Y: The Last Man

The final paperback collection of Brian K. Vaughn's awsomely spectacular comic, Y: The Last Man, has been released. For those not familiar with Vaughn's work, he created my favorite Marvel series ever, Runaways. He also created the captivating super-hero-turned-NY-mayor series, Ex Machina, and the Pride of Baghdad graphic novel about a pride of lions let loose from an Iraqi zoo during American bombing. All of those are worth reading.



But Y: The Last Man was the first of his I picked up, and still my favorite. Now the series has ended and I'm starting back at the beginning to read the entire story straight through for the first time. If you haven't heard of it, Y is the story of the last man on Earth. It's a simple premise, but it's a dense story featuring a great cast of characters. It is science fiction at it's finest. It's frequently hilarious, terrifying, heart-wrenching. Often all at once.

The ending is bittersweet with an extra heaping spoonful of bitter. Maybe it was naive of me to expect a really happy ending to a story about the death of half the world's human and animal population. Still, I can't deny that it's the right ending.

Check out the Vertigo site to download the first issue for free. You can't beat this story. Now bring on the movies!