Review: Y The Last Man
Quick Synopsis: This story takes place in a near future where a sudden apocalyptic event wipes out every mammal with a Y chromosome. Every male mammal except a young man named Yorick and his pet gibbon. Yorick sets off on a cross country adventure to help a geneticist uncover the reason behind the event. We explore what our world would be like without men and how women would run it.
*This review contains spoilers!*
I want to say I really, really wanted to like this book. It came highly recommended from several friends and coworkers. And I really did like some parts of it. But the issues I had with it got in the way of e enjoying it as much as I feel like I should. Bare with me, I will explain.
I love (like LOVE) post apocalypse stories and exploring what societies would be like under different social circumstances. Those are some of my favorite sci fi stories actually. So I was really excited to explore Brian K Vaughan's take on a world without men. Especially since I thought Saga was so great! It may have been that I went in to this one with too high expectations... I'm not sure, but this just felt like such a cliched chauvinist look at what the world would be like under female rule. I mean there was a giant clan of Amazons who self-mutilated and hunted down men and preached about how terrible men were for god sakes. The bad ass woman character we follow through most of the story is a gun and knife wielding black woman with dreads and is just such a tropey cliche. I also have a problem with the main character being a man at all. I would have much rather followed a female character than this scrawny, magic loving "lovable" goofball who just wants to get to his girlfriend rather than, oh I don't know, discover what they heck happened and try to help the world. He only agrees to help the geneticist because he feels guilted in to it. Oy ok I will step off my feminist soap box.
There were good parts to this book as well. Vaughan definitely knows how to get the reader hooked in to the plot and leaves you working hard to figure out just what the heck is going on. Is this a genetic epidemic? A curse? The work of higher powers? There is a magic amulet, a scientist who just so happened to give birth to the first human clone the same second that all the men died. Military factions across the globe doing some strange things (burning down said geneticist's lab). So there was definitely some suspense and many "what the heck is going on here?!" moments. I just over all had a hard time getting invested in the characters. 3 stars for characters on this one.
The art in this was just ehh. But it was released in 2003 so I feel like compared to a lot of other graphic novels and comics that came out around that time (14 years ago guys!! holy crap!) it does look pretty good. I just really enjoyed the surrealist art from Saga (jeez maybe I just am comparing this too closely to Saga?...). 3 stars for art for me.
Overall I would give this 3 and a half out of 5 stars. I might look at picking up the next one and giving the story a chance. I typically try not to judge graphic novels too much by the first volume, as they have to do so much set up that you often don't get a chance to get to the meat of the story the author is trying to get across.
Let me know what you guys think! I would love to hear your opinions whether you agree with me or think I am way off base. See you in my next post!
