Review: Y: The Last Man - The Deluxe Edition Book One

Y: The Last Man - The Deluxe Edition Book One by Brian K. Vaughan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Brian K. Vaughan is incredibly prolific right now. With Saga being one of the most talked-about comics running, the special edition of Private Eye releasing, a new online-only comic dropping with Marcos Martin, and Y: The Last Man getting a TV adaptation, he's certainly got some buzz. (And that's only the stuff *I'm* familiar with, and I'm only just dipping my toes into the comic world waters.)

So, I read this because Saga was great and because it's a dystopian world where all the men are dead and it's getting an adaptation. Those aren't all necessarily great reasons to read a comic - I prefer to be drawn in by the art, the world-building, the writing - but Vaughan is clearly talented and I like gender-focused dystopias. I wasn't disappointed at all. The characters are well-rounded, the story is complex but clear and easy to follow, and the art is pretty good (though not particularly interesting or compelling). There are moments where the story evokes real emotion, but it often feels kind of flat. I think it's because the story favors action over emotion in general, and that's not necessarily a problem. I do want to continue the series, but it's to see how the various story threads play out, not because I'm invested in the characters.

The first issue begins with all the men on Earth dying, then immediately jumps back in time to maybe an hour before to give us some background on our main story threads. We have Yorick (the soon-to-be titular Last Man) and his monkey, conversing with his girlfriend in Australia. We see Yorick's mom, a Congresswoman, talking to a rather rude and sexist Senator. We see an Israeli soldier, a woman, dealing with some street crime. We see a scientist giving birth to a clone. We see a US secret agent trying (and failing) to protect a woman who has an amulet that cannot be taken from her country or, according to legend, something drastically bad will happen. The amulet is immediately taken from the country by the agent (Agent 355) and all the men die. It's not clear if this is a causal relationship, at least not at this point.

Yorick sets off to find his girlfriend (maybe fiancee? he asked her to marry him but we didn't quite get the answer) and stops by D.C. to see his mom. The White House is under attack by the widows of conservative congressmen who believe they should be allowed to take over their husbands' seats. Agent 355 shows up with the new President (the former Secretary of Agriculture, I think?) who was the first woman in the chain of succession who is still alive. Yorick's mom sends him off with Agent 355 to find the scientist who specializes in cloning, though he still just wants to find his fiancee. The pair is pursued by Amazonians, women who believe that the death of men was a liberation for women, and who want to ensure that this Last Man, their last oppressor, is killed. They're led by an insidious, abusive woman who fits the 'cult leader' stereotype pretty well, and the one tasked with finding Yorick (though she doesn't know it's him 'til later) happens to be his sister, Hero.

Yorick and 355 join up with the scientist (Allison Mann) and her lab is promptly destroyed by the Israeli soldier. Dr. Mann, whose clone-baby died (it was going to be her nephew) and who believes that the death of all men was because of her experiment. They have to travel to California, where Dr. Mann's backup samples are. On the way there, they find a town that is still somehow functioning, while everyone else is still struggling to get electricity and plumbing working. Yorick starts to crush on a young woman in the town - and then she tells him that they're all from the women's prison down the road, and they're so successful because they're used to existing without men. The Amazons show up and Hero kills Yorick's lady, and Yorick nearly kills Hero in return. The Amazons are then taken into custody by the former prisoners, but Hero escapes - and that's where the story leaves off.

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