Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11344 in Books
• Published on: 2008-06-18
• Released on: 2008-07-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 168 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9781401218133
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Booklist
Even the best things come to an end, it’s said; for example, with this book, the outstanding serial graphic novel Y: The Last Man. Five years after the sudden death of all male animals except callow but not stupid 21-year-old Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand, Yorick is finally reunited with Beth, the fiancée with whom he was talking when the dying started. And with the other Beth, who has borne his daughter in the interim (this is news to him). The reunifications don’t really work out, and Yorick decides he loves another—as it happens, too late. Then the story vaults forward 60 years and, in a long denouement strewn with flashbacks, affords glimpses of how all-but-completely-female society has progressed. A few other males have been cloned from Yorick (and Ampersand), and different DNA strands seem to be in the offing. Maybe one day one resulting male won’t be sterile. Meanwhile, Yorick is still alive. Maintaining its plain good looks, the epic ends with a satisfyingly capricious whimper. Or is it a laugh? --Ray Olson

Customer Reviews

A compelling if bittersweet ending to a great saga
There have been some great long series in comics, but Y: THE LAST MAN is unique in that all ten volumes making up the entire run tells a single story. The various books truly have a beginning, a middle, and an end. Other series may have a background arc that extends throughout the various books comprising their run, but Vaughan's masterpiece introduces a number of questions in the first volume that are developed in the ensuing nine volumes and answered only in the last. Will the human race survive the loss of all the males? Will Yorick be reunited with his finance? What do the Israelis tracking him have in mind? These and other stories are developed gradually over the course of the entire run.

The tone of the series as a whole tends to action drama laced with pop cultural references and humor. You laugh on one page, only to have something really horrid take place on the next. But none of the shocks of the first nine volumes comes anywhere near the shocks found in the final issues comprising Volume Ten. I won't go into details, but while all the main stories are completely wrapped up, they won't please every fan. While most of the news for the human race was positive, things did not turn out all that well for most of our heroes. Indeed, some of the arcs ended in utter tragedy. Though the story as a whole focuses on Yorick's constant joking about everything, the book's final events bring even his jokes to a halt. Some things are beyond wit. One event in particular is so shocking (you'll know it when you see it) and so unforeseen that it completely changes the nature of the entire series.

In a story like Y: THE LAST MAN it is absolutely essential that you end the whole thing well. This volume does precisely that. It cannot, of course, be read on its own. Anyone wanting to read the entire series needs to start with the first volume and move forward. FABLES 10 came out earlier this month. You might, with some difficulty, be able to start reading in that (wonderful) series with that volume, but Y: THE LAST MAN has to be read from beginning to end. Starting with this volume would be like beginning GREAT EXPECTATIONS with Chapter 25.

I want to single one character out for praise. I've been engaged in a project lately that involves looking at the major female heroes in various popular media, from TV to graphic novels to movies. The past ten to fifteen years (Buffy seems to be the tipping point) has seen an explosion of great female heroes. But incredibly very, very few of these have been women of color. Max in DARK ANGEL is racially indistinct but seems exotic, but she is close to the exception. Agent 355 in this series is easily one of the most compelling and truly heroic black characters around. The genre -- indeed, all genres -- need more characters like her. It isn't just young black females who need to see empowered characters like 355. Just as, I believe, that both men and women have their views of women subtly altered by popular female heroes like Buffy and Xena, so I think all of us have our views of race and gender affected by a character like 355. Sadly there are very few black female characters her equal. Storm in the X-Men is an exception as well as several characters in Octavia Butler's novels (especially the protagonist in the Earthseed novels). But there shouldn't be so few examples.

In a way, I'm truly saddened that this series has come to an end. For years we've been looking forward to the next issue and looking ahead to the distant future (which is now past) to find out how everything ends. I confess it didn't end like I had expected or even how I had hoped. But sometimes as readers we get the story we needed instead of wanted. In the end, it was a great read.

Not a fairytale ending
*spoilers ahead*

If I think on it too long I can't help but feel just a little let down by the ending of this series. But, that said, doesn't mean that I'm altogether unhappy with the ending or that I think it should have been done differently.

All mysteries are not fully revealed. I have to think that perhaps that was intentional. We don't always get all the answers in life, right? Society and periods in history (some more than others) are messy and complicated and convoluted and full of holes that never get completely filled in and smoothed over. And just like in life, we don't always get the most reasonable, justifiable answers to those complex situations. So my feelings of let down are not so much with the writer and how things came together (or didn't) but just that things didn't turn out rosier.

My feelings about the explanation of the plague are mirrored by Yorick himself when he says, "As far as answers go, it was vaguely unsatisfying." To which Beth asks, "Is there any explanation that would have been satisfactory?" Yorick: "Um, aliens? I would have also accepted witchcraft or anything involving nanobots." I think that Vaughan is letting readers know here that he knows that the grand reveal really wasn't all that grand, that it wasn't a mistake or an oversight but it was meant to be that way. The series' strength is most definitely in it's characters. And character development is what Brian Vaughan seems to do really well.

My only real qualm is that Yorick's character wasn't more redemptive. He loses so much and goes through so much and manages to maintain his sense of humor and optimism through the entire series, right down to the very last chapter, but excluding the very last chapter. It's rather disheartening. But then again, a human reaction that feels true to life. It's an anti-fairytale conclusion. And a fairytale, this definitely is not

Alas...
All in all, this is an astoundingly satisfying conclusion to what may be the best comic series of all time. As Hellboy once said, "What makes a man a man?... It's the choices he makes. Not how he starts things, but how he decides to end them." Brian K. Vaughan gave us a truly great ride with the first nine volumes of "Y: The Last Man," but how he chose to conclude this series and pay-off all the plot points is truly spectacular.

Vaughan's writing here reminded me of Alan Ball ("Six Feet Under") at his best, and that's saying a lot. Each page pops with references to past events, little nods to pop culture, and supremely earned character moments that we've been waiting for since the man-killing plague hit in the first issue. There are no sweeping gestures to erase the plague, no "everything is all okay" ending, just a coming together of all the plot threads that Vaughan has established in a realistic, bittersweet, and emotional ending. The care that Brian K. Vaughan took in writing this and the care that Pia Guerra took in penciling this is so obvious, as it's their goodbyes to the characters they've been on this journey with for sixty long months. It's a beautiful piece of writing, and definitely establishes "Y: The Last Man" as one of the comics to absolutely transcend its medium. Anyone can pick up this series off the shelf, knowing that it's a) accessible to anyone and b) that Vaughan stuck with this series to the end. And didn't shy away from truly ending it.

Reading this book was one of the best, most emotional experiences I've had with a piece of fiction. The only instances that come equal how I felt while going into this book and the feeling of finishing it was how I felt when the final episode of ANGEL aired and when I turned onto the final page of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." Yorick's tale was a long one, and it wasn't always as smooth as it could have been, but it all comes together in this beautifully written and illustrated book. I'll sorely miss reading this series into the late hours of the night, but the way Vaughan ended Yorick's story, I can't help but be satisfied.

So bear with me as I say goodbye to these characters who I've come to know in reading this series. Goodbye Natalia. Goodbye all three Beths. Goodbye Hero. Goodbye Rose. Goodbye Alter. Goodbye Dr. Mann. Goodbye Agent 355. Goodbye Ampersand. And goodbye Yorick Brown.

Alas...

10/10 Classic.