Ghostbusters New Timeline: After the Movies

At this point, the placement of non-GBVG stories is highly speculative, and subject to change. I'm trying to keep them more or less in order of publication.

"The Other Side, Part One" (XU GBTOS 1-01)
A seemingly routine bust of some gangster ghosts turns bad when one of them posesses Venkman; Winston clocks him, and the ghost gangster vacates, but to their horror the Ghostbusters discover that Venkman's spirit has been kicked out of his body, and consigned to the "Dark Void of Dispair"
The ghost gangster--Fred--reports to his bosses, notorious dead gangsters Meyer Lansky, Charles "Lucky" Luciano, Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel, and Al Capone--and they agree that something has to be done about it. Fred enthusiastically volunteers to handle the messy deed...
Fred returns to Venkman's "empty" body, and lures the Ghostbusters outside: where a team of spectral thugs wielding real guns shoot them dead.

"The Other Side, Part Two" (XU GBTOS 2-01)
Fred, still wearing Venkman's body, reports to his bosses. Ironically, they're all in a church. The other Ghostbusters are dead--and their bodies sunk in the ECTO-1. They're not going to bother the ghost gangsters anymore. Fred tells them he's "retired"--he likes living in Venkman's body. and goes to find a "dame"
Ray, Egon, and Winston "awake" in Purgatory, and are attacked by the ghosts of an old lady, a more modern tough, a kid, and conjoined twins. The Ghostbusters fight off the attack--Egon goes into a wonderful moment of freak out--but while fleeing the attackers, Ray and Egon end up separated from Winston.
The ghosts attack Egon and Ray again, and they run into a demon guarding the "border". The two Ghostbusters are about to be destroyed by the demon when Venkman appears, and pulls the creature's spine out. Gross.

"The Other Side, Part Three" (XU GBTOS 3-01)
Venkman isn't alone--he's got the ghosts of some famous lawmen on his side, now: J. Edgar Hoover, Elliot Ness, and Jelly Bryce. Venkman's also befriended a boy named Jiff. Capone, Lansky, and the other gangsters are running a spectral smuggling operation, smuggling souls out of Pergatory (in return for a "cut" of the souls "off the book")
The good guys are attacked again by a lion demon, but Venkman manhandles it--for some reason, his ghosts is like some sort of super hero (Venk-Man! Sorry...) Egon theorizes it's because his physical body isn't dead yet.
Winston eventually turns up with a bikini-clad girl named Janelle, who was his girlfriend before her untimely death by drowning.
Back on Earth, Fred has just finished with a couple of prostitutes when he's contacted by Lucky Luciano, who orders him to "finish the job". Janine shows up finding the firehouse trashed; Fred knocks her unconscious and leaves.
The gangsters have made a "special arrangement" and Fred, still in Venkman's body, is transported to Purgatory. Oh, and Fred's armed with a proton pack, and you know how dangerous those are if you're a ghost...

"The Other Side, Part Four" (XU GBTOS 4-01)
Fred catches Venkman in a ghost trap; things look dire. Then Jiff smashes the trap, releasing Venkman.
While he was in the trap, though, Venkman had a vision of angels. They give him the ol' "We cannot overstep the truce" spiel, and Venkman is sent back to his body, evicting Fred.
A larger demon appears, trying to claim Venkman's body per the terms of it's deal with the gang bosses. Fred is incensed to realize he was gonna be "thrown under the bus"; he wants to help against the demon, but they trap it without his help. Hoover promises that Fred and Capone (who'd been captured by Ness, of course) will get what's coming to them as Venkman passes out and blue light surrounds them all...
One week later. The ghost gangsters are at the same church seen previously, grooming their newest recruit, John Gotti, when the Ghostbusters show up, alive and well, having been revived by a fairly literal "Deus Ex Machina". The four gang bosses are zapped and trapped with little problem.
Janelle and Jiff's ghosts are there, and she tells them that her time is up. She says her goodbyes to Winston, and the two of them fade into the ether, crossing over to the other side.

"The Theatre of Pain" (XU GBT 1-01)
Theatre producer Blintzy Jones has a problem: his big budget, exposion-laden play "Runaway Romance" is being haunted. The director quits, and Venkman takes over (hamming it up all the way), with Ray as stage director and Egon as the male lead, leotard and all.
The culprit is the ghost of Francis Frum, a theatre critic who sees Jones' plays as monstrosities without soul.
They discover that Frum was a frustrated playwright, and put on a production of his show complete with a spectral cast. Jones grumbles, thinking every form of entertainment requires F-14s, but the show is a hit.

"Worm in the Apple" (XU GBT 1-02)
Jack Hardemeyer, former assistant to Mayor Lenny Clotch, is out of a job and bitter. He approaches a bunch of ghosts with a proposition...

"We're Ready to Believe YOU" (XU GBT 1-03)
Ray is on duty, and is sent on a bunch of false alarms...until he finds a real monster posing as a kid who claimed one was under his bed. Ray catches the ghost...but then Hardemeyer shows up, released the entity, and it attacks him...

"Just Your Typical Class 1 Confined Manifestation" (XU GBT 1-04)
Janine tells Egon he's got a call, but he isn't interested until she mentions that the call comes from his old physics instructor, Professor Harold Teplitz. It isn't until Teplitz's on, Harry Jr, arrives, that Egon is able to convince the senior Teplitz of the truth: he died two years ago, and the entities "haunting" him, his wife and parents, are trying to take him to the Other Side, where he belongs. Teplitz accepts his fate, and fades away peacefully (or so it appears...). Then Hardemeyer ambushes Egon, and ghosts with proton pack-like weapons blast the unarmed Ghostbuster, and place him in a wierd kind of trap...

I just have to mention that Janine is hitting on Egon in this story. Which is as it should be.

"Ghost Busted" (XU GBT 1-05)
Janine tells Venkman and Winston that Egon and Ray haven't returned from their last calls, or contacted her, and has them check out the newest calls. Apparently knowing who they're dealing with, the enemy ambushes Venkman by taking on the form of a female coed wearing nothing but a towel. Hardemeyer appears, gloats, and Venkman is caught. Winston escapes, and arms himself with some mundane weapondry, namely guns. He finds the other three Ghostbusters, their spirits contained in a micro-sized Ecto Containment Unit, and frees them. They confront Hardemeyer, and find out that Teplitz has been working with him all along, and that it was Teplitz who designed the modified "people buster" weapondry. Egon captures Teplitz, and the defeated Hardemeyer escapes.

"The Devil Wears Nada" (XU GBT 1-06)
The Ghostbusters are picking up PKE readings at "Rambeau's House of Fashions"; they send Venkman in to buy a dress, and when they get the ugly thing back to GBCentral, they force Ray to wear it. It begins to squeeze him, and they blast it off of him.
Janine tells them Rambeau is the hottest fashion designer in the city; she shows them a fashion magazine full of her designs. Egon is horrified to discover some of the fashions with Sumerian glyphs reading "Behold the Power of the Deciever--the Power of Heel"
Heel is a Sumerian God of Deception and, rumors say, the comcubine of Gozer. The Ghostbusters break into Rambeau's shop, and find her summoning Heel itself--who has adopted the form of a giant glam boot. Unfortunately, an army of posessed fashion victims are sent to attack our heroes, driving them off.
Venkman hatches a plan, to fight high fashion with "low fashion"--they buy up every jump suit and set of coveralls they can get their hands on, and pass them out to everyone they see. It breaks the power of Heel, and it adopts the form of, as Venkman phrases it, a "fussy tranny". Heel then uses magic to transform the Ghostbusters uniforms into some of it's dresses. Venkman spills red whine on Heel, causing him to freak out, and the Ghostbusters In Drag defeat him.
In closing, we see the Ghostbusters launching a new line of flight suits, and Hardemeyer at a soup kitchen

The demon Koza'Rai attacks Ghostbusters Central, and sends Venkman, Ray, Egon, and Janine hurtling through the time stream into seperate eras. Only Winston remains in the present; the Ghostbusters gone, Koza'Rai starts to rewrite time to his satisfaction, turning present day New York into a demon infested hell-hole, and distorting even the eras that the Ghostbusters have landed in.
Winston, who leads a resistance movement, is contacted by "Rachel Unglighter", whom convinces him she's a former student of Egon Spengler, and to allow her to take the ECTO-1 and turn it into the time travelling "ECTO-10" to rescue the other Ghostbusters
Just before Displaced Aggression #1

"Displaced Aggression, Part One" (XU GBDA 1-01)
Rachel arrives in 1865, where Venkman has just defeated the Rudely Mallard Gang with his cobbled together equipment. Venkman's doing so has drawn the attention of the Demon Collective in New York, and they send the Black Train out for revenge. Working together, Rachel and Venkman defeat the Train, and take off in the ECTO-10 in search of Ray.

"Displaced Aggression, Part Two" (XU GBDA 2-01)
Venkman and Rachel arrive in the Sixth Century, Camelot to be more specific, and find Ray working as a court wizard to King Arthur himself. Ray is suspicious of Rachel's story--Rachel's claim of attending Egon's lectures "last symester" don't jibe with the fact he hasn't taught since before the Vigo battle. Rachel does some sort of mind trick, resets the scene, and this time Ray buys it.
The two Ghostbusters and Rachel then battle the Ghost Dragons that are attacking Camelot, and their leader: Morgan Le Fay. Venkman pretends to turn to her side, pours on the Venkman charm, and traps her.
The kingdom safe, Venkman, Ray, and Rachel take off through the time stream once again.

"Displaced Aggression, Part Three" (XU GBDA 3-01)
The two Ghostbusters and Rachel arrive in 2060, on a Terran settlement on Mars. In search of Egon, they find what seems to be a futuristic utopia--until a horde of demons sent from the Koza'Rai dominated Earth attack the place.
But the colony has a "Great Defender" who's defense mechanisms drive the entities away. Perhaps not all that shockingly, the Great Defender is Egon Spengler; but when the Ghostbusters are brought before him, he hasn't the faintest idea who they are. Ray smacks him with his neutrona wand, and the Ghostbusters make a swift retreat with their addled colleage.
They arrive in the Present, albeit the distorted one dominated by Koza'Rai. Fortunately, Egon now seems to have regained his senses. On the down side...well, they're still in a hellhole version of home dominated by Koza'Rai.

"Displaced Aggression, Part Four" (XU GBDA 4-01)
The three Ghostbusters and Rachel have been captured by Koza'Rai, and Egon now knows the extent of the danger the world is in: the demon plans to open a Devil's Shoe Horn, and replace every human on Earth with his demon minions. Rachel's facade crumbles further as Egon insists he'd never met the girl in his life. But Koza'Rai has made a fatal miscalculation--he thought Winston not important enough to throw into time, and he shows up to free his friends from the demon's dungeon.
The Ghostbusters reunited, they and Rachel confront the demon, who taunts and blusters in comedically broken English. All still looks lost, until Rachel finally admits the truth: she's Koza'Rai's stepdaughter, and is part demon herself--the key to powering the ECTO-10 and the mysteriously upgraded proton packs. She sacrifices her own existance as a human to defeat Koza'Rai and restore the timestream to normal.
There's just one little bit of unfinished business...

"Working Overtime" (XU GBDA 4-02)
The ECTO-10 makes it's last round trip, to Versailles in the year 1780, where Janine has been battling the ghosts of France with the help of the spirit of Leonardo Da Vinci. She's of course happy to see them (and Egon to see her), but she still insists she needs a promotion.

"Past, Present, Future" (XU GBPPP 1-01)
Christmas Eve. The Ghostbusters are hired by rich douche bag Woodrow Wainwright Fraser III to deal with two ghosts who have been making his Christmas Eves miserable. He will pay the Ghostbusters $4 million total if they succeed.
Venkman accepts the job, and offers Winston a "generous" $10 thousand Christmas bonus. Ray and Egon are not pleased with this, but Venkman insists Winston is "only an employee".
The first ghost takes the Ghostbusters to Ray's memories of Lake Wokanda, with his parents. Ray is stuck in the vision, even after the ghost is busted, and Egon realizes it was the Ghost of Christmas Past, straight out of Dickens.
The next vision is of the present, but no ghost appears. They vision is of the firehouse, where Janine is being forced to work on Christmas Eve (and Egon is suitably annoyed). Winston, on the other hand, is understandably furious when the vision reveals how badly Venkman is trying to screw him financially, and Winston quits. Doing so traps him in the vision, and (again, the Ghost of Christmas Present conspicuously absent), Egon, Venkman, and Fraser are sent to the next vision.
The Ghost of Christmas Future shows a world of...oh, come to think of it, sometime around 2009-2010, being stomped by Gozer the Gozarian. Gozer (now in the form of a giant hell slug) smooshes Egon, and only Venkman and Fraser are left as the vision fades.
Fraser shows him the Ghost of Christmas Future, saying that trapping it will free his friends and end the visions, but Venkman has his own leap of intuition. He instead blasts Fraser, and turns the other Ghost loose. The other Ghostbusters also appear, having been told of the botched first intervention years ago. The three Ghosts depart, reunited at last, and Fraser threatens to sue the Ghostbusters six ways from Sunday.
But on the plus side, Winston believes the massive paycheck was just part of the illusion, and things are all right between the four again.

"Tainted Love" (XU GBTL 1-01)
February 14. A bust at a high school brings Winston into contact with a sexy substitute teacher with a ghost problem of her own. Her name is Tiyah Clarke, and her apartment is haunted.
Winston and Venkman check it out, and Venkman pieces together that the ghost is jealous whenever Tiyah brings home male company. They take this information to Ray and Egon; as Egon throws together some smaller proton packs (to not damage the apartment as badly) Ray finds tales of Ballard Smith and Hazel Mayfield, confirming Venkman's theory.
The Ghostbusters show up at the apartment with the micro-packs, but they prove useless. It takes Winston basically chewing the ghost out to solve the problem, as it dissipates without further trouble.
The day ends with Venkman being interviewed by Anitra Day of Psychology Monthly, and Winston getting a homecooked meal from Miss Clarke.

Death of legendary comic book artist Frank Bancroft, co-creator of "Super Gods" and other popular comics in a career spanning five decades.

A "few months" before Ghostbusters: Con-Volution.

"Con-Volution" (XU GBCV 1-01)
July 4. It's Ray's turn to pick the Ghostbusters vacation spot, and he has chosen to drag his three Ghostbusting pals to an Independence Day comic book convention! The other three guys are less than thrilled, especially when Venkman gets into a verbal sparring match with some guys wearing Ghostbuster outfits and prop proton packs.
The demon D'Orka shows up and begins mentally dominating the comic book nerds, including Ray. Venkman and Winston have to grovel to the prop-wearers to get their gear, and try to bluff D'Orka. It's ruined when the prop neutrona wand Venkman brandishes literally falls apart in his hands.
Egon, meanwhile, follows a paranormal reading to the table dedicated to recently deceased Golden Age great Frank Bancroft, and summons his help by pretending to insult him. Bancroft proceeds to kick D'Orka's butt and disperses peacefully--leaving behind one last drawing, one of Ray in Ghostbuster uniform.

Frank Bancroft is clearly based on real Golden Age artist Jack Kirby, co-creator of Captain America, the New Gods, and most of Marvel's Silver Age heroes. The mention of his "feud" with Karl Miller is probably a satire of Kirby's collaborations with Joe Simon in the Golden Age, and Stan Lee in the Silver

October. Winston Zeddemore goes on vacation.

Shortly before "What The Sam Hain Just Happened?"

"What The Sam Hain Just Happened?" (XU GBWTSJH 1)
October 31. Slimebag TV producer Artie Lester tries to hire the Ghostbusters to take care of a problem at his mansion. Sensing a Halloween ratings ploy, the Ghostbuster tell him to get lost but Janine, disgruntled by her lack of a raise and the $50,000 check Lester was offering, takes him up on the offer and investigates it without the other Ghostbusters' knowledge.
Janine discovers that, yes indeed, there is an authentic ghost in Lester's house--a ghost with a pumpkin head and antlers.
Ray, having second thoughts, checks old records and discovers the existance of Lester's old business partner, Samuel Hain, who had just been declared legally dead. At the same time, a call arrives from Lester. Egon takes the call, and dismisses Lester's new plea for help--until he finds out Janine is in danger, at which time he orders the rest of the team into action.
The pumpkin headed spirit tries to draw Janine into the nether worlds with him, apparently out of lonliness (and good taste in women). The three non-vacationing Ghostbusters arrive and pull her to safety as Halloween ends and the doorway is shut.
Shortly afterward, the Ghostbusters give Hain's mortal remains a proper burial, and believe he will now rest in peace.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game (GBVG)

Fall. The Ghostbusters find themselves under the watchful eye of their old "buddy", former EPA hatchet man Walter Peck, now working for New York City under the auspices of the Paranormal Contract Oversight Commission (PCOC).
After some seemingly random jobs, things start to get rolling when one enemy the Ghostbusters never expected to see again appears: the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.
Selwyn, it turns out, is being stalked by the Marshmallow Man. After the Ghostbusters stop it, investigations of Selwyn and the recent events uncover a conspiracy nearly a century in the making:
The ghost of Ivo Shandor is posessing Mayor Mulligan; the hiring of Peck was expressly designed to harass and slow the Ghostbusters from uncovering what's going on. The plot involves a new River of (black) Slime, a Mandala of power set up by Shandor during his living days, and Selwyn--his biological descendant.
Which means it's all up the Ghostbusters to stop Shandor's mad plan to claim the power of Gozer the Gozarian.
The game's placement in 1991 is assumed from promotional material. Dr. Ilyssa Selwyn is voiced by Alyssa Milano. All of the original cast has been reunited save for Sigourney Weaver and Rick Moranis; William Atherton even returns as Walter Peck. Bill Murray's brother Brian Doyle-Murray voices Mulligan.

The events of the Ghostbusters: Infestation miniseries have been placed after the Video Game, as GBVG takes place around Thanksgiving 1991, which wouldn't leave much time for "Infestation" to occur between it and "What The Sam Hain Just Happened?", and keep the IDW comics in publication order. Tentatively, assuming the ongoing series thrives, stories published from 2011-2014 will be considered to have taken place in 1992, per the "sliding time scale" concept sometimes employed by comic continuities.

The Ghostbusters trap a number of poltergeists with unusual properties, which keeps the Containment Unit from "digesting" them properly. The ECU springs a leak, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man escapes, though at this time the Ghostbusters are unaware of it.

Some time before Ghostbusters: Infestation #1

Egon and Ray develop an experimental "proton pistol". Winston carries the prototype on a number of occassions, because he's the best shot.

Some time before Ghostbusters: Infestation #1

In a parallel dimension, the vampire known only as Britt is posessed by a zombie hive mind. She sends zombie infestations to four different dimensions, including that of the Ghostbusters.

Fuller details are in IDW's Infestation mini-series and tie-ins devoted to Star Trek (the original continuity, some time after Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Transformers, and GI Joe. The licensed properties do not actually cross over; only the material pertinent to the Ghostbusters is mentioned here

"Infestation, Part One" (XU GBINF 1)
The Ghostbusters deal with the poltergeist problem, and find themselves with a new situation: zombies. That's the bad news. The good news is that the particular extradimensional vibration of the zombie ectoplasm "fixes" that of the recent poltergeist manifestations, making them containable. But there's more bad news: Ray realizes that it's Mister Stay Puft that has escaped the ECU.

"Infestation, Part Two" (XU GBINF 2)
Britt appears at GBCentral, and with a few clever half-truths convinces the Ghostbusters to go after Stay Puft while she steals a ghost trap.
The zombies attack Stay Puft; what happens next is a gigantic mess as the Ghostbusters release the rest of the unusual poltergiests, leading to a fight between Stay Puft and Zombie Stay Puft, then a massive explosion that disperses the energy from the zombies, the poltergiests, and Stay Puft into the ectosphere.
Britt gets what she wants, though, trapping a portion of Stay Puft's Gozer-derived energies in the trap. She leaves to carry out her nefarious schemes, but not before leaving the seeds of another potential zombie outbreak in Newark.

Britt's plan, and whatever purpose Gozer's fragment holds in it, are detailed in Infestation #2