Love it or hate it, the Ghostbusters world is about to duplicate into another universe this summer with Sony’s reboot about 7 months away. Since I fall into the latter camp, as I’m unhappy with my favorite movie of all time being unnecessarily rebooted, I take whatever new material that revolves around the original crew that I can get my hands on.
Lucky for me and many other fans of the original crew, IDW is still cranking out stories based on classic characters and has no plans to stop anytime soon. Their latest release is the double-wide book simply titled Ghostbusters Annual 2015. This once-a-year product features a main storyline and close to a dozen mini-adventures all inked in different artistic stylings. Some of the super-short stories range from ultra-realistic movie look to a take on The Real Ghostbusters cartoon. The art is very well done in most of the shorter tales, and I enjoyed reading through the subplots. My only gripe would have been to cut down a bit on the quantity and expand some of the more intriguing stories, even if only to see more of the fantastic artwork on display.
As for the main storyline of this annual, the events take place after the boys in grey have just finished battling a big bad piece of ectoplasm known as Proteus. Despite the team being intact, unfortunately, the firehouse takes some heavy damage to the point it’s no longer worth salvaging. While in the process of licking their wounds and pocketbooks, a report of a woman who mysteriously lost an eyeball in the middle of the night sets them off onto a new mission.
The villain of the episode will be familiar to Real Ghostbusters fans, and there is even a nod to the cartoon variant of the spook. Speaking of nods, there are a few other nods to the events of the original movie and animated series sprinkled within the pages.
All in all, IDW’s 2015 Ghostbusters Annual was an enjoyable read with top-notch artwork. Furthermore, it sets the stage for a return of the villain at a future part of the series’ timeline. With the inclusion of the additional story snippets mentioned above, this year’s annual is a nice book for the collection, although I’d stop short at saying it’s a must have. That being said, I’ll take anything related to the classic canon versus anything that’s bound to come out for the new franchise. For those in the same boat as me, IDW has yet again given us something to be thankful for.
