Plot
In Purgatory
The fourth crime boss is revealed to be Al Capone, completing the syndicate. The scheme the bosses have been running is now made explicit: they bribe the winged demons guarding the Pipeline, the conduit between Purgatory and the real world, with innocent souls in exchange for allowing other ghosts to slip through to the living side.
Peter Venkman is reunited with Egon Spengler and Ray Stantz, and he introduces the ghost lawmen he has fallen in with: Elliot Ness, FBI agent Jelly Bryce, and J. Edgar Hoover, all dispatched from Heaven to investigate the illegal border crossings. Together the group spies on the syndicate's operation at the Pipeline.
Before the crime bosses can hand over the soul of a young boy named Jiff to the lion-headed border demon as payment, Venkman intervenes. He hurls an elderly woman ghost at the demon to create a distraction, and the combined team of crimefighters and Ghostbusters rushes to protect Jiff. Venkman volunteers to face the demon himself, launching into combat and ultimately destroying it. Stantz and Spengler theorize the source of Venkman's apparent superpowers: because Venkman was displaced from the real world rather than actually killed, he exists in Purgatory through a cosmic loophole, granting him abilities ordinary ghosts do not possess. Venkman himself acknowledges on page 19 that he has become a walking Deus ex Machina.
After saving Jiff, Venkman frees the grandmother ghost and confirms that Ness, Bryce, and Hoover are legitimate agents of Heaven. Meanwhile, Winston Zeddemore has been reconnecting with Janelle, a former girlfriend who drowned in the real world, whose death left a lasting wound. The full team, including Winston, is reunited as the issue closes on the Purgatory side.
In the Real World
Fred, the criminal occupying Venkman's body, is revealed to be working under orders from the ghost of Lucky Luciano. Luciano's spirit forces Fred back to work after a period of idling: his mission is to eliminate the Ghostbusters from within.
Janine Melnitz arrives at the Firehouse to find the place ransacked. Fred has been tearing it apart searching for the Ghost Traps, and Janine inadvertently tells him where they are stored, before Fred knocks her out. In an abandoned subway tunnel, Fred demonstrates the Proton Pack and Traps to the assembled crime bosses and a gathering of ghosts, showing them how Ghostbusting equipment operates. The bosses' plan crystallizes: Fred, equipped as a Ghostbuster and accompanied by an army of ghost thugs, will enter Purgatory through the Pipeline and destroy the real Ghostbusters from the inside. The issue ends with that invasion force arriving in Purgatory, setting up the series finale.
Characters
Ghostbusters: Peter Venkman, Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, Winston Zeddemore, Janine Melnitz
Ghost Lawmen: Elliot Ness, Jelly Bryce, J. Edgar Hoover
Antagonists: The Bosses (including Al Capone), Winged Demon (Pipeline guard), Poltergeists, Fred (in Venkman's body)
Supporting: Jiff (the boy), Janelle (Winston's late girlfriend)
Equipment
- Proton Pack (demonstrated by Fred in the real world)
- Ghost Traps
- Radio
- Containment Unit (referenced by Janine when telling Fred where the traps are)
