Slab is a weird book. At times it’s very humorous and other times frustrating. Maybe it’s because I don’t like groups of idiots… yeah that’s probably it. That and Dr. Grimes seems to get less and less time in the story since the first issue. I’m not sure if this is due to reader response or not, but he’s never been as brutally sharp as the first issue. There’s shades of it here, but I could do with more. We’ve seen the worm things in other issues, but now they have a name “Torques.” They’re explained in this issue and it’s great because Grimes and Kifo use the news reporters as part of their experiment. In a return to form he also addresses the puppy killing. Speaking of which, our college idiots lead by the alien doppelgänger, head to the lab and wreak havoc on… well the lab of course.
The pacing for this issue is a little hectic. We spend almost too much time with the college students and they don’t particularly say anything that’s important. Then we spend very little time with Grimes and Kifo. That and some of the info about the alien doppelgänger isn’t revealed in this series, I would recommend reading Medic for the rest of that info as it seems quite relevant here. Medic and Slab have a weird back and forth of info or they overlap so much I just think they do.
Otherwise the dialogue is on point as usual. The newscaster and the doctors continue to have a great back and forth. I’m not a fan of the college kids, but they serve their purpose. I just hope that we can free the story of them after this issue since so much time is spent proving their high or looking to have sex. God I sound old, but that’s the truth. We get it, they’re high and want to bang… I don’t need a reminder each issue.
The art is definitely better on this issue. I’m a broken record for sure, but all of the fourth issues from Double Take have looked a lot better. It’s not just the pencil work either, it’s the coloring. There’s a lot of depth in this issue that makes it look really rich. There’s still some muted tones, but with the improved coloring there’s a clearer background, midground and foreground to the art.
Slab definitely delivers a lot of information that’s important to the overall universe so give it a read. Even though I was critical of it, it’s still a hell of an issue, I just think it needed a few things to be great.
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