Story: 6.5 / 10
Characters: 6.5
Setting: 8
Prose: 6
Art: 7 ( )

Great opening of what looks like a fascinating story. ( )

I know, I know, greatest thing every written... but it didn't do anything for me.
Fell a bit to the boring side. Art was only OK. ( )

This is an interesting concept, but I vastly underestimated how painful it would be to immerse myself in a world where all but one of the men have died. (No men around? What? But...I'd miss them. Can't we just fix it? Bring 'em all back? I don't want to be alone with millions of women....) I'll probably try reading at least the next volume, but beyond that I make no promises. ( )

Everyone seems to love this, so I'm relieved that I like it pretty well. All the males in the world drop dead except this one schlub, Yorick; the world carries on, sort of; Yorick is on the run looking for his girlfriend; various people think they know what's really going on; cultists and pirates and spies, oh my. It's a lot of fun, I just wish it were better.

Vaughan is ambitious for sure. It seems like he's been wanting for years to write science fiction and romance and sociology and secret agents and ninjas, and he picked a pretty good excuse to throw them all in. He keeps coming up with non-obvious corollaries to the removal of men (Israel now has the largest army; there are almost no Republicans in Congress; etc.), and he's also got a big stash of interesting facts you should know, which some character happens to mention every so often - it's clumsy, there might as well be a "Today's Lesson" caption, but it all more or less fits. And keeping half a dozen subplots in the air at once lets him cut to somewhere else whenever things slow down.

That said - he writes really, really cheesy dialogue. Yorick spouts one-liners every ten seconds, like everyone under 40 does on TV; eventually Vaughan fills in a little background for why he seems so stupid, but still. The evil cult leader is so unconvincing that Vaughan had to make up a hilarious coincidence to explain how one of the main characters instantly fell under her spell. Nitpickers will find more to complain about - my main beef was that no "plague" would kill billions of people at the very same second, which Vaughan obviously knows (as of book 6, he's still playing with the mystery of what the hell happened) but almost no one in the book figures out.

Pia Guerra's art is OK, and has more attention to details of real-world things and places than in most adventure titles these days, but it's kind of bland: there's a generic Hollywood look to a lot of the people, and almost no use of shadow. It gets more interesting after the first few books. ( )

Excellent. This was a re-read, so I'm not going to say much. What a wonderful series, though, and the one that opened my eyes to non-Alan Moore comics/graphic narrative. ( )

A fantastic opening act. Very tense. ( )

Interesting premise. Every guy's dream is to be the last man on earth, and of course when you think about it, it's really a nightmare.

Could've been a great story, but it suffers from the attempt at trying to be too clever. The literary references are ubiquitously known - an attempt at more subtlety would have gone a long way.

Nevertheless, it wasn't a horrible story, and is enjoyable for an hour or so distraction. ( )

Great concept that I wish was expanded more within this novel rather than in subsequent books - coming from reading manga, this falls a bit underdeveloped, lots of potential with a great alternate universe though ( )

Solid start to a series. Last man, one male monkey, and a whole world of women.

Fortunately, he's not much of a dick. Good with cracking locks and cracking jokes. I think he's going to leave the cracking of heads to his friends. :)

What is UP with those Amazons? Such a shame that people are people no matter what the sex. ; ;
( )

This series was recommended to me and I'm finally getting around to reading it like a decade later.
So the plot is in the title... Seems like every male on earth dies at the same time, except for 1 man and a monkey. I enjoy the post-apocalyptic genre so it gets a star from me just for that. However, the male character, Yorrick, is just not likeable to me.
First off, he has a pet monkey. Kind of lame on the animal sidekick scale. I'm sorry, but the only guy who can carry that off is Aladdin. Second, he seems to like to pick conflicts with people that really he has no need to do so.

However, the premise is interesting so I will probably continue the series.

( )

A strong start to an enjoyable series. I'm not a huge fan of the art (all the characters look about the same age, it took me awhile to realise Yorick was suppose to be significantly younger than everyone else), but it's clean looking, and isn't confusing.

I liked how the world with only women didn't suddenly become an utopia, and I like how there was a variety of personalities with the women. I've heard a lot of criticism from feminists about this series, but I see no reason why most women wouldn't enjoy this trade. ( )

(Alas poor) escape artist Yorick and his foster monkey, Ampersand, emerge from his apartment to discover that some mysterious force has messily slain all other carriers of the Y chromosome. Road trip ensues with many more issues to come... ( )

Well this was definitely an unhurried beginning to this series. Points go to the Y: The Last Man for having an intriguing premise. Without warning, all the males of the world are dead. Animal and man alike. The cause is unknown, the world is in turmoil, and revolution is on the horizon. Sounds fascinating, no? I definitely thought so. Especially because, as I'm sure you can surmise from the title, there is one man left. Yorick, our main character, finds himself in one hell of a predicament.

With all of that promising information, I really expected this series to immediately take off. The truth is, it really doesn't. This whole first volume read rather slowly. While I liked Yorick, and was fascinated by a world run by women, the story line seemed to be at a stand still. Yorick was consumed by his need to find his girlfriend, his mother only cared about keeping him safe, and the Amazons (a rebel group) were only barely introduced. Slow burn, indeed.

The fact is, this series does hold a lot of promise. I know I'll keep reading. The illustrations aren't anything to write home about, but I love Brian K. Vaughan's writing. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt, and give the second volume a try. After all, the stage has been set. That means there's only good things coming around the bend, right? ( )

Since I have never read a graphic novel in my life, this recommendation came from my husband. He has quite a few in his library, so he thought this one would be good for me.



It was.....interesting. Kudos for a book with pictures - really brought the story to life. Personally, it would be nice to see more adult books like this. Ha ha.



The story was about the last man on earth. One day, all the males of not just humans, but of all species, just died. At least that is what everyone thought. Come to find out there was one man left and one male monkey. The job of some of the women is to keep him alive. And in the end - they succeed.



Since I am pretty sure that 95% of my readers of this blog will not be picking up this - or any other - graphic novel, I will leave the review at that.



It was an interesting enough story, but it does not make me want to read more like it. ( )

Un-putdown-able. ( )

There's a monkey named Ampersand. There's a bad-ass secret agent who also knits. There are lots of other totally bad-ass women and lots of feminist themes. I am really digging this series so far and I can't wait to read more. I gave 4 stars but I may revise it to 5 once I get a better idea of where the series is going. ( )

This graphic novel is centered around gender. Unfortunately, it's also sexist.

Redeemed up to 2 stars, though, because the beginning was 😲 ( )

This review is for the entire run of Y: The Last Man, not any single installment.

In an instant all the men, in fact every mammal with a Y chromosome, all around the world are wiped out. Except for one man and his monkey (and yes, the inevitable Beatles joke does eventually get made). That man, Yorick Brown, and his helper capuchin in training, Ampersand, are taken under the protection of a spy/assassin member of a secret organization answerable only to the President of the USA and sent to meet an expert in (human) cloning to try and discover why Yorick survived and how to continue the human species. And incidentally for Yorick to re-unite with his fiancée, last known to be in Australia.

Of course most of the story is about the troubles of being the only remaining man alive in a world that just lost half its population while trying to travel from New York to Boston to California and eventually most of the rest of the world. How would women react? What sorts of communities would they re-build? The short answer is well and badly, communities of hate and communities of inclusion, all with very recognizable human motivations. There are neo-amazons who set out to destroy any vestige of maleness in the world. There are the ex-cons that were let out of prison (what if the female guards hadn't freed them?) who form a community based around shared pasts and a belief in reform, responsibility and independence. Fanatic nationalists, drug smugglers, post-male feminist activist acting troupes.

Throughout the entire run a variety of possible causes ranging from disease, to curses, to divine retribution, to gaia/evolution re-setting a balance are proposed. The thing they all have in common, aside from never being definitively set as "the" cause, is that every single one of them revolves around the incredible hubris that the actions of a single person caused this to happen. Right along side the obvious parallel of the hubris that a single man could "save" the entire human species.

The story is well told, beautifully illustrated, and plays with a whole range of human emotions and motivations in a fairly believable fashion. If it skims past a lot of the practical details and problems, it at least acknowledges them in passing. My biggest problem is that while any given installment contains some time references like "New York, 10 minutes ago" and "Washington D.C., now" the actual timeline of the entire series of chapters (issues? installments?) is not clearly laid out. And it doesn't help that two chapters might take place in immediate succession, or weeks or months apart. That probably worked fine for anyone reading each installment as it came out each month but if you're reading them in collected and straight through it becomes slightly annoying and distracting. ( )

Not completely sure how I feel about this one. Definitely didn't draw me in like [b:Saga, Volume 1|15704307|Saga, Volume 1|Brian K. Vaughan|https://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1351259514s/15704307.jpg|19113524]. I will probably get to the rest of them, but at some point in the future. I don't feel compelled to finish it. ( )

very interesting premise ( )

Seems like the start of a very good series. The ideas are smart, the writing mostly good, with some shaky spots. Excellent art - clear, expressive, and modern without any trace of that annoying computer-y feel. Too bad there's no complete collection yet. ( )

Disappointing -- This was all set up, no actual plot or story. It wasn't enough to capture my attention or make me want to read the next one. ( )

Interesting premise executed well. The main character is likeable, a lot of the secondary characters are not, and I'm interested to see how it all develops. ( )

Re-read this last night. Damn, it's good! ( )