Ah now this is a Ghostbusters Story that I can sit down and read through easy! Loved every moment of it. If anyone hasn't gotten the chance to pick this up and read it yet, then i'd consider doing so. I think everyone will enjoy this from start to finish, I know that I did

Nothing new to my review, but here we go:

This was a issue I was still looking forward to even though I finally got my hands on it on New Year's Eve.

To summarise it before going into the main details, it is unique enough that despite utilising the ghosts of Christmas, it is not a carbon copy of X-Mas Marks the Spot, and stands up on it's own easily.

First of all I have to say I enjoyed the artwork. Not as much as the art for Displaced Aggression, but it still had plenty of charm, Diego Jourdan deserves a lot of kudos for giving us characters who are recognisable enough (even though as Fritz mentioned, Ray and Peter could've used a bit more differentialisation).

On opening we're presented with the familiar sight of our Scrooge-like antagonist being approached by the third and final Ghost of Christmas, the most scary of all.

But the first nice twist, is delivered by our ‘Screeoge’, Woodrow Wainwright Fraser III, stating that despite the warnings of the ghosts of Christmas, he's utterly happy and content with his materialistic life, and threatens that if they try it one more time, there will be grave consequences.

Flashing to ‘Now’, Egon, Ray and Peter have been drafted in by Woodrow on the proposition that even if they do not do anything, they stand to bank a million dollars. If they best the ghosts, they go home with four million.

Drafting Winston in, who Peter has (in a rather scummy and a bit disappointingly) screwed Winston out of a equal share in the incoming riches, the Ghostbusters return to Woodrow's penthouse, in time to meet the first ghost.

It's here where as previously noted, Rob Williams has taken the chance to expand on some of the referencial dialogue from the first movie… depicting Ray at Camp Wakonda. I could be wrong in this, but I believe this may be the first time we've ever seen the late parents of Dr. Ray Stantz.

And of course, there's also a good helping of marshmallows in the vision of Ray's happy childhood, a reference that would've been a huge missed opportunity if not capitalised on.

Things shift to the present, and the truth about the payment comes to light, pissing Winston off and causing him to quite. Now down to two Ghostbusters (as Ray stayed in his happy memory) some remarks are made that will prove crucial to the finale.

It's then, I found probably the largest disappointment I had with this story.

This is not to say I hated the story or regretted buying it, I'm glad I got it and I read it… but Gozer again?!

I'm thankful of the fact it's only a vision of the future, and hopefully not a real one - that's the story I'm telling myself and I'm sticking to it - but the writers for IDW need to be encouraged that they can break away from Gozer the Gozerian, we fanficcers have been writing about adventures not featuring Gozer for years, and when we did, we saved it for one big ‘event’ story.

Two is knocked down to one, as Egon is removed from the picture, and Woodrow and Peter are transported back to the present.

It's here that Venkman learns a lesson… but also he shows that on his own, he isn't helpless and that he isn't a moron. He's a psychologist and pretty good at reading people. He unwravels the plan at play which the Ghostbusters were unwittingly brought into, and saves the day, and his colleagues. And in the end it's revealed that the story had quite another interesting twist, once again, this isn't the conventional telling of A Christmas Carol.


The story, bar the above major criticism, was enjoyable and certainly a nice addition to the series - Still far better than The Other Side! There was a nice lesson for Venkman, a nice dip into Ray's past, a good villian and a good Scrooge homage, good characterisation for Egon and hopefully Winston will finally get the respect he's earned. Don't f**k with the Zeddemore.

The artwork was enjoyable and unique compared to what we'd seen (and made a nice use of a real photo of Hook & Ladder 8 with Christmas decorations), and the characters were all unique enough to represent the respective Ghostbusters and Janine. It was also interesting to see a screenshot of the Wii Firehouse from Ghostbusters: The Videogame used as one of the panes of page 12.

So, despite a few bits of critique, it's a story definitely worth a read.

I liked this one. The story and the bit of clever twist in the plot made it nice and a good story. This is how the stories should be like in these comics.

I preferred the artwork in this issue to that in Displaced Aggression I think, and loved the twist of the other two ghosts of Christmas trying to get back their partner. I also liked the little character touches such as Ray and his marshmallows, poking fun at Winston's reputation for being left out but then turning it around a bit on the other guys, Egon not wanting to take his goggles off, and Venkman's scheming side coming out. Janine being over the edge was funny also.

The one I was worried about not liking, turned out to be the one I liked the most. I'd give it a solid A.