The writing in issue one of “Ghostbusters Infestation†may not be great, but let no one accuse it of holding back on entertainment. Of course, a premise this crazy would have to be entertaining: These “Infestation†comics center on a zombie plague so epic it reaches four dimensions that are each home to some fan-boy franchise, among them “G.I. Joe,†“Star Trek†and “Transformers.†While the characters who inhabit them have enough on their hands without zombies shaking things up, you could argue that the Ghostbusters have more experience dealing with boogiemen from beyond the grave. That might explain why they’re bold enough to crack jokes throughout.
After taking care of a poltergeist, New York’s hardest-working exterminators get started on their next job: the emaciated gentleman shuffling toward them. Egon, whose glasses make him the smart guy, has a gizmo that picks up a low reading on the guy’s soul, which seems befitting for someone with skin that’s this decayed.
They figure out the hard way that zombies explode when you fire proton streams at them, and that the blood they leave behind can turn whatever touches it into target practice. How long anyone with blood on him has before going through such a change is unclear, though removing it can apparently wait until our heroes get all the witty dialogue out of their systems. (For the record, there’s a cat here that touches monster blood and becomes a zombie in, like, a minute.)
Though the zombie they blasted was polite enough to let them finish evaluating him before lurching at them (between his civility and the context-sensitive blood, you can see why these guys don’t take their job that seriously), the one who turns up the following day at the Ghostbusters’ headquarters must not have gotten the memo, judging by how fast he makes his way toward Peter. That he’ll have to blow him to bits seems like a no-brainer, but hey, why worry about all that zombie blood on him when it looks so darn funny?
The only thing with any real competency here is Kyle Hotz’s genre-straddling artwork, but the writing’s still interesting in an ironic kind of way. In fact, this series is even more entertaining when it doesn’t mean to be funny – during a sneak peek at one of the “Star Trek†issues, an examination of a lifeless figure inspires McCoy to deliver his famous “He’s dead, Jim†line…only to freak when he comes back to life and bites an officer. You can’t be right 100 percent of the time.
This article was originally published on AllMediaNy.com
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