Y: The Last Man, Vol. 1: Unmanned

Pia Guerra's artwork, while not outstanding, is very solid. She very capably imbues each character with their own individuality. She is able to convey emotions very well and her designs for this post-apocalyptic world are subtle (i.e., the world is still recognizable, but it is very evident that things have changed).

This title was a sleeper hit for Vertigo with the first two issues selling out quickly and prices jumping quickly. I assume that if you are here, you're at least mildy interested in this title. Do yourself a favor and pick it up. You will not be disappointed.


the book that will save an imprint   September 4, 2003
Steven E. Higgins (Florissant, MO United States)
21 out of 22 found this review helpful

For a brief time a few years ago, it seemed that Vertigo might be in its death throes. Sandman had been over for a while, Preacher was ending, and Transmetropolitan had very little time left in its run as well. The new books being touted as flagship titles-books like Outlaw Nation, Swamp Thing, The Crusades, American Century-were not living up to expectations.

But luckily the writer of one of those failed projects (Swamp Thing's Brian K. Vaughan) came along just then and helped revive the line. He and artist Pia Guerra created a book called Y the Last Man that has quickly become one of the hottest phenomenons in comics today.

In the first trade paperback collection for the series, Y the Last Man: Unmanned, we are introduced to Yorick Brown and his monkey Ampersand, who are both somehow spared when every other male on the planet dies. This first book sets up many of the events that are to follow, establishing situations like that of Yorick's mother, one of the few female Congresswomen left who is now trying to rebuild the government, or that of the Amazons, a group of women who believe the Y chromosome was an aberration and the men deserved to die off.

There is a great sense of mystery surrounding this series. Vaughan has done a wonderful job of leaving certain aspects of the story unresolved yet still maintaining the fans' interests in what the answers to those questions might be. Readers might wonder, for example, what causes the deaths of all the men on Earth. Was it the removal of a mystical artifact from its homeland or an experiment in cloning gone wrong that killed the men? Might the cause have been some kind of biological weapon created by the government, thus satisfying conspiracy theorists the world over? It could be any or all of those things. Y the Last Man defies easy classification, using elements of fantasy, science fiction and political intrigue as a backdrop for its characters to explore, all while weaving an atmosphere mired in the unknown that keeps the readers in suspense.

But like all of the best Vertigo books, Y is driven by character more than anything else. Y rises above the standard plot devices that usually plague stories about the end of the world, because, despite being set in a post-apocalyptic world, it is not about that apocalypse. The reasons behind the deaths of the men are unimportant. Here the focus is instead on how the people left behind act when forced into this situation, and what is most amazing about this book is how true it seems, how real.

Most of the credit for that belongs to artist Pia Guerra for making the world resemble our own so closely that it feels authentic. When we see the congested highways filled with cars, behind the wheels of which sit the bodies of dead men, we feel the anguish the characters must, and it leads us to contemplate how we would cope with such a predicament. Similarly, Guerra convinces us the characters are truly alive with facial expressions and mannerisms that would give the best actors in Hollywood a run for their money, especially in our lead character Yorick and one of the villains of the piece, the Amazon leader Victoria.

Cleverly written and beautifully drawn, Y the Last Man is an incredible book that bursts through clichés and explores interesting characters in a world not too far removed from our own. The monthly adventures of Yorick Brown gain at least a thousand new readers each month, and as sales continue to climb, it is on pace to surpass Alias as the highest selling mature readers book on the market today. If you haven't yet jumped on the bandwagon and tried Y the Last Man: Unmanned, I can't help but wonder why.

(And I promise that the book is really better than that pun was.)


An Interesting "What If" By Brian K. Vaughan   February 10, 2006
Andrew (Chicago, IL, USA)
24 out of 27 found this review helpful

Comic book writer Brian K. Vaughan takes the old phrase of "the last man on Earth" and looks at what life might be like for said man. The story of Yorick Brown is one of tragedy and mystery, with a little humor thrown in for good measure.
Yorick is an escape artist. He is a recent college graduate with an English degree and is currently unemployed. He earns a little cash from his work as a magician and escape artist, but he depends on his beautiful and loving girlfriend Beth Deville for support (both financial and moral). Yorick's mother Jennifer is a United States Congresswoman (or Representative) from Ohio, and his sister Hero is a paramedic in Boston. Though each has their own troubles in life, overall, things are going well for the Brown family. Then a mysterious plague wipes out every mammal on the planet with a Y chromosome. Humans, dogs, cows, apes, their populations are literally cut in half within moments. No one knows why, but the surviving women tend to blame themselves. Notable among them are Dr. Allison Mann, a geneticist who gave birth to a human clone at the exact moment the plague hit, and Agent 355, a secret agent from a branch of the US Secret Service known as the Culper Ring, who at the moment of the plague, removed a sacred artifact from Jordan that had been said to cause a tragedy comparable to the Trojan War if ever removed from its homeland. Instantly, women everywhere are forced to live without their husbands, fathers, sons, and friends.
Although, there are two exceptions. Yorick survived along with his new male monkey Ampersand, who he was training to be a helper monkey. Why they survived is a mystery, but they are now the last hope of humanity.
In the wake of the plague, the world has vastly changed. Food is being rationed, most electrical appliances are down, and women are coping in any way they can. Some have committed suicide while others have resorted to cannibalism in order to eat. Many women erected a memorial to their lost loved ones by turning the (very phallic) Washington Memorial into a shrine. However, a fringe group of women, known as Amazons, emerged, claiming that Mother Nature wiped out the oppresive men so that women could inherit the Earth. They go around defacing memorials to the men, killing transvestites and any woman who oppose them, and when they learn of Yorick's existence, his death becomes their primary objective.
Along with 355 and Dr. Mann, Yorick and Ampersand leave to find a way to repopulate the planet. Meanwhile, Jennifer Brown remains in Washington, D.C. in order to try to rebuild the government. Beth is stranded in Australia, and in Israel, a feminist extremist named Alter Tse'elon begins a hunt for Yorick as well.
Brian K. Vaughan, who is the writer and creator of one of my favorite comic series, Runaways, does an amazing job with this book as well. While the story may not be entirely original, it is still wonderful. The dialogue is very good, and since this is Vertigo, he can get away with saying things that he couldn't if DC or Marvel printed the book. The art is also beautiful. Another really good thing is that the story is contained within its own universe, meaning that no background in comics is necessary to understand what's happening in the story (as much as I love Runaways and House of M, I am a newcomer to comics, and I need my friends to explain some of the events to me).
This is a great beginning to a promising series, and I can't wait to read on.


I love this series!   December 28, 2006
John Blue (California, USA)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful

Within the premise of The Last Man exists every junior high school boy's fantasy: being the last man on earth. While The Last Man could have been incredibly juvenile and explored more prurient possibilities within that premise, it does not. Instead, we get a really interesting exploration of what might really happen if all the men (but our hero) died.

This is the story of Yorick, an amateur escape artist and classic over-educated, underachieving slacker. In this story, Yorick is only a small player, a prize really, in a larger drama of political intrigue that plays out bit by bit as we read.

The dialog is brisk and funny. The heroics are plentiful but Yorick is only occasionally the hero of the scene. In fact, he usually plays the classically female role whose job it is to be rescued by the real heroes, which in this story are the women.

These are comics for adults and the language and storyline reflects that. The art is fairly simple as modern comics go and there are no capes or spandex to be seen. I've already read through the fifth volume and can't wait to see what happens next.



A great start to a riveting series of books   January 27, 2008
Robert Moore (Chicago, IL USA)
4 out of 4 found this review helpful

Brian Vaughan's Y: THE LAST MAN has for several years now been one of the most compelling graphic series around. The series is finally drawing to an end, though the final issues will not be bound into a single and final book until this June. The ongoing adventures of Yorick, Ampersand, Agent 355, Dr. Mann, and the others is finally concluding. The series hasn't always been at its best, but overall it has to go down as one of the finest long series ever executed.

The title refers jointly to Mary Shelley and genetics, the Y chromosome and the creator of Frankenstein's novel about the last living human being following a devastating plague (Shelley was so far ahead of her time in her two best known novels that it would be over a century before people were writing on comparable themes). Yorick Brown, a generally unlikable smartass who makes a living as an escape artist, is the last remaining human male, just as his pet monkey Ampersand, is the last surviving nonhuman male. The question surrounding what caused the death of all human males and why Yorick and Ampersand were spared is the subject of the next nine installments in the story.

I love so many things about the series. I like the wit and pop culture references (including extensive self-referentiality). Many of the characters are a lot of fun. There are some weaknesses as well. As mentioned above, Yorick is not often a very likable character. And some of the groups of females in the series are not very enjoyable, in particular the Amazons, who are more like absurd caricatures of the feminazis created in the fevered imagination of Rush Limbaugh than any believable group of real life women. Still, there are so many good things in the stories that one can forgive the occasional lapses. Later it become harder to forgive some pedestrian storytelling, but that wouldn't come until much later in the series. The first several books are just flat out fun.

I strongly recommend this series, especially with the final book in the series slated for publication in late spring. It will bring to a close well over a thousand pages of graphic novel goodness.