Plot
"What Dreams May Come, Part 3!" The Class 7 entity known as Schreckgespenst (nicknamed "Shrecky" by the team) continues its strategy of using living nightmares to fracture the Ghostbusters from within. Each member faces fear-fueled illusions designed to exploit personal vulnerabilities: Erin's dread of bees, the team's mutual uncertainty, and deeper anxieties rooted in each character. While the four Ghostbusters struggle to shake off the nightmare-scape and reunite, Schreckgespenst escalates its ambitions toward a full takeover.
The issue was solicited with the tagline: "What or who is powerful enough to cut through the team's fear and self-doubt to bring them back together? Is it KEVIN?! (Spoiler alert: it is not Kevin.)" A recurring joke from earlier issues returns as well: Holtzmann's latest invention is ambiguously capable of producing perfect scrambled eggs or annihilating all life on Earth.2
Characters
Ghostbusters: Abby Yates, Erin Gilbert, Patty Tolan, Jillian Holtzmann, Kevin Beckman
Antagonist: Schreckgespenst (Shrecky), Kruger's Victims
Equipment and Locations
Equipment appearing in this issue includes the 2016-continuity Proton Pack, Ecto-1, P.K.E. Meter, and the Ghost Zamboni (visible under a tarp in panel 1 of page 9, a callback to Issue #1). Holtzmann's JH Modified Trap also appears, along with the Dream Machine central to Schreckgespenst's nightmare attacks.
Locations include the Empire State Building, the Nightmare-Scape created by Schreckgespenst, Betty's Diner, the 2016-continuity Firehouse, and the Yorkville Brownstone.
A continuity note on the modified trap (page 16): Patty deploys the modified version that Holtzmann described in Issue #1, incorporating lessons learned from the events of Ghostbusters 101. Unlike the trap the design was based on, this version can contain multiple ghosts simultaneously.1 The prime-universe Ghostbusters' original trap was confirmed in Ghostbusters International #10 to be incapable of this and to violently explode under such conditions.3
Cover Variants
Cover A (Diamond Order Code: OCT170470): Illustrated by Corin Howell with colors by Russell Badgett. Patty is dressed in her outfit from Chapter 07 of the 2016 film. The background books carry several layers of franchise and pop-culture reference:
- A volume labeled "He's Vigo!" quotes Janosz Poha's line from Chapter 25 of Ghostbusters II4
- Tobin's Spirit Guide and Sumerian Legends: Behind the Legend of Gozer reference the GB1 mythology
- Carpathian Legends alludes to Vigo's origin
- NYC Slime references Psychomagnotheric Slime from Ghostbusters II
- Demon Dictionary is a real book by Kimberly Daniels5
- Handbook of the Recently Deceased is from the film Beetlejuice6
- Patty holds a copy of Ghosts From Our Past, the 2016 film's in-universe book
Cover RI: A close-up of Patty drawn from the Chapter 16 celebration scene in the 2016 film, specifically based on a behind-the-scenes still posted February 2, 2016 on Ghostbusters.com. The TGI Fridays setting is recognizable in the background.
Development
The issue's production was documented publicly across several months:
- September 20, 2017: December solicits revealed the issue's logline, initial crew information, and Cover B.
- October 4, 2017: Tom Waltz posted a preview of Cover A.
- November 22, 2017: Tom Waltz announced a delay due to the recent hurricane season; Issue #3 was pushed from its original slot to January 2018.
- November 28, 2017: Corin Howell posted a panel featuring Erin and Holtzmann.
- December 5, 2017: Corin Howell posted a panel showing Abby, Kevin, and Erin together.
- December 12, 2017: Valentina Pinto posted a teaser of Abby and noted she was coloring this issue. Howell also posted a work-in-progress of Patty near Abby, Erin, and the Ecto-1.
- December 13, 2017: Tom Waltz posted a work-in-progress of Patty running up stairs pursued by ghosts.
- December 20, 2017: Tom Waltz posted a panel featuring Kevin.
- February 4, 2018: Cover, credits, and a five-page preview were released. The issue shipped February 7, 2018, several weeks after the originally announced January window.
Notable References and Easter Eggs
- Page 5: Erin admits she is afraid of bees. This fear may be a nod to a blooper from the 2016 film: during an exterior scene at Zhu's Authentic Hong Kong Food, Kristen Wiig was visibly startled by a real bee.
- Page 8 and 18: Erin refers to Mayor Bradley, the antagonistic political figure from the 2016 film.
- Page 9: The Ghost Zamboni from Issue #1 is visible in the background under a tarp, confirming its presence in the team's garage.
- Page 10: Patty says "Into the breach with us," a paraphrase of King Henry V's speech in Shakespeare's Henry V.7
- Page 14: Patty alludes to President Theodore Roosevelt's Big Stick foreign policy.8
- Page 19: A blue paper in panel 5 on the brown board references Vigo.
- Page 20: Patty refers to the antagonist by his full German nickname, Schreckgespenst.
- Page 21: The cover preview for Issue #4 re-uses the image of Kruger and the Empire State Building from Issue #2, page 1. The final version of that cover was revealed February 6, 2018.
- The scrambled eggs gag set up in the solicitation copy pays off in the series finale: on page 20 of Ghostbusters: Answer The Call #5, Holtzmann brings up the scrambled eggs that only she and Abby liked.
References
Some content on this page was researched using the Ghostbusters Wiki on Fandom.
