The 2014 death of Harold Ramis has ensured that we’ll never get to see all of the Ghostbusters from the original 1984 film meet the new squad of paranormal investigators from this year’s polarizing reboot on the big screen, but an upcoming comic is bringing the two teams together for a crossover that will span universes.
IDW Publishing has released a preview of its comics that will be hitting shelves in March 2017. Among them is Ghostbusters 101 No. 1, which brings Peter Venkman, Egon Spengler, Ray Stantz, and Winston Zeddemore together with Erin Gilbert, Abby Yates, Jillian Holtzmann, and Patty Tolan for a first-of-its-kind meeting between the original team and their successors in the franchise.
Scripted by Erik Burnham, with art by Dan Schoening, Ghostbusters 101 will pit the original team against a threat that’s more than one set of Ghostbusters can handle. The series synopsis reads as follows:
Before they began investigating the supernatural, most of the original Ghostbusters were teachers … and they’ve decided it’s time they start sharing their knowledge again. But when their first batch of students start poking around the firehouse and accidentally set in motion the merging of two universes (it’s easier than you’d think), Venkman, Stantz, Zeddemore, and Spengler will need all the help they can get to put things right! And who do you think will answer the call? (If you guessed Holtzmann, Yates, Tolan, and Gilbert, you get a gold star!) It’s a brand new interdimensional meeting of the minds, starting here!
Along with revealing some art from the series’ first issue, IDW issued a press release announcing the crossover that features some thoughts on the meeting of the two teams from one of the people who knows them best: Original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman, who also produced the 2016 film and serves as the co-founder of the franchise’s production company, Ghost Corps.
“I’ve always wanted to meld the two worlds,” said Reitman in the statement accompanying the announcement. “It would be great fun to see them all together for the first time, and I think it’s important for the future that we bring it back into a single universe.”
The first issue of Ghostbusters 101 hits shelves in March. You can see all the art provided by IDW below.