TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #5

Publication date: November 29, 2017

Written by: Erik Burnham and Tom Waltz
Art by: Dan Schoening (pgs. 9-20), Pablo Tunica (pgs. 8-11), Charles Paul Wilson III (pgs. 1-8)
Colors by: Luis Antonio Delgado
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Edits by: Bobby Curnow
Published by: Ted Adams

Summary:

In the garden dimension, the Turtles reunite with the spirit of Tang Shen, their departed mother.  Ray tries to take a PKE reading of Shen, but Winston slaps the meter from his hand and tells him to show some respect.  Shen tells her sons how proud she is of all of them and then thanks the Ghostbusters for not only making this reunion possible, but for being such good friends and mentors to her children.  Feeling the Collectors/Dun drawing nearer, Shen bids her sons farewell and disappears.  As the garden dimension begins to fade away, the Turtles and Ghostbusters open up a portal and return to the Firehouse.  When they get to there, Donatello and Egon hand out the proton weapons and let everyone in on their plan.

Later, in Central Park, the Collectors/Dun arrive.  Peter approaches them (Egon having calculated their arrival point in advance) and gives them the option to surrender.  Dun laughs and swears that once he has dealt with the Turtles, he will build a trans-dimensional criminal empire.  Peter was just a distraction, of course, and the Turtles get the drop on Dun.  Using their proton weapons, they're able to injure the Dun entities, but they quickly put themselves back together after each blow.  Peter and Winston try to slow Dun down with their proton streams, but he's too powerful.  Eventually, he trashes all the proton weapons and shrugs off the proton streams.

However, it was all just another diversion, giving Egon and Ray time to calibrate the Portal Trap.  They open it and suck Dun directly into the Containment Unit, where the power source is strong enough to keep him from crossing dimensions and escaping.  With the day saved, Donatello laments that it's time they all went back to their home dimension.  Michelangelo is bummed, as he wanted to visit the Ghostbusturtles again.

Later, back at the Firehouse, the Turtles and Ghostbusters say their goodbyes.  Leo wishes he and Winston could hang out without monsters trying to destroy them, but Winston says that's just the way things are.  Raph asks Ray if Dun can ever escape from the Containment Unit and he assures him that their tech is airtight.  Peter gives Mikey a beginner's guide to psychology text, encouraging him to study the subject. Donnie promises to send Egon his notes and data on the Metalhead consciousness transference once he finds them.  With all the goodbyes said, the Turtles enter the portal and return home.


Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #4.  For the Turtles, the story resumes in TMNT (IDW) #76.

*For the Ghostbusters, the story resumes in Ghostbusters Annual 2018.

*Donatello last met the spirit of Tang Shen in TMNT (IDW) #45.  Leonardo last communed with the spirit of Tang Shen in TMNT Universe #5 (in the back-up).  All four Turtles encountered a living Tang Shen via time travel in TMNT: Turtles in Time #2.

*Among the entities that appear inside the Containment Unit are the Bug-Eye Ghost caught in TMNT/Ghostbusters #1, the H2-Ghost caught in TMNT/Ghostbusters II #1, and Stingy Jack caught in Ghostbusters (Vol. 2) #9.  You can also spot the Sludge Bucket Ghost and the Banshee Bomber, but if the Ghostbusters caught them in an earlier issue of the IDW series, I can't remember off the top of my head.

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Cover A by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado, Cover B by Charles Paul Wilson III, and Cover RI by Adam Gorham.


Review:

The conclusion to this crossover offered some surprises and also played it by the book, but I think it struck a good balance.  The Collectors/Dun were defeated in exactly the way Donnie and Egon said they would defeat them several issues ago.  Essentially, their plan went off without a hitch and there were no wrinkles in the strategy.

In some sort of way, that might have actually been LESS predictable than the alternative.  In the back of my head, I was waiting for the part where the plan would break down and they'd have to think of a solution on the fly, which is the formula almost every narrative where a strategy is introduced in advance tends to operate on.  The fact that it was resolved precisely how the characters said it would be resolved near the start of this mini kinda took me by surprise, even if it didn't leave me with any shock or awe.

The REAL surprise element instead came in the form of Tang Shen popping up.  It's almost a non sequitur to the plot and serves strictly as a detour for the characters.  Again, I was anticipating Shen to turn out to be some illusion created by Dun to trick the Turtles or whatever, but that wasn't the case.  It was just an opportunity for her spirit to tell her kids how much she loves them and that's it.  The moment doesn't tie into anything else going on in the book, it's just THERE, but it also winds up being one of the better parts of the whole miniseries.

Quite a lot of this mini involves the Turtles dealing with some emotional baggage and getting advice from the Ghostbusters, who serve sort of as mentor figures for them.  Winston helps Leo deal with his responsibility complex, Peter helps Mikey get to the root of his abandonment issues, Ray diagnoses why Raph is so angry and lonely all the time, and Egon and Donnie overcome their survivor's guilt by comparing near death experiences with one another.  There's a LOT of psychotherapy going on in this mini and it almost feels like the reunion with Tang Shen was a reward the Turtles received for getting over their emotional issues.  So in some way, her scene is led into and isn't quite the non sequitur I made it out to be.

An anonymous commentor in my last review also brought up a good point I hadn't considered, that the Ghostbusters are some of the few adults whom the Turtles know and can confide in.  Most of their friends are either fellow teenagers, weird mutants or space aliens.  The Ghostbusters are just normal adults, and while they aren't exactly surrogate parental figures to the Turtles, they do act as mentors for them.  The dynamic was unique, because this wasn't one of those team-ups where both sides acted as equals to one another.  The Turtles definitely looked up to the Ghostbusters as adults and actively sought out their advice, while the Ghostbusters saw the Turtles as extraordinary teenagers with lots of potential, but still teenagers in need of guidance.  A LOT of writers tend to forget that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are still teenagers and it's always a little weird when the adult characters they meet regard them as contemporaries rather than kids.  While the Ghostbusters don't necessarily treat the Turtles as peers (save perhaps Egon/Donatello), they DO treat them with respect.  It was a very complex dynamic and I applaud Burnham for going that extra mile when a "superhero team-up" style crossover likely would've been ten times easier to write.

I suppose if I have anything else to bring up, it's that I think (THINK) this is the first time we've seen the inside of the Containment Unit in the IDW comic.  We've seen the inside of the Real Ghostbusters' Containment Unit in the comic, during that crossover, but I don't think we've ever seen the inside of THEIR Containment Unit before.  And, yeah, it's basically exactly the same as the inside of the one from the Real Ghostbusters (a weird dimension of floating rocks and power cables).

You know, I never really understood how that worked.  The science of the equipment in the Ghostbusters universe is that the ghost traps separate the ectoplasmic energy that makes up the ghost from the psychokinetic energy that gives it the power to manifest itself in the physical world.  I always figured the Containment Unit was just this huge vat of ectoplasmic energy where the ghosts, cut off from psychokinetic energy, are incapable of reforming themselves.  So whenever it's depicted as basically being another dimension entirely, I'm always left scratching my head as to where that came from.  Was it an existing dimension that the Ghostbusters hijacked when installing the Containment Unit?  Or did they CREATE their own pocket dimension to store ghosts in?  How fucking BIG is it (it looks endless)?  And if the Ghostbusters have the technology to basically create entire universes, why the hell are they working as exterminators and not just ruling all of reality as the literal gods they have become?

Oh man, why am I even thinking about this stuff?  It's fucking Ghostbusters.  The inside of the Containment Unit looks the way it does because its fun to see cameos from all the previous ghosts they've caught sitting around and sulking.  It's a comic book, it doesn't have to make sense.

Anyhow, TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 definitely upped the game on the first crossover and I loved every page of it.  A little dense with continuity between the two books, which might discourage newcomers, but I think readers familiar with one or the other title will have a blast.  And those who read both will feel extremely rewarded.  They tease a third crossover in the denouement, but I dunno.  It took 25 years to get Ghostbusters 3 (in the form of Ghostbusters the Video Game).  How long will we have to wait for TMNT/Ghostbusters 3?  Hopefully less than a decade.

TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #4

Publication date: November 22, 2017

Written by: Erik Burnham and Tom Waltz
Art by: Tadd Galusha (pgs. 1-3), Dan Schoening (pgs. 4-7, 17-18), Pablo Tunica (pgs. 8-11), Mark Torres (pgs. 12-15), Charles Paul Wilson III (pgs. 16, 19-20)
Colors by: Luis Antonio Delgado
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Edits by: Bobby Curnow
Published by: Ted Adams

Summary:

In the Post-Apocalypse world, the Collectors confront Winston and Leo, who can't put a dent in them with the proton streams.  Before the Collectors can nab them, they're suddenly called back against their will.  Not looking a gift horse in the mouth, Winston and Leo open a new dimensional portal and bail.

In Purgatory, the mad Darius Dun is so angry that the Collectors let the Turtles escape that he performed the summoning ritual a second time just so he could berate them for their failure.  Furious, the Collectors decide that since the price for the first summoning was a portion of his soul (which drove Darius mad), the price for a second summoning would be the rest of his essence.  The Collectors consume Darius, but his will overpowers their own and he takes over their hive mind.  Darius tells Bronson that with this new power, he will get his revenge on Splinter and the Foot Clan, but first he's going to decapitate the Turtles.

In the animal world (the city of Zoo Amsterdam), Michelangelo reasons with that universe's Ghostbusters, insisting that Peter is not an entity that needs to go in the Containment Unit.  He proves that Peter is an alternate universe counterpart to the "Ghostbusturtles" by showing them his proton pack.  The Ghostbusturtles run some tests to confirm Mikey's story and then free Peter.  Peter compliments Mikey on talking his way out of a bad situation and, after suggesting a psychology degree, the two open a new portal and leave.

In the Scandinavian afterlife, Raph has no luck piloting Ray's body against his own possessed form, as Ray is too out of shape to fight.  Coming up with a plan, Ray tells Raph to use the spritzer of positively charged mood slime on his possessed body, but he'll have to spray his body and Ray's body simultaneously.  The mood slime, which reacts to anger, drives Raph's spirit out of Ray's body and the Viking spirit out of Raph's body, allowing Raph to retake his own body.  Ray then opens a portal and the two escape before the rest of the Viking ghosts can attack them.

At the warehouse in Red Hook, in the Ghostbusters' dimension, Donatello and Egon put the finishing touches on the Portal Trap and the proton weaponry.  Donnie asks Egon what it was like being truly dead and brought back to life.  Egon admits that his only real regret is that he was revived by supernatural means and not scientific ones and envies that Donnie was able to cheat death using technology.  Before they can discuss it further, Donnie gets a notice on the portal tracker that the other Turtles and Ghostbusters have convened in the same dimension.  Suspecting trouble, Donnie and Egon grab the gear and open up a portal to join them.

They find the others all together in another dimension that looks like a garden.  But another figure has joined them and claims to be the one who summoned all of them to her garden.  The Turtles recognize the spirit as Tang Shen, their mother.


Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #3.  The story concludes in TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #5.

*Dr. Danny Welker is named after Dan Aykroyd and Frank Welker, two actors to have portrayed Ray in the Ghostbusters franchise.  From that, we can presume that the remaining "Ghostbusturtles" are Dr. Harold Lamarche, Dr. Bill Music (or Coulier) and Ernie Hall (or Jones).

*Ray mentions the time that Winston was possessed by Chi-You in TMNT/Ghostbusters #4.

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Cover A by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado, Cover B by Mark Torres, and Cover RI by Ben Bishop.


Review:

The dueling narratives wrap up in this issue, in time for the conclusion next chapter.  What's refreshing is that each conflict is resolved differently and some in ways that might be seen as unsatisfactory had this been an episodic anthology.  But by divvying up the arcs a little each issue, I think it gave Burnham and Waltz freedom to resolve some of those arcs without any action; because if one ends with a peaceful exchange of words, that's okay, because another ended with blasting and punching.

Winston and Leo escape the Collectors through what at first seems like Darius' stupidity, but turns out to be part of a master plan he'd concocted either before or after he went insane.  That a rather D-list Turtle villain could overpower the will of four godlike trans-dimensional entities is maybe a little iffy, it at least took him off the sidelines and into the battlefield.

Mikey talking his way out of the standoff with the Ghostbusturtles was what I was getting at in the opening paragraph of this review.  Sandwiched between two action-heavy tangents, it worked great and resolved the conflict in a manner that complemented Mikey's earlier therapy session with Peter.  It was also a good showcase of Mikey's personality as a people person.  He's very outgoing and extroverted (a "party dude", if you will) because he likes people and he GETS people.  And of all his brothers, he'd be the first one to try a non-violent approach to solving a problem.  I'm glad we were able to get this ending thanks to the mini's format.

The Ray and Raph storyline, as I said last review, was falling flat for me and it didn't pull any fourth quarter miracles, here.  Ray using the positively charged mood slime to drive Raph's angry spirit from his own body as well as the spirit of the Viking ghost from Raph's body was actually pretty clever, but it was accompanied by a rather eyerolling sequence where Raph tries to stammer out why he's so grouchy all the time.  What was more fun about their team-up was that they were the odd couple pairing in this mini and so it was fun to see a badass brawler try and work together with a doughy optimist.

Egon and Donnie end their conversation comparing their flirtations with death and the revelation from Egon was a bit surprising.  The idea that, as a scientist, he had to rely on what was essentially "magic" to bring him back from the dead when technology, his life's passion, should have been sufficient... it bruises his ego and leaves him feeling inadequate.  That was a dimension to the character I'd never considered before, especially since Ghostbusters 101 had mostly overlooked any emotional aftermath on his end from his death and resurrection, so I'd just figured he was over it.  One of the reasons why Burnham is so good at writing these characters; he can tell you something new about them without having to fundamentally change them.

As for the cliffhanger, I feel foolish for letting it take me by surprise.  By that, I mean, I should have expected Tang Shen to pop up the second Charles Paul Wilson took over the pencils.  One of IDW's traditions since nearly the start of their TMNT series has been to utilize him on any issues or segments of issues that take place in Feudal Japan or feature an appearance from Tang Shen.  Kind of a big hint.  But I guess I had my blinders on, because I didn't see that one coming.  But hey, it is Saturday night, after all.  I've got other things on my mind.

TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #3

Publication date: November 15, 2017

Written by: Erik Burnham and Tom Waltz
Art by: Dan Schoening (pgs. 1, 10-15), Pablo Tunica (pgs. 2-5), Mark Torres (pgs. 6-9), Tadd Galusha (pgs. 16-20)
Colors by: Luis Antonio Delgado
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Edits by: Bobby Curnow
Published by: Ted Adams

Summary:

In Purgatory, Darius looks in on the Prison Dimension and finds the Turtles have escaped.  He begins to grow furious, but Bronson assures him that the Collectors will recapture the Turtles in short order, though he tries to remind Darius of the price for contracting them.

In the animal world, that dimension's Ghostbusters (anthropomorphic turtles named Bill, Danny, Harold and Ernie (in absentia)) use their gel packs to incapacitate the "entity" Peter and "save" Michelangelo.  They haul Peter back to their Firehouse while Michelangelo follows on the rooftops.  Mikey sneaks down into the basement to free Peter from the gel before he's put into their Containment Unit, but he's attacked by Bill and Harold, who try to stun him with lasers.

In the Scandinavian afterlife, Raphael comes to and finds that his and Ray's bodies have been possessed by Viking ghosts ("Gjenganger") who are using them to feel the thrill of mortal combat again.  Now disembodied spirits, Ray and Raph first try to convince the Vikings to release their bodies willfully, and when that doesn't work, the two work together to force the Viking out of Ray's body.  They retake Ray's body, but now they're both stuck in it at the same time and have to figure out a way to exorcise Raph's body without damaging it.

Back in the Ghostbusters' dimension, Egon and Donatello are testing out their new equipment in a warehouse in Red Hook that Peter had leased for "fantasy camp".  Donnie enters a containment enclosure as Egon releases a ghost to attack him.  Donnie is able to fend it off with his proton-powered bo staff, but the Portal Trap fails and a spirit from the Containment Unit nearly escapes.  As Egon recaptures the ghost, he and Donnie exchange stories about their own deaths and out-of-body experiences and both admit that they feel survivor's guilt as a consequence.

In the Post-Apocalyptic world, Winston is about to open another dimensional portal when his control bracelet is stolen by a punk frog.  He and Leonardo chase the mutant amphibian, but it leads them into an ambush where three other punk frogs are waiting.  Leonardo and Winston easily beat up the punk frogs and get the control bracelet back, but the delay was too long and the Collectors arrive.


Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #2.  The story continues in TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #4.

*The Ghostbusters fantasy camp was established in Ghostbusters 101 #1.

*The purple ghost Donatello battles is the Mouth Critter from Trendmaster's Extreme Ghostbusters toyline.  That one's so obscure, user "Dwite Fry" had to clue me in via the Comments section.  Thanks!

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Cover A by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado, Cover B by Tadd Galusha, and Cover RI by Chris Johnson and Mark Englert.


Review:

The format for this weekly miniseries actually falls somewhere in-between the formats of the previous two weekly miniseries.  Bebop & Rocksteady Destroy Everything was a hectic mess where the narrative and artists changed every couple of pages and half the fun was just trying to keep track in the face of all the spontaneity.  Dimension X was a much more straight-forward anthology, wherein each issue was an isolated story by a different creative team.

TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 is sort of the best of both worlds.  Each issue tracks four different stories by four different artists, giving it the sort of anthology feel of Dimension X but without segmenting the narratives so much, while also giving it that "jam session" feel of Bebop & Rocksteady albeit with more coherent structure.

To talk about each story segment, I'll begin with the Peter/Mikey tale.  While the Collectors had previously taken on the identities of the Peoplebusters in the IDW comic, they didn't have much in common with the Peoplebusters who had appeared in the Real Ghostbusters cartoon beyond appearances.  The turtle-Ghostbusters in this story are the cartoon Peoplebusters in all but name and visual likeness.  They use back-mounted packs of "gel" (not ectoplasm) to capture humans in an alternate universe where they're either feared or outlawed.  Naming them all after the cast of the original Ghostbusters film was cute and the absence of Ernie would be another reference back to the cartoon Peoplebusters, who inexplicably lacked a Winston doppelganger (rectified by the IDW comics).  As someone who has already confessed to loving the Peoplebusters as villains, between the Collectors and the turtle-Ghostbusters it's like I'm getting DOUBLE the Peoplebusters in this mini.  Can't complain about that.

Pablo Tunica's art in this segment is as wild and lavishly detailed as what we saw from him back in "Toad Baron's Ball".  His character models are perhaps mushier than some people would like, but I dig the fluidity of his layouts and the expressiveness of his characters.  And I dunno what it is, but I LOVE exaggerated caricatures of Bill Murray.  When an artist gets all of his most out-of-proportion features right, like his widow's peak, saggy cheeks and bulbous nose, he ends up looking really, really funny.  Like a Swedish troll or something.

The Ray/Raph segment isn't really doing it for me, yet.  On paper, it sounds interesting: Ray and Raph are polarizing personalities and they have to work together in one body to stop a bunch of Viking ghosts and escape before the Collectors show up.  So I'm not sure what it is about this portion that hasn't grabbed me.  Each segment tries to fit in a "tender moment" between the Ghostbusters and the Turtles, and while others have done it gracefully, the bit where Ray peeks into Raph's memories and asks him why he feels so lonely came off a tad cringy.

Mark Torres' pencils seem to also be at odds with Delgado's colors, which may be why the end result is sort of awkward and uncertain of itself.  If you recall, Torres previously drew the excellent and often overlooked TMNT: Infestation 2 miniseries, which was horror-themed and boasted Hellboy-inspired colors by Jay Fotos.  Delgado's bright and glowing colors, while a superb fit for Schoening's animated art style, just don't align with Torres' pencils.  The pencils/inks look like they want to be dark and spooky while the colors try to make everything bright and whimsical.  It's a bit like watching a horror movie with the lights on.

The Winston/Leo segment got most of its story content covered last issue, as the two had their heart-to-heart.  That left this issue with a gratuitous nostalgia cameo from what I'm guessing are supposed to be new incarnations of the Punk Frogs.  I wasn't sure, hence why I used lower case on "punk frogs" in my summary, but the part of me that craves obvious answers insists that these unnamed mutant frogs in punk attire were intended to be THE Punk Frogs.  And if so, congratu-fucking-lations, IDW.  You are the first team of writers to utilize the Punk Frogs as ACTUAL PUNKS.  How many decades did that take?

Tadd Galusha's art gets the darker coloring treatment that I felt Torres should have gotten as well.  Did Galusha color his own pages?  I'm pretty sure Tunica colored his own pages, since the style is definitely his, so maybe Galusha did his own colors, as well.  Whatever the case, the atmosphere of the post-Apocalypse makes it through nicely and, layout-wise, I like how frequently Galusha's characters break through the panel borders.

For Egon/Donnie, their segment in this issue consists mostly of that heart-to-heart stuff I was talking about, though done with more grace than Ray's "Why are you so lonely, Raph" thing from a few pages earlier.  Be it by coincidence or by design, both characters have near-death (or death-death) experiences that they can talk to one another about and it makes for a pretty insightful conversation.  Egon isn't as comfortable as Donnie when it comes to talking about "feelings", but you can tell he wants to get some stuff off his chest and share with an individual who has more or less been in the same rare predicament he has.  The struggle in the dialogue is nicely staggered without feeling like Bendis-esque rambling.  Framing it with a test of the new equipment was a nice way to keep the visuals engaging through a sappy conversation, though Schoening's layouts weren't exactly his career's most inspired (pages consisting mostly of horizontal bars).

TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 is hitting some deeper ground than I was expecting it to, mixing a fun adventure full of nostalgic fanwank with some legitimate character exploration and growth.  Gratuitous corporate IP crossovers rarely put forth this sort of effort.

TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #2

Publication date: November 8, 2017

Written by: Erik Burnham and Tom Waltz
Art by: Dan Schoening (pgs. 1-5, 18-20), Mark Torres (pgs. 6-9), Pablo Tunica (pgs. 10-13), Tadd Galusha (pgs. 14-17)
Colors by: Luis Antonio Delgado
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Edits by: Bobby Curnow
Published by: Ted Adams

Summary:

Ray and Raphael, Peter and Michelangelo, and Winston and Leonardo are busy rapidly hopping through dimensions to keep the Collectors from getting a bead on them (including brief layovers in the Fred Wolf TMNT dimension and the Nickelodeon TMNT dimension).

Meanwhile, Egon and Donatello continue working on a means to capture the Collectors.  Having lost his notes from when he and Donatello first built the teleporter, Egon needs Donnie's help in retrograding their upgraded dimensional portal back into a one-way trip machine.  The plan is to create a portal that will lead directly into the Containment Unit, but without letting any incarcerated ghosts out, so that they can force the Collectors into captivity.  The bigger issue is how they will hold the Collectors and force them through the Trap Portal.  Donnie has an idea about that.

Ray and Raph arrive in a snowy forest dimension and are immediately attacked by spectral birds.  The act of messing with dimensional integrity apparently riles up and attracts supernatural entities, hence why they seem to be attacked by ghosts and monsters wherever they go.  A lumbering spirit then takes Ray hostage and Raph puts on his proton pack to try and save him.

Peter and Mikey arrive in a dimension populated by anthropomorphic animals.  Peter lends Mikey his jumpsuit so the Turtle won't be naked and the two decide to go exploring.  After bumping into an anthropomorphic rat, Mikey breaks down and tells Peter all about the falling out he had with his father, Splinter.  Using his psychology skills, Peter tells Mikey that he's still a kid and has set his father up on a pedestal.  However, Splinter is still just a human being (more or less) and prone to making mistakes, large and small.  Mikey starts to feel better, but the two are then interrupted by that dimension's incarnation of the Ghostbusters: Four anthropomorphic Turtles.  The Turtle-Ghostbusters, mistaking Peter for a demon, try to blast him.

Winston and Leo arrive in a post-Apocalyptic city and are immediately attacked by killer robots.  Winston blows them away with his proton guns and the two duck for cover in an abandoned building.  Leo tells Winston that all of their problems are his fault, as he was Splinter's Chunin when his father ordered the assassination of Darius Dun; the event which ultimately resulted in the dilemma they're in, now.  Winston reassures Leo, telling him that he can't be responsible for everyone else's decisions and he can't survive with the weight of the world on his shoulders.  Winston then awkwardly transitions from military rhetoric to scientific jargon, leaving Leo to think he sounds like Donnie.

Back in the Firehouse, Donnie is putting the finishing touches on the Trap Portal when his helmet gives him a shock.  Donnie begins talking like Winston and Egon fears that the helmets they're using to exchange psychic readings is causing their consciousnesses to mingle.  Another shock and Donnie's consciousness momentarily expands.  He sees the Collectors and realizes he can use this flaw in the helmets to his advantage.  Janine then enters with the ninja weapons Donnie had rush ordered and Donnie lays out his plan.  They're going to merge the Ghostbusters' proton weapons with the martial arts weapons to take the fight back to the Collectors.


Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #1.  The story continues in TMNT/Ghostbusters #3.

*When Winston and Leonardo enter the dimension of the Fred Wolf TMNT, the ghost they encounter is the spirit of Lord Shibano, who appeared in the episode "Blast from the Past".

*Egon mentions the time he was killed, which happened in Ghostbusters International #7.  He was brought back to life, but his notes were destroyed in Ghostbusters International #11.

*Donatello mentions the time he participated in professional wrestling in Dimension X, which happened in TMNT: Dimension X #3.

*Donnie mentions the last time his body and soul were in two places at once.  He had his mind separated from his body and placed in Metalhead in TMNT (IDW) #45.

*This issue was originally published with 3 variant covers: Cover A by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado, Cover B by Pablo Tunica, and Cover RI by Donny Tran and Delgado.


Review:

The characters pair up and split up in this issue and the fun is seeing each Turtle and Ghostbuster work together to get through a problem.  With the introductions having been taken care of in the first crossover, this time around the characters are able to cooperate like old friends and I think it makes their interactions more entertaining.

Burnham and Waltz throw a bit of a curveball, too, in regards to the pairings.  Some of the characters get matched with their obvious counterparts, like Egon and Donnie (the eggheads) or Winston and Leo (the straightmen), but the rest get a bit of a shake-up.  The rebellious Peter gets paired with Mikey rather than the rebellious Raph, while the childish Ray gets paired with Raph rather than the childish Mikey.  It's a good mix and match that breaks the formula some rather than saddle everyone with their obvious soul mate.

One of the things I love about the Ghostbusters as characters is that each one was designed to represent a different aspect of the sciences.  For instance, Peter Venkman, with his Ph.D.s in psychology and parapsychology, represents the soft sciences.  It's why he's so good at manipulating people (mainly getting a rise out of them) and talking his way out of problems.

Egon Spengler represents the STEM fields, like engineering.  He designs all the equipment, thinks in complex mathematical formulas, and speaks in a scientific jargon that needs to be translated for the laymen in the audience.

Ray Stantz is somewhere between Peter and Egon (he assists Egon in designing the equipment and can translate his jargon for Peter's benefit), but I always saw him as representing the research sciences.  Whenever there's an urban legend to be recollected, an obscure scrap of folk lore to be cited, or a chapter and verse from Tobin's Spirit Guide to be referenced, he's the one to do it.  He did own that book store in the second movie, after all.

Winston is a little different; he represents practical application and real world experience.  He got his job with the Ghostbusters not because he was a super genius with multiple Ph.D.s, but because he replied to an ad in the newspaper.  In the original script, novelization, and most prominently in the IDW comics, he's a former Marine.  In the Real Ghostbusters, he was a former construction worker.  In all versions, he's a man of faith who goes to church and brings a spiritual perspective to each case.  But regardless of the universe, Winston comes from a blue collar background and his lifetime of experiences and hard-earned skills make him every bit as indispensable as the other Ghostbusters with their purely academic backgrounds.  And he's also proof that ANYONE can be a Ghostbuster, not just hyper-intellectuals, which made him my favorite character as a kid.

The reason I went off onto that tangent just now is because you can see a lot of those angles worked into the characterization of the Ghostbusters in the IDW comics, especially in this miniseries.  You can see it in Ray, as he rattles off a ton of techno mumbo jumbo to Raph, but with a legitimate enthusiasm that Egon often lacks.  Last issue, Winston was the one to suggest that the interdimensional limbo was the religious concept of Purgatory, and in this issue he uses his military training to try and rally a depressed Leonardo.  And the scene where Peter applies his psychology degree to help Mikey work through his parental abandonment issues was absolutely perfect.

It's easy to try and pigeon-hole each character as being something blander, like "the nerd", "the joker", "the optimist" and, uh, "the other guy", but so much more work went into developing these characters than just throwing darts at tropes.  It's why the Ghostbusters as a team are so well balanced and also why you can tell when a writer doesn't get what makes them tick (especially when you get a writer who doesn't know what to do with Winston; I hate that).  It's that sort of craftsmanship and forethought that separates the original Ghostbusters from the 2016 versions, who were exactly the sort of hollow tropes the original characters were designed to avoid being.

I know I'm talking more about the Ghostbusters in these reviews than I am the Turtles, but c'mon.  This is a TMNT website and I talk about the Green Machine all the fucking time.  Who knows when I'll get to ramble on about the Ghostbusters again?  Let me have this.

Anyway, this issue was defined more by the ways the characters interacted than the actual plot.  The scenarios exist to facilitate those interactions, so I won't say anything was particularly lacking.  The references to both series are a bit dense for new readers or for someone who follows one book and not the other.  For example, the Ghostbusters go on about how they used to be against protonic dispersal of ghosts due to the danger it represented (a major plot in IDW's Ghostbusters Vol. 1) but later figured out a means to make it temporary and less end-of-the-worldy (as seen in Ghostbusters 101).  If you haven't been reading the Ghostbusters book, then all of that just comes at you as words words words and you might not get the significance.  Likewise, Mikey rambles on about his reincarnation and Shredder's beheading and Splinter taking over the Foot Clan and readers who only follow the Ghostbusters book might find it all a bit suffocating.

But not me, because I read both!  Ha!

TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #1

Publication date: November 1, 2017

Written by: Erik Burnham and Tom Waltz
Art by: Dan Schoening
Colors by: Luis Antonio Delgado
Letters by: Shawn Lee
Edits by: Bobby Curnow
Published by: Ted Adams

Summary:

New York City, the Ghostbusters' Dimension.  A businesswoman (Marla from Gremlins 2: The New Batch, but don't tell Warner Bros) is attacked by the H2-Ghost, only to be saved by Ray, Winston and Peter.  As they get into Ecto-1, the Ghostbusters lament the increased workload they've taken on, but Ray reminds them that the barriers between dimensions have been dicey ever since their own universe was briefly entangled with an alternate reality.  Winston wonders if the "insulation" between dimensions that Ray and Egon have mentioned might be Purgatory and Ray considers the possibility.

Limbo.  The spirit of Darius Dun throws a fit, watching through a dimensional window as Splinter and the Foot Clan, his murderers, absorb his criminal empire and dissolve his legacy.  Bronson, the spirit who taught Darius how to watch mortals on Earth, tries to calm him down, but Darius only wants revenge.  Bronson tells Darius of creatures who can be summoned to kidnap mortals, but warns him that the price is steep.  Darius demands to know how to summon them, cost be damned.

Back at the Firehouse, Egon and Ray are busy calibrating their inter-dimensional monitor system when a portal opens in their workroom.  Donatello comes charging out and tells them he's being pursued.  He and the rest of the Ninja Turtles were about to teleport from Dimension X back to their Earth when they were attacked by a quartet of supernatural creatures.  The monsters took on twisted forms that mimicked the Turtles, then started grabbing them.  Knowing he was outmatched, Donnie punched the dimensional coordinates of the Ghostbusters into the teleportal and escaped.

Another portal then opens up and the "Dark Turtles" emerge, grabbing Donnie.  Egon and Ray recognize them as the Collectors, foes who had previously menaced them in the form of the Peoplebusters, and the Dark Turtles warn the Ghostbusters to stay out of their business, lest they resume their mission to abduct them, as well.

Later, Egon and Ray bring Peter and Winston up to speed.  The Ghostbusters are a bit intimidated by going up against the Collectors again, as their last encounter wasn't really a victory but merely a win via loophole that sent the Collectors back to their Prison Dimension with a different victim.  Winston suggests that even if they open a doorway to the Prison Dimension and get the Turtles out, the Collectors will just capture them again.  Ray thinks he might have a way to trick them, but it'll take some doing.

The Prison Dimension.  Donnie is reunited with his brothers and tells them that he was able to make brief contact with the Ghostbusters.  Just then, the spirit of Darius appears to them and gloats, vowing to keep them locked up in the Prison Dimension until their father, Splinter, dies from grief, never knowing what happened to his sons.  Darius vanishes and the Ghostbusters appear, entering through their own portal.  Ray gives Donnie a weird helmet and tells him to go through the portal, but he Winston, Peter and the other Turtles will have to stay behind for a while.

Donnie arrives in the Firehouse and is met by Egon, who tells him that while from his own POV he was only gone for a few minutes, due to quantum nonsense, the Ghostbusters have had three weeks to come up with a plan.  The helmet Donnie is wearing masks his psychic resonance to make him appear to the Collectors as Winston, while Winston is wearing a helmet that will make him appear as Donnie.  The remaining Ghostbusters and Turtles will then split up and each venture to different dimensions.  The Collectors, a hive consciousness, can only stalk one Turtle at a time and will have to chase each of them down.  The hope is that the distraction lasts long enough to give he and Donnie time to create a containment system to hold the Collectors.  However, by his calculations, Egon suspects they have less than a day before the Collectors realize what's happening and come to the Firehouse.


Turtle Tips:

*The story continues in TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #2.

*This miniseries takes place between TMNT (IDW) #75 and TMNT (IDW) #76.

*For the Ghostbusters, this story takes place after Ghostbusters 101 #6.

*The Turtles and Ghostbusters last met in TMNT/Ghostbusters #4.

*Ray mentions "the Scandinavian Warlock Case" which the Ghostbusters wrapped up in Ghostbusters International #11.  He also mentions how their universe and another had gotten fused together.  That was resolved in Ghostbusters 101 #6.

*The Collectors took on the form of the Peoplebusters and kidnapped the Ghostbusters in Ghostbusters (Vol. 2) #1.  The Ghostbusters last encountered the Collectors in Ghostbusters (Vol. 2) #4.

*Splinter had Darius Dun executed in TMNT (IDW) #64.

*This issue was originally published with 6 variant covers: Cover A by Dan Schoening and Luis Antonio Delgado, Cover B by Dave Wachter, Cover RI by Karl Moline, Cover RI by Kevin Eastman, Freddie Williams and Tomi Varga, Heroes & Fantasies Exclusive by Timothy Lim, and Rhode Island Comic Con Exclusive by Chris Campana and Ian Nichols.


Review:

Before I talk about this issue, I just want to remind everyone that IDW's Ghostbusters comics, the ones by Burnham, Schoening and Delgado, are just so damn good.  But like a lot of good comics, they don't pop up in online conversations very often because no one has anything to complain about.  Sort of like Hellboy or Usagi Yojimbo.  Everyone knows they're good comics, everyone enjoys them, but when you can't bitch, what're you gonna say?  So don't let the lack of audible discussion about the IDW Ghostbusters comics trick you into thinking nobody reads them or that they're bad.  There's just nothing to whine about.

So needless to say, I really do recommend them with maximum enthusiasm.  You can get them in those nice hardcover omnibi, too, and they're a stupendous value.  All the nuance of the characters is captured in their dialogue and each storyline steadily explores and expands the universe while keeping all of it consistent.  While Ghostbusters fans don't have a whole lot of options right now when it comes to their media, it's been a reliable source of comfort having a Ghostbusters comic this awesome for so many years.

One of the things the IDW book does sparingly, though, is reinvent villains from the Real Ghostbusters cartoon.  You can probably count on one hand the number of cartoon bad guys who have been introduced into the comic (which is a continuation of the movie continuity, FYI).  That's not a bad thing, since it has allowed the book to cultivate its own rogues gallery more so than lean on the crutch of existing enemies.  And when a Real Ghostbusters monster DOES pop up in the comic, it always feels like a big deal.

Now, to contradict my "nobody ever complains" statement from the first paragraph, I'll confess that not all of the classic villain reinventions have hit the mark.  Peter David really blew it when he reinvented Samhain, the Celtic God of Halloween, as the ghost of a stage magician named Sam Hain, but that was in the quality-challenged early era of the book, before Burnham took over.  I've been dying for Burnham to give Samhain another go, but I don't know if that'll ever happen (there was a tease in one of the Annuals a few years back, but nothing ever came of it).

The Boogeyman had some very eerie and ominous buildup in the "Happy Horror Days" storyline, but they wound up rushing him in the last issue.  He could also use a second chance.  The Sandman, on the other hand, got a pretty great reinterpretation that fused the Gothic folk lore roots of the character with Freddy fucking Krueger.  He's still lingering around out there, so hopefully he'll make a reappearance in the book, some day.

But of all the Real Ghostbusters baddies to get revived for the comic, the best of the best was the Peoplebusters.  They were some of my favorite villains from the cartoon, who unfortunately only appeared in one episode.  Burnham reimagined them as the Collectors, an otherworldly quartet of demons who can be summoned to kidnap and imprison people, while taking on a twisted likeness of their victims.  While it was definitely a departure from what the Peoplebusters had been in the cartoon, I think it made them more menacing and opened the door for more story possibilities.

And that finally brings us to this issue, where the Collectors make their comeback, now taking on the guises of the Dark Turtles.  And man, it's so inspiring to see how all the pieces fell into place for this story.  You've got Darius Dun, who was recently killed in the TMNT ongoing, and you've got the Collectors, who take on the images of their victims and serve a master.  The end result is one big reference to Fast Forward, the sixth season of the 4Kids TMNT cartoon, in which Darius Dun was the primary antagonist and commanded the Dark Turtles, evil clones of the Ninja Turtles.  On face value, it seems so random, but if you've been following both books, all these elements found each other and tessellated so organically it almost feels like magic.

Again from the Ghostbusters' side of things, this miniseries follows up from Ghostbusters 101, which I think was the only low-point in the Burnham/Schoening/Delgado run.  It was sort of doomed from the beginning, since the mandate was to include the characters from the 2016 Ghostbusters reboot film, and not even one of the best writers to ever handle the property could make those pieces of shit tolerable.  Still, Ghostbusters 101 has a lot of good stuff in it from a plot, art and coloring perspective, and while the 2016 characters are annoying and unfunny, everything involving the classic Ghostbusters characters is on-point.  I'd recommend it since the narrative is needed to get you from Ghostbusters International to this miniseries, but just know ahead of time that the 2016 characters are so worthlessly toxic that they cannot be salvaged.

As for the Turtles, setting this mini directly after "Trial of Krang" was another good point of setup, providing an excuse for the Turtles to be in close proximity to a teleportal, but also a nice little breather area to slot this mini into.  If you only read the ongoing and Universe and miss this crossover, you likely won't feel too out of touch.

Also, there's a line that Egon makes rather offhandedly that I love.  He mentions that he and Donatello have kept in touch since their first encounter (explaining why Donnie would know the Ghostbusters' dimensional coordinates off the top of his head).  One of the things I've long complimented the IDW Ninja Turtles series on is how they haven't made Donatello a jack of all trades when it comes to "the science".  He's a genius, sure, but he can't do EVERYTHING.  Instead, they've given Donnie his own little brain trust of other intellectuals to help him figure things out; primarily Harold and the Fugitoid.  But knowing that Egon was part of that brain trust this whole time just sort of thrills me a little.  I mean, they can't mention him or have him show up in the ongoing due to rights issues, but just knowing that between the margins, Donnie is getting updates and advice on the regular from Egon... It puts a smile on my face.

Most of this issue is, yes, set up.  I often like second crossovers better than first ones, as now the characters are all acquainted and we don't have to go through any sort of introduction phases.  But there is still a bit of delay as the conflict has to be established, likewise enough exposition to keep non-readers of either series appraised of the back story.  Burnham works as much action into this dense establishing chapter as possible, and despite being rather wordy, the issue shouldn't bore you.

Schoening's art, as I've come to understand, is divisive among readers.  I love it, personally, but some people out there do not.  Well, they can hate it if they want to, but I'm not bothered.  I enjoy the cartooniness and, of course, all the Easter eggs.  Some are very on-the-nose, like the Real Ghostbusters and TMNT arcade cabinets in the Firehouse or the monster at the beginning being the H2-Ghost from the Kenner toyline, but others are a little more subtle (the pixel ghosts from the Atari/NES Ghostbusters game appearing on Egon's scanner).  They add more re-read value to the book, which is very much welcomed when the thing costs $4.

Delgado's colors are the other half of Schoening's art and you truly cannot divorce the pair.  I went back recently and reread an older story from the "Haunted Holidays" trade (the Thanksgiving chapter) and it was Schoening coloring his own lines.  It looked... weird.  Not bad, but it just felt off and incorrect.  Schoening's lines are a style unique to him for sure, but Delgado's electric colors are the icing that the cake needs.  While he may not get all the attention that Schoening and Burnham get for making the IDW Ghostbusters comics what they are, you NOTICE when he isn't there.  And from my perspective, that makes him every bit as indispensable as the artist and author.

TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 hit the ground running and it's marvelous how smoothly all the establishing story elements came together to make it happen.  The first crossover was a bit comically random in how the characters met, but this go-around feels like it's worked out all the kinks.  A part of me hopes that the Ghostbusters end up like Usagi Yojimbo and get folded into the TMNT franchise enough that they become regular guest stars.

TMNT/Ghostbusters #1: Director's Cut

Publication date: May 27, 2015

Contents:

*Introduction by Erik Burnham

*Complete reprint of TMNT/Ghostbusters #1

*6 pages of notes and behind the scenes commentary from Erik Burnham, Tom Waltz and Dan Schoening

*Complete final draft of the issue’s script

Turtle Tips:

*Although Director's Cuts of the remaining issues are not planned, Erik Burnham has put issue commentary for #2-4 up on his Tumblr account.

Review:

I don’t normally double dip.  In fact, if all these extras had been released in a trade or a hard cover, I’d have never bought it.  Yet release it as a floppy and call it a Director’s Cut?  Yeah, I’ll go for it.  I’m a sucker.

If you haven’t bought the TMNT/Ghostbusters miniseries, then you could either wait for the trade or go for these Director’s Cut editions.  I don’t think they’ve solicited any new ones yet, but hopefully they’ll do the remaining issues.  It’s an added incentive for those who weren’t quite lured into picking up the mini the first time around (and the added cost is just a dollar).

The presentation is very nice; it’s soft cover but with a spine so you can put it on your book shelf if you want.  The complete issue #1 is reprinted without any alterations; the commentary and annotations are printed on separate pages littered throughout the book rather than overlaid onto the art.

As for the commentary and annotations, Burnham and Waltz don’t provide too many juicy insights.  In fact, a lot of their commentary is just mentioning who wrote which joke and describing what moments in the TMNT comic the characters are referring to.

Schoening’s annotations are a bit more entertaining, as he reveals every single Easter egg he snuck into each panel.  And boy, there were a lot more than I ever found.  Many of them are in-jokes us rabble wouldn’t get, like characters designed after the colorist’s extended family, but others were nicely tucked away or obscure and slipped right past me.

The script is a curious inclusion, though being a final draft it offers no deviations from the finished comic.  An earlier draft might have been more interesting; to see what got changed or dropped.  Burnham’s scripting style is also very dry and bare bones; he isn’t one of those comic writers who livens their script up with elaborate prose or colorful asides the outside world would otherwise never see.  The script is a neat thing to have, but the appeal is pretty limited.

Anyhow, this was a cool bonus; I actually hope they do the rest of the series.  Maybe Waltz’s and Burnham’s commentary will get a little more candid and I’m curious how many more Easter Eggs I completely missed. (EDIT: According to Burnham, there are currently no plans for more Director's Cuts.)

TMNT/Ghostbusters #4

Publication date: January 28, 2015

Written by: Erik Burnham, Tom Waltz

Art by: Dan Schoening

Colors by: Luis Antonio Delgado

Letters by: Neil Uyetake

Edits by: Bobby Curnow

“The Long Goodbye”

Summary:

At the Firehouse, Ray, Kylie and Janine are busy working on the EMP device in Egon’s lab upstairs, while Egon and Donatello are busy putting together the transdimensional portal in the basement.  Suddenly, the proximity alarm goes off as Chi-You’s possessed thralls attack the Firehouse.

Peter and Winston head down to the first floor with their proton packs (where Janine is already fending the thralls off) while Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael strap on their proton tasers and follow.  Ray, Kylie and April put the finishing touches on the EMP, but before they can activate it they’re subdued by Chi-You.  The still recovering Casey hobbles out of bed and reaches the EMP device, activating it.  The electromagnetic pulse frees all the human thralls from Chi-You’s possession, but also blows the power grid on the containment unit (which is being used to power the teleporter).  Egon and Don scramble to fix it before everything blows up.

Peter and Winston respond to Egon’s lab and ensnare Chi-You (who is weakened without his thralls) in their proton streams.  Leo then throws a ghost trap, but rather than be caught, Chi-You decides to possess Winston.  He transforms him into a giant minotaur with a proton pack-powered axe and smashes his way through the Firehouse.

While Leo and Raph keep Chi-You distracted, Peter sends Mikey down to the Ecto-1 to get a slime blower out of the trunk.  Mikey returns and douses Chi-You with mood slime to counteract the possession.  Leo pulls Winston free and Peter deploys the ghost trap which successfully captures Chi-You.  Downstairs, Egon and Don have rerouted the power with only seconds to spare.

Later, the Ghostbusters and the Turtles gather in the basement to bid farewell.  Egon reminds them that if they linger any longer, they may begin to dimensionally dissolve and then there’s no telling where they’ll end up when they go through the portal.  Winston gives Leo his Marine officer's stripes as a token of thanks and after goodbyes are made, the Turtles, April and Casey go through the portal and arrive in the lair where Splinter awaits.

Back in the Firehouse, Winston decides that Chi-You is too dangerous to keep in the containment unit.  He has Egon punch up some distant coordinates on the teleporter and tosses the trap in.  Chi-You’s trap finds itself in Proxima Centauri, 4.2 light years from Earth, floating helplessly through space.  However, he can now sense the presence of his siblings and decides to just bide his time until he can free himself once more.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Ghostbusters #3.  For the Turtles, their story will continue in TMNT (IDW) #41.

*For the Ghostbusters, their story will continue in Ghostbusters: Get Real #1.

*The Turtles and the Ghostbusters will meet again in TMNT/Ghostbusters 2 #1.

*This issue was originally published with 4 variant covers: Regular Cover by Schoening and Delgado, Subscription Cover by Robert Atkins and Simon Gough, Hot Topic Exclusive by Adam Gorham, and Hastings Exclusive by Brent Peeples and Delgado.

Review:

The TMNT/Ghostbusters crossover miniseries wasn’t what I’d call especially imaginative, no.  It followed all the clichés and checkpoints of every crossover scenario.  But was it bad?  Not at all.  Yes, it is extremely familiar and anybody who has read enough crossovers will predict the story beats many pages in advance.  But it was fun and lively and very entertaining.

While the continuity is steeped in IDW’s TMNT comic, the Ghostbusters don’t play second fiddle to the Green Machine.  This was a very evenly distributed crossover where both sides got their fair opportunities to shine and contribute.  A LOT of characters were involved (a cast of 12 is pretty big when they only have 4 issues to spread out over) but no one was treated like dead weight.  Even Casey got his one little moment to do something besides be a punching bag in this issue.  While it’s kind of sad that “pushing a button” is the most badass thing IDW Casey has accomplished in the past two years, well… It’s something.

As hectic as this conclusion was, not one of the characters vanished from the pages for no reason and even Egon and Donnie, relegated to tech guys in the basement, got to enjoy their share of suspense.  When the group gets pulled in different directions, you know that those cast members are off DOING something.  They simply don’t disappear because the writer couldn’t think of anything for them to do at the moment (a serious problem with books that work with large ensemble casts).

While it did suffer all the tropes of a crossover story, I can forgive much of that because there are certain things readers WANT to see in a crossover story, even if they’re predictable.  We got all those great interactions and the story was never dull.  It often ping-ponged back and forth a bit too much with the characters running out, fighting Chi-You, going back to the Firehouse, running out, and so on.  THAT element of the structure did get on my nerves a little, yes.  But I loved seeing the Turtles and the Ghostbusters chat and fight alongside each other and compare the weirdness of their respective universes.  It was good fun.

And although it may seem like an “unnecessary” miniseries, if all you care about is what a story contributes to the larger tapestry of the narrative, it wasn’t without its contributions to the IDW TMNT mythology.  It got the teleporter working and that’s already coming in handy during the “Attack on Technodrome” arc (published concurrently with this miniseries).  More than that, it gave us Chi-You, extending the supernatural family beyond just Kitsune and the Rat King.  While he’s still incarcerated by the end of this miniseries, the fact that he can now sense his kin indicates he’s back in his own universe, albeit very far from Earth.  I’m sure he’ll show up again.

As for the Ghostbusters, they now have a working interdimensional teleporter.  I’m sure they can find something fun to do with that.  Of course, that all hinges on whether IDW ever gives us more Ghostbusters comics.  I haven’t heard if they have any immediate plans, but I hope they don’t wait too long.  If the license lapses and another publisher picks it up, Burnham’s continuity might be as good as dead. (UPDATE: They've got plans!)

On a small note, I loved how Schoening adapted the style of Cory Smith for those panels where the Turtles returned to their universe.  While it’s still distinctly Schoening’s work, you can tell he was going for the aesthetic cues laid down by Smith.  It was a neat little thing and also bookends the mini nicely on a visual level (since Smith actually drew the Turtles in their own universe at the start of this mini).

So yeah, while the TMNT/Ghostbusters crossover was predictable, it was a lot of fun and there isn’t really anything wrong with that.

Grade: B+ (as in, “By the way, which character is Melissa McCarthy going to play in the new all-female Ghostbusters movie?  Slimer or Stay-Puft?”)

TMNT/Ghostbusters #3

Publication date: December 24, 2014

Written by: Erik Burnham and Tom Waltz

Art by: Dan Schoening

Colors by: Luis Antonio Delgado

Letters by: Neil Uyetake

Edits by: Bobby Curnow

See Turtle Tips regarding issue title.

Summary:

The Turtles and the Ghostbusters arrive at Madison Square Garden to deal with Chi-You and his thralls.  Donatello attempts to get the hang of the proton pack he borrowed, but it’s a learning experience.  While they keep Chi-You distracted, Winston sneaks up and opens a trap.  Oddly, the trap fails to suck Chi-You in.  Fighting his possession, Casey explains that the thralls tether Chi-You to Earth, keeping him from being contained.  Chi-You then reasserts his dominance on Casey and has him punch Winston, releasing him from the trap’s grip.  Chi-You and his thralls (Casey included) vanish.

Back at the Firehouse, Kylie suggests they rig the traps the same way they did when the Firehouse was attacked by Tiamat’s possessed; a low level burn might exorcise the people.  Unfortunately, the circumstances are different and the same trick won’t work, but the suggestion gives Don an idea.  A low level blast from a proton stream, directly in the chest, might free the thralls.  Egon, Ray and Don stay up working on modifying the arm-mounted packs while the rest of the Turtles and Ghostbusters hit the hay.

In Chinatown, Chi-You is at his wit’s end trying to control Casey.  Casey knows that Chi-You becomes sloppy when he loses his temper, so he’s trying to make him as angry as possible.  For his defiance, Chi-You picks Casey up and swallows him.

The next morning, Janine gets a call about a giant bull rampaging through Chinatown.  Egon, Ray, Don and April stay behind to work on the portal home while the rest go to stop Chi-You.

They meet him in battle and Mikey manages to free one of the thralls.  However, the possessed are too agile to get close enough to tag.  Chi-You then vomits up Casey, who is now gigantic and clad in armor.  Raph and the possessed Casey go one-on-one while Peter retrieves a proton bazooka.  The bazooka blast injures Chi-You, distracting Casey long enough for Raph to tag him in the chest, freeing him.  Peter suggests they vamoose, as they won’t want to be around when Chi-You reforms.

At the Firehouse, Casey makes a full recovery.  Over pizza, Ray and Don come up with a more efficient way of freeing the thralls; with an EMP blast.  Egon assigns Ray and April to work on the EMP while he and Don finish the portal.

Back in Chinatown, a furious Chi-You reforms.  He’s decided that he can no longer ignore the Turtles and the Ghostbusters and prepares his thralls for a direct attack.

Turtle Tips:

*This story is continued from TMNT/Ghostbusters #2.  The story continues in TMNT/Ghostbusters #4.

*Tiamat’s possessed humans attacked the Firehouse in Ghostbusters (Vol. 2) #18.

*According to Burnham, he forgot to title this issue.  And according to Curnow, it went to print with issue #2's title, "The Meeting of the Minds," by mistake.  The proper title "Showdown in Chinatown" didn't come around until the trade paperback collection was published.  Oddly, for the hardcover Deluxe Edition, the issue was titled "Just in Casey".  So three titles for this chapter, so far.

*This issue was originally published with 4 variant covers: Regular Cover by Schoening and Delgado, Subscription Cover by Corey Smith, Hot Topic exclusive cover by Adam Gorham, and Hastings exclusive cover by Brent Peeples and Ronda Pattison.

Review:

Well, Casey saves a little face, I suppose.  He’s been a punching bag in the IDW comics for a while, with being turned into Chi-You’s helpless puppet something of an all-new low.  He fights the control and helps the Ghostbusters figure out how to stop Chi-You, but you know.  He still gets beat-up (IDW Casey just can’t win a fucking fight, even when he’s powered by a god).

The pacing of this issue kinda bugged me: The Ghostbusters and the Turtles go fight Chi-You, return to the Firehouse, go fight Chi-You, return to the Firehouse.  Just back and forth like that.  The fights were fun and the dynamics between the characters were entertaining, but the storyline has been pretty run-of-the-mill so far.  It sort of reminds me of the recent Sonic the Hedgehog/Mega Man crossover Archie did.  It was more about the references and the fanwank and the overall sense of fun and adventure than, well, telling a very original or suspenseful story.

I can’t come down too hard on that angle; MOST crossovers work this way.  It’s just a staple of the cliché.  You kind of know what you’re going to be getting from the start and the real enjoyment comes from seeing the casts interact, not so much the plot.

My favorite moments weren’t actually the parts where they fight Chi-You, but more so the scenes where they all lounge around the Firehouse and talk shop.  Burnham works in references to his Ghostbusters series, such as the possessed “bird things” that Tiamat attacked the Firehouse with, and it all feels very casual.  What’s neat is that not every Turtle and Ghostbuster pairs off with their obvious analog.  Each characters sees a parallel with another in some way and there’s a little bit of everybody in everybody.

As mentioned, the issue is full of fanwank.  There are jokey references to the Party Wagon and the Turtle Blimp, but I liked the background Easter Eggs a bit more.

Grade: C (as in, “Ch’Rell’s Deli… I’d eat there”.)