The skull displayed near Ray on page 1 is visually based on a dinosaur discovered in Montana in May 2017, which was named after Zuul from the first film.4
- The "Bully Boys Paint" sign on page 1 nods to Bruce's Bully Boys from The Real Ghostbusters episode "Hard Knight's Day."1
- The Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton from Ghostbusters: The Video Game (stylized versions) makes a non-canon cameo on page 1.1
- Page 2 includes a cameo of the skeleton possessed by The Undying One from The Real Ghostbusters episode "Moaning Stones."1
- Peter references the Poveglian Artifact and the Louvre incident from Ghostbusters International issues 4 and 5.1
- Egon cites Tobin's Spirit Guide and the Spates Catalog.1
- Background details on page 3 include spare Slime Blower nozzles (as seen in Ghostbusters II), a jar of psychomagnotheric slime, a Ghostbusters II mug from Colorolls, a can of Blody (originally an advertisement from The Real Ghostbusters episode "The Halloween Door"), the Dimensionometer from "Egon on the Rampage," and the Dimensional Inverter part from "When Halloween Was Forever."1
- Peter is dressed in the blue sweater vest, shirt, and brown pants combination seen on the back cover of the Volume 2 trade paperback.1
- Peter alludes to the Ghostbusters 101 pilot team.1
- A Libby's Coffee Shop (first seen in Ghostbusters II during the First Avenue sinkhole scene) appears at the entrance to Penn Station.1
- A Manhattan City Bank advertisement at Penn Station quotes Ray's line from the first film about nobody having three mortgages.1
- A Celebrity Magazine ad at Penn Station references The Real Ghostbusters episode "The Devil in the Deep"; Celebrity functions as a stand-in for Entertainment Weekly. The ad promotes "Gangsters on Broadway" starring Clark Tracy, a character from the RGB episode "Lights! Camera! Haunting!"1
- Page 9 includes Richard Edlund, visual effects supervisor on the original film, as a crowd background figure. Professor Dweeb from Slimer! and The Real Ghostbusters also appears on the same page.5
- Ivan Reitman and two men from Ghostbusters II Chapter 16 appear outside the Firehouse, mirroring their cameo in that film.1
- A Skeleton Woman and Possessed Subway Trains from the RGB episode "Knock, Knock" make a non-canon cameo on page 10.1
- Janine's drawer label reading "2020" on page 14 nods to when the then-upcoming live-action film was set to release.1
- The ghost's octopus-like headpiece on page 16 resembles the masks used by the Cult of Cathulhu in the RGB episode "The Collect Call of Cathulhu."1
- The Ghostbusters Balloon (first introduced in Ghostbusters II in white) appears to the left of Peter on page 15.1
- Colorist Luis Delgado's "15" easter egg on page 10 is blocked by a word balloon.1
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
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IDW Publishing, Ghostbusters 35th Anniversary: Ghostbusters (IDW Publishing, April 3, 2019). Writer: Erik Burnham; Art: Dan Schoening; Colors: Luis Antonio Delgado; Letters: Neil Uyetake; Editors: Tom Waltz, Megan Brown. Diamond Order Code FEB190638.
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IDW Publishing, Ghostbusters 35th Anniversary Collection TPB (IDW Publishing, 2019). Collects all four issues of the mini-series; corrects the balloon attribution error at p. 8 of the original printing (Winston's line mistakenly attached to Ray; fixed at p. 12 of the TPB).
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Spry, Jeff (April 1, 2019). "Exclusive: The original Ghostbusters gang discovers Atlantis in IDW's 35th anniversary one-shot," SYFY Wire. https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/exclusive-preview-ghostbusters-35th-anniversary-one-shot. Includes quotes from Erik Burnham and IDW Editor-in-Chief John Barber alongside a five-page interior art preview.
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"Zuul," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zuul. Victoria M. Arbour and David C. Evans formally described Zuul crurivastator in Royal Society Open Science vol. 4, no. 5 (2017); the specimen was recovered from the Judith River Formation near Havre, Montana.
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"Richard Edlund," Wikipedia, accessed 2026-06-13, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Edlund. Edlund served as visual effects supervisor on Ghostbusters (1984) through his company Boss Film Studios and received Academy Award and BAFTA nominations for that work.
