Ghostbusters Get Real #4

Ghostbusters Get Real #4 is the fourth and final issue of the four-part Ghostbusters Get Real mini-series published by IDW Publishing. Released on September 30, 2015, it was written by Erik Burnham, penciled by Dan Schoening, colored by Luis Antonio Delgado, lettered by Tom B. Long and Shawn Lee, and edited by Tom Waltz. The issue concludes a crossover between the IDW continuity Ghostbusters and their animated counterparts from The Real Ghostbusters, pitting all eight Ghostbusters against the elder god Proteus.

Story: "And All Is..."

Proteus returns to reclaim his escaped property, and for the first time both teams of Ghostbusters must fight together to stop him. The issue's title, "And All Is...", is left deliberately open-ended, echoing the resolution of the animated episode "Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster" that serves as the primary source material for the final act.

Large sections of pages 15 through 20 adapt and reinterpret scenes from the RGB episode "Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster," following the sequence from approximately the 18:38 mark through to the end of that episode: Janine Melnitz invoking Lewis Carroll, Ray Stantz warning her that Proteus is a primal god like Gozer, Janine preparing to fire on a mirror trapping the Ghostbusters, Proteus' energy bouncing around the Firehouse, and the final gathering after the defeat. The closing park scene is visually modeled on Battery Park from the RGB episode "The Scaring of the Green."

Proteus exercises his prophetic gift (derived from Greek mythology) to show both teams glimpses of futures they have not yet lived. For the IDW Ghostbusters, four visions appear across page 9: the Louvre Museum in Paris, the lighthouse of Poveglia accompanied by a plague-masked entity (a doctor's mask of the type worn during 16th-century outbreaks), a Sandman who would appear next in the Annual 2015 released the following November, and a fourth silhouetted figure. For the Real Ghostbusters on page 10, the glimpses reference four RGB episodes that canonically take place after "Janine Melnitz, Ghostbuster": The Deadly Three from "Janine's Day Off," Samhain and his fortress from "Halloween II 1/2," Grundel from "The Grundel," and Thole from "Egon's Ghost."

Winston Zeddemore faces a choice in the Firehouse basement under pressure from the goddess Ananke, echoing a similar situation in Volume 2 Issue #19 of the ongoing series. Winston invokes the "Leave No Man Behind" credo known in the U.S. Army as the Warrior Ethos.

The epilogue shifts to the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo, where an official notes Japan's belief in the supernatural. A female Japanese ghost appears, identified visually as a Yurei. On page 12 of Ghostbusters International #9, a woman seen in one of Proteus' visions is later identified as a local guide hired by the Chicago Ghostbusters.

Claudia, the woman Proteus had transformed into a blue bird in Issue #1, is restored to normal at the close of the issue.