Y: The Last Man is a comic by Vertigo that was released September 2002 – March 2008. I recently picked it up and finished it based on a recommendation from my good friend Dom, he does great animations, curating, and interviews
on his youtube channel. But back to the task at hand the Last man, as its name implies is a story about the last man alive on planet earth after some mysterious event called “The Plague” kills off every male mammal on the planet. The only surviving man on the planet is Yorick Brown, a relatively wimpy beta male who’s only skills are that of an escape artist (think David Blaine) and a wide knowledge of pop culture. He accompanied by a mysterious government agent named 355 and a scientist named Allison Mann as they travel a post apocalyptic world filled only with women.
Presentation 10/10
The Artwork was excellent; the scenes are illustrated beautifully and the style stays very consistent throughout the work. That being said, I feel the coloring is really where I feel this comic shines. The colors tend to have this autumn feel to them and the lighting always seems to have this feeling of twilight along with great shading. I think this makes the comic really stand out being unique and recognizable. Another not I should make is that the story takes place over a three year period and they really did a good job of aging the characters and changing things like hair length and weight to make the characters feel more alive. They really got the details down and it made the setting look like they were living breathing places.
Pacing 4/10
I’m going to go ahead and say this to start and kill the suspense. I did not like the pacing of this series. The pacing was very hit or miss for me and miss it die. The confrontations at the beginning of the story namely with the Amazons and with the Israelis did not feel as satisfying as they could have been, because although they were foreshadowed for multiple volumes, the confrontations ended painfully quickly, sometimes over a few pages. I found that too much time was spent walking not enough time was spent on the big moments of the series. Basically the conflicts didn’t feel rewarding enough, for the length of time they built them up.
Characters 8/10
I think this series does a really good job with their characters. Yorwick although he isn’t my favorite character ever, just on personal preference. Yorwick feels real he is a believable character which is nice since the circumstances are so fantastical. As a character you not only see him develop very well throughout the series to come to a better understanding of himself, you see him make mistakes and really grow. Yorwick is one of those Oscar award winning character, basically you see him struggle with every emotion you can think of conflict of duty, loss of life, love, depression, and obligation. It seem like having the fate of humanity in your hands is a bit stressful.355 is a government agent who was working for a secretive organization known as the Culper Ring and what starts off as a very cold character, very slowly gets reviled to be. A very cold character, but she does grow throughout the series and not necessarily in the ways you would think. I know you’ve probably seen a million tough guys with a heart of gold, and I am quick to point out cookie cutter characters. But Last Man does a really good job of taking this idea and making in fresh, first of all its a women, second of all she was a cross dresser(spoilers). While I will say the characters in the series were well done, some of the side who seemed interesting never really got developed as much as I would have liked. Namely Beth(two) and Natalya Zamyatin.
Plot and Story 5/10
Ok the plot and story is probably going to be the hardest section to talk about because I go a few ways with this story. On the one hand the premise of the last man on the planet is an interesting one ( although probably not the most original). What really annoyed me about this comic and made me want to rip the comic apart in frustration are these reoccurring conversations where a random character says something along the lines of Men were 98 percent of the sailors before the plague, or men were 89 percent of the nuclear powered plant workers. I get it; some fields are disproportionally male, sometimes due to convention or stigma, sometimes due to discrimination. I feel for you, but when you can’t go an issue it feels like without a character complaining about how much the men were oppressing women it just gets grinding and annoying. They do such a good job showing their message through the story. They only undermine their position with these very preachy moments that just feel like forced and I know I talked about pacing before, but it’s going to come up again here. While going though the story, the story takes so long to get to the west coast lab that it really starts to drag down the story. Although we are learning bits and pieces about the characters though some of these interactions and short story type stops along the way, the payoffs were rarely are worth the detour. I would have rather had some extended fight scenes than see Yoric take on a new love interest which would almost predictably die by the end of the issue or take 2 issues to follow some playwrights parody the series itself. Although I normally love breaking the fourth wall meta stuff, this wasn’t doing it for me.
On the other hand I love how the story handles the explanation of all men on the planet disappearing at once. For such a fantastical type of event which they knew they had to explain they took a masterful tactic to explain it which I will leave for you to discover in the work, but I will say that I enjoyed the way they handled it. I will also say that the last say twenty issues were paced out much better than the first two thirds of the story. The payoffs were better, the confrontations were lengthier, and there were far less diversions so the story just felt much more satisfying. I ended the series wondering why it couldn’t have been like that for the whole run.
Overall 6/10
So considering everything my overall for the series is going to be a six out of ten. It had its moments, but there was a lot of elements of the series that just left me wanting more, or wishing they sequenced the story a bit better. That being said, I would recommend this series to almost anyone. Although there are some pitfalls which bring the series down from its potential the artwork is beautiful, the characters are memorable, and the world is interesting.
I would love to hear what you thought of the series. Let me know in the comments, and I will do my best to get back to you.
See you in space
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If you liked this check out Character Talk A Defense of Shinji
