Y: The Last Man, Vol. 3: One Small Step

My blog post about this book is at this link. ( )

The series continues with Dr. Mann, Yorick, Ampersand and Agent 355 trying to get to California to the doctor’s second laboratory. Along the way, they hope to find more men when they come across a space shuttle landing. They also drop in for a showing of a play about the last man on earth, which is a cute little postmodern device. Also one of the panels that opens a chapter is an "Alas poor Yorick" joke, which I quite approve of, even if it was a long time coming and will undoubtedly happen again. Shakespeare references are quite common; for example, the woman portraying the last man on earth complains about the name Lionel, wishing instead for a name from Shakespeare, perhaps from Hamlet. ( )

Still fun. The last story was, I think, meant to address complaints that the premise is a wee bit androcentric, but it didn't work for me because the "Last Man" stage-play was pretty lame.

However, finding out that Mary Shelley wrote a post-apocalyptic novel called The Last Man? Pretty exciting. (Not actually about the same thing as the graphic novel, but I honestly didn't know that Shelley wrote any novels besides Frankenstein! Turns out she wrote six others.) ( )

Intrigued by the premise; finding the execution to be a little off-putting. It's a dude's idea of what it would be like to be the last man on earth--so even this female-centric world still ends up not really dealing much with women's issues. I don't really have a clearer idea of how to say it, and I'll keep reading a bit more, but I'm not totally sold yet. ( )

This volume had some good new developments, and a ton of laugh-out-loud moments, probably my favorite of the first 4. ( )