http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/1255191...

Stephen King describes this on the front cover as the 'best graphic novel I've ever read', which of course is not a helpful data point unless you know how many graphic novels King actually has read. Is Neum the prettiest seaside town in Bosnia-Herzegovina? Was Dick Cheney the greatest US vice-president ever to come from Wyoming?

I'm afraid it didn't really work for me, though I think I can see why Stephen King and his fans like it. The premise has our hero, Yorick, unexpectedly surviving some disaster which killed all other men - and I think also almost all male animals - in a contemporary earth; this last volume has him juggling contacts with his friends and lovers, and with the Israeli and Russian female military teams trying to capture him and his Y chromosomes.

I found the whole thing a bit unconvincing; almost all the surviving women seem to be young and beautiful, and where John Wyndham did diffirent bits of this story in various interesting ways, Vaughan doesn't. I think this is the tenth and last volume of a series of books about Yorick/Y, and perhaps earlier ones were more compelling, but this one won't be getting a particularly high vote from me. ( )

Although I spent the middle of this series kind of annoyed (how many /more/ ways can we develop for women to be crazy, violent, and selfish?), it redeemed itself in the last few volumes, and especially in this last one.

I was not as attached to the characters as some (perhaps because I read the whole thing in two days), but I still found bits of this volume shocking and surprising - the sort of events that make you gasp, and then make you acknowledge that they just /fit/.

I'm not often one for epilogue-type wind-downs, but I thought this was done nicely, and I really liked that the book pushed things to uncomfortable places that resulted from following the same train of thought and worldview it's set up in the previous nine volumes.

And I really liked the end. ( )

There was a point in Y the Last Man: Whys and Wherefores where I knew what was going to happen and much like Grover in the The Monster at the End of this Book, I just decided I wasn’t going to turn the page. If I didn’t turn the page the bad thing that I knew was going to wouldn’t happen and all the characters I had learned to love over this 10-volume series would live happily ever after.

Y the Last Man is a comic series by author Brian K. Vaughn and artist Pia Guerra. It tells the story of poor Yorick Brown the last man alive after a mystery plague sweeps across the planet killing everything with a Y chromosome be it man, beast, or plant. All of the male of all the species — wiped out in an instant.

And while every good feminist would like to think we’d handle everything just ducky, in Y we don’t do so swell. The story is harrowing and it follows the next four or five years as Y, his secret-agent bodyguard 355, and Alison Mann, a brilliant geneticist try to find out what in the hell happened and why Yorick and his male monkey Ampersand seem to be the only two males to survive the plague.

Full Review: http://www.minnesotareads.com/2009/01...

I bought a few single issues and read the first 9 volumes from the library. When I found out they had wrapped up the series and that the library was going to take its sweet time getting the final volume I just had to buy it. Now I want to reread the whole thing from the beginning. This is one of the best original comic ideas I have ever ready. ( )

The final volume of Brian Vaughan's Y: The Last Man brings the series to a worthy end, as the author tosses many of the core foundations of his characters and his scenario into the air, and seemingly allows the pieces to fall where they may. I definitely appreciate the final chapter ("Epilogue"), which throws the narrative forward sixty years in order to show how questions raised throughout the series work themselves out. While not all of the individual pieces of the end of the story are entirely satisfying, Vaughan deserves credit for taking considerable risks in drastically mixing up the core elements of his story - a safer conclusion was certainly within reach, and the fact that the author doesn't deliver the obvious makes this final volume worth reading. ( )

Everything is wrapped up in this final volume of Y: the Last Man. Well, almost everything. This is a solid ending to a series I hate to see end. I think the plot and idea was rich enough to easily last 10 more volumes. Great series and great last volume. ( )

"I laughed; I cried. It was better than 'Cats.'"(Look, I'm not about the spoilers. But this whole series is so worth reading.) ( )

This is the last of the series and it is hard for me to tell whether my disappointment was from how the story eventually ends, or the fact that it ended. I loved this series, even though it did meander at times.

Yorick finds Beth, but of course there are glitches in everything. It left me wanting another volume. If you have read this far, you HAVE to see how it ends, but like it said, it left me wanting more. ( )

This was a mighty good series. What it most lacks is "director's commentary" from Brian K. Vaughan and the artists. It's such a crazy, mind-bending series about science fiction, society, and gender that it might have benefited from some what-if's the creators had toyed with or plot-building. I'm sure that'll come later in special limited edition, extra-expensive versions. ( )

Still digesting this one. It didn't exactly make a cheerful read. May have to re-read the entire series before I really make up my mind as it did suffer somewhat from publishing delays and me losing some of the plot. ( )

Y, for those who've never had the pleasure, is the story of Yorick Brown - literally the last man on planet earth after a mysterious plague wipes out anyone else with the Y chromosome. His only male companion is his pet monkey, Ampersand, but other than that unruly little critter (who comes to play a crucial role in both Yorick's adventures - and the secret of why Yorick is the plague's only male survivor), the world is now ruled, and solely populated, by "the fairer sex".

Read the full review at my blog. ( )

I discovered Y the Last Man in trades, so when the series ended a few months ago I knew I'd have a bit of a wait before I could read the grand finale. The wait was excruciating. At last, the final trade was released, was it worth the wait? I'd say yes and no (way to be ambiguous, eh?)

For the uninitiated, Y tells the story of what happens when a plague kills every mammal with a Y chromosome except for Yorick Brown and his monkey, Ampersand. The series followed Yorick's adventures as he and his companions searched for answers about the plague and attempted to reunite him with his girlfriend who was on the other side of the globe when the plague struck. The tenth trade collects the final six issues of the series and does a pretty good job of wrapping up all of the loose plot threads. Beth, the girlfriend, and Yorick are reunited and we get to check in with all the important characters that have come and gone throughout the course of the series. We even get to jump ahead and time 60 years to see what becomes of the world. All the bases are covered, and overall it's an enjoyable read, but I was left feeling a tiny bit unsatisfied. Something's missing and I'm not sure what. I think part of it might be that there wasn't enough of a wind down to the story, I could have used an issue to decompress between the end of the main story and the epilogue. Part of it also has to do with the fact that it would be hard for any ending to live up to the build up we've had over the past nine trades (or 54 issues).

Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra (along with the rest of the creative team) have done really good work producing 60 solid issues of comic goodness. I'm sad that it's over; I got to really love Yorick, 355, Dr. Mann and the rest and I'm going to miss them now that their story is done. ( )

click for review ( )

This phenomenal series concludes without slowing down. The events and revelations contained herein continue to be surprising--even shocking--yet seem appropriate and fitting, even in the many tragic moments. (If you finish with completely dry eyes, you may want to get your DNA sequenced, as you might not be human.) There are no perfect happy endings here, but life goes on, which in this epic tale was never a surety. ( )

http://geekylibrarian.wordpress.com/2... ( )

The story culminates, not with a bang, but with a bullet. A very important bullet. I’ll say no more. Well maybe a little... http://icantstopreading.wordpress.com... ( )