Opinion

Y - The Last Man

Writer: Brian K Vaughan
Artists: Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan
Covers: J Jones
Published by DC/Vertigo

Yorrick Brown is a street magician/escape artist with a US Congresswoman for a mother and a girlfriend currently somewhere in the Australian outback. And a monkey - don't forget the monkey. One day while Yorrick is hanging around his apartment (literally), practicing escapes and catching up with some phone calls, something unexpected happens. But I'll come to that in a moment. At the same time, in the middle-east, an ancient talisman is being fought over by its custodian and a female agent sent to recover it. And in a Boston hospital, a woman is brought to the ER (coincidentally by Yorrick's EMT sister) about to give birth to her own clone. The unexpected thing that happens affects them all, because at the same moment, everywhere in the world, every man dies. Not just the men though, every male animal of any kind simply dies with a violent outburst of blood.

Except Yorrick. And the monkey.

Vertigo have had some extraordinarily strong series debuts in the last few months, starting with Fables, running on through The Filth, and now Y, which is the strongest of them all. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that the first issue of Y - The Last Man is the strongest first issue of a new series I've read in quite a few years.

In one slightly-extended issue, Brian Vaughan has set up a cast of unusual and interesting characters and an extremely intriguing premise, with apparently effortless ease. The narrative threads are extremely well interwoven and the pace extremely snappy. It's a quick read, but having finished it, you're forced to reread it almost immediately. The primary reason for that is that along the way, any number of potential causes for the catastrophe are hinted at, from the unnatural birth of the clone through to the talisman, even through to something that Yorrick picked up at the magic shop he uses, and possibly others. At this stage, I have absolutely no idea whether any or all of these are going to prove to be the actual cause, but I can't help thinking it's going to be fascinating finding out.

The art team is one with which I'm not familiar, though I sincerely hope that I have more opportunity to see their work, which is fairly light, and takes a broad picture rather than overly-detailed approach which works well for the story.

Leaving the comment about the art at that looks like I'm glossing over it, but I really don't have anything else to say other than that I liked it. With this series, though, you simply can't get away from the words and the concept. In the text page that goes with this first issue, Vaughan outlines a few of the statistical consequences of this 'gendercide': Worldwide, 85% of all government representatives are now dead...as are 100% of Catholic priests, Muslim imams and Orthodox Jewish Rabbis. In the United States alone, more than 95% of all commercial pilots, truck drivers and ship captains died...as did 92% of violent felons. Put those figures into the context of all of those men dying at the exact same second (while the planes are in the air, while the submarines are under the sea, while the vehicles are on the road), and the real impact begins to become apparent. That is the world on which the drama here is based, and the potential outcomes make for a series with a huge scope and a great deal to hold the readers' interest. It's by no means the only time the basic premise of a world robbed of one gender or the other has been tackled, even in comics, but I'm going to go out on a limb and say that it's certainly shaping up to be the best.