Y: The Last Man... Hero [NOW WITH UP-TO-DATE SPOILERS] (Brian K Vaughan)

xpost - Ahhhhhhhhh now I see!

She's really, really detestable.

BRING
IT
ON

x-post: I was about to say something about Yorick's... thing. I'm tired of him yo-yoing back and forth w/chicks. "Oh, Beth! Oh, I want to sleep with you and you want to sleep with me because I'm the last man, But Beth! No! Okay!" Psssst, whatevers. Let's face facts:

1. He's not going to make it to Austrailia. The only way he'd make it is on a boat and human beings aren't hard enough to cross oceans like that anymore.

2. This guy shouldn't be debating sex. He's the last man, he should be sleeping with women left and right. Snaggle-tooth, one-armed, angry muppets- I don't care! He needs to repopulate the Earth for cryin' out load.

3. I want his AMAZING MAGICAL SKILLZ to get him out of some jam every issue... or, every other issue. He usually just uses it to impress girls that he's not planning to sleep with, but I want to see some amazing exscapism shit.

4. Uh... Anyone remember all that stuff that came out when the S&M chick was messing with him? Wha- What's that about? Are we going to hear anything else?

Also, the arc right after the S&M encounter had him use his magic tricks to escape a sticky wicket!

And I clearly have not read the latest issue, but plan to rectify it tonight. Btw, I like Victoria's emo-glasses and army jacket. She's a cute psychotic leader.

Didn't what'shername the Israeli lieutenant take the amulet?

http://home.arcor.de/danny-h/website/images/beruehmte_schweine/miss_piggy.gif

"Oh Yorrreeee! Come here you big piece of bacon."

Leee, I really DON'T want to know, unless the explanation happens to be fantastic, which is why I wish the amulet was never mentioned in the first place.

I've read the issue now, it is indeed the best one in awhile. Andrew OTM about the last panel!

***SPOILER WARNING EVEN THOUGH THE THREAD TITLE ALREADY CARRIES ONE NOW I.E. IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS ISSUE DON'T READ ANY FURTHER TILL YOU DO*** OK, so I figure this, and I bet I'm not the only one to think it, that that ring he bought really does do that gender-reversing hoo-hah (womanb's finger = phallus, etc) and that it was the ring that obv. kept Yorick around. But how would that explain Ampersand? ***OK OPEN YOUR EYES AGAIN***

How are they going to get the ring back before Yorik dies? I mean, really, didn't the plague kill all the men within, oh, 10 seconds? I know 355 if good, but I don't think she's that good. Maybe Dr. Mann can do something to sort him out.

Hero. Oh Hero. You really are fucking in the head, aren't you? ...

I don't trust her.

1) For some reason, I like the idea of a magic ring better than the magic amulet from the first issue. Although that did cause the plague, right? I guess they're part of a set.

2) Not that it's going to happen, but how audacious would it be if Vaughan actually killed off "the last man" in the middle of the series? I suppose they'd clone him or magic him back in a couple of issues though.

3) Cliffhanger speculations? I assume that the agents who stole the ring tracked them to their hideout and will burst in within the first two pages, thus reviving Yorick.

2. That'd be ballsy, but also the suck.

3. You're good, Jordan.

4. A lady friend who is not of comics read/flipped through this issue last night, and now she's all, "When's the next issue???" Hooray for more readers!

2. Yeah, I like 355 but there aren't really any other characters who could carry the book.

3. Actually I had forgotten the ring-as-gender-role-reversal thing by the end of the issue, good catch. I guess the magic of the Middle East turns METAPHORS INTO REALITY!!!

4. Cool!

(x-post)

I'll have to look at the first trade and this issue when I get home tonight, but didn't the "old man from Gremlins" shopowner say he brought it back from the Middle East? Or maybe it was just overseas. Anyway, it seems like nazis and Harrison Ford (or reasonable female facsimiles thereof) should be involved somehow.

(x-post, good point Blount!)

Yeah, I dig the ring more, too, and one reason is because I hope it's not connected to the amulet: I can accept (i.e. enjoy) the idea of a world where lots of magical things work, but they're all rare and hardly anyone knows they work and they're hardly ever useful, more readily than one that has One Magic Item/Idea That Drives The Plot. (It reminds me too much of the horror trope where, like, Brazilian Vampires Infest A Small Town Or New York City, and it turns out that the only magical mystical bullhuckey in the world that works is Brazilian Magic -- there's a special spot in Hell reserved for the writers of this stuff.)

2) Not that it's going to happen, but how audacious would it be if Vaughan actually killed off "the last man" in the middle of the series? I suppose they'd clone him or magic him back in a couple of issues though.

Vaughan would get serious points from me if he did this -- which doesn't mean I think he sucks if he doesn't, mind you. But I think it's one of those books where you can do it without it being forced at all, especially if it were to go on for at least 40-50 more issues, so that Yorick would have been present in less than half of the "total story."

3) Cliffhanger speculations? I assume that the agents who stole the ring tracked them to their hideout and will burst in within the first two pages, thus reviving Yorick.

Oh, nice, so it'd be that kind of proximity effect? Femulating all creatures in a 30' radius, etc?

This is interesting, Tep, it makes me question my basic rule about sci-fi and why I like it, especially in opposition for fantasty for ex. That is, you ask the audience to accept one major change in the world and everything else follows logically from that, as opposed to a lot of magically-charged fantasy worlds where seemingly anything goes (including any sense of tension, if there are deus ex machinas flying all over the place).

Does that make sense? I forgot who I originally heard make the distinction.

I think "secret history" stories -- which on the fantasy end would include Hellboy and my theoretical Y-where-multiple-magics-work (well, Y's backstory would be secret history, at least) -- kind of have aspects of both, because there's still a central premise of "the fictional world looks just like the real world, but beneath the surface are secrets which we don't know for sure aren't true," so you still have a very different reality claim than in epic fantasy and stuff.

Just finished vol 10. Unexpectedly heart-wrenching, and the epilogue was kind of beautiful. I like how the world sixty years after the plague was quite hazily sketched, and how Vaughan didn't give a hundred percent definitive answer to the cause of the plague, thus retaining some of the intrigue that made the series so enjoyable. Top marks, I think I'll start again from the beginning some time soon.

Comics Journal interview in two months.

I got volume I for xmas, then ordered 2-10 all in a batch and just finished the entire mess. Which is what it is. You have all the set-up for a nice extended rendition of a Children of Men scenario and then they proceed to drop the ball repeatedly. Easily one of the most disappointing final acts (and possibly even more disappointing epilogues) in any long-form comic I've read to the end, with the obvious Dave Sim exception (and Vaughan doesn't have the clearly-lost-his-mind excuse, does he?)

I'm trying to think of any really significant moral choices or anything else that stands out in the entire storyline and I keep coming up blank

It is balls, but Vaughan does a good job keeping them in the air and revolving, so a page turner. Soap opera mechanics + sub-Morisson "occult" detailing that never quite pans out into anything interesting + teen crush angst = comics junk food. Disappointing, esp. with ludicrous plot developments and way too many characters who make no damn sense.

y'know, I really liked it for all that.

It was mostly a reminder why I don't really read color comics anymore. Page turner, absolutely, but so are most bestselling novels that have no other redeeming value whatsoever. Plus, nothing in any of it actually looks cool, the art seemed throwaway to me.

not that i'm reading many comics now anyway, but i wouldn't judge everything by Y. it fell off in a pretty huge way imo.

I think Y stayed consistent as an entertaining and intelligent (if not massively deep) SF-adventure story. The art was never beautiful, no, but always more than adequate to tell the story, which is sometimes all that's required.

I thought it was a mercifully shorter and engaging Preacher without quite so much dick waving.

Disagree. I thought Preacher had some [aesthetically] interesting things to say about America and American culture, and was in a lot of ways a flawed masterpiece. Y, by contrast, really is a subpar sci-fi epic -- and it's not surprising when compared to Vaughn's other projects. The guy just doesn't have that much to say. (By contrast to Ennis who has a LOT to say, but generally says a lot of it poorly.)

i was never as bored and detached reading preacher as i was during the last third or so of Y.

Maybe it's because I read it through the trades, but I had absolutely no problems with the story, and thought it was pretty consistently gripping throughout.

gripping is not a complement. Dean Koontz and Dan Brown can be gripping.

you know what was really fucking laughable was the whole SIXTY YEARS FROM NOW title pane and then the next page has FLYING CAR OF THE FUTURE (as seen in popular science magazine) on it, like, this whole story has been about the future, but we had absolutely no ideas about the future, so we stole the oldest bullshit sci-fi idea there is, and drew it badly.

GUYS HE ESCAPED
HE'S AN ESCAPE ARTIST
THE EIGHTY SEVEN YEAR OLD GUY JUST POOF! OUT THE WINDOW AND GONE
THE END

fuck you

Well, that's delightful. I still like it. I haven't re-read it or anything, but it was one of my favourites while it was coming out, and I do miss its absence. And the last issue - dead monkey! Oh so sad.

Yeah, this is odd in that I've never really felt any urge to fill in the gaps and finish it: even Cerebus is compelling, though when he's explaining the Torah to Woody Allen it's not the same sort of compelling it's meant to be, maybe -- I think my indifference never recovered from the bondage therapy arc, though I did like one random issue someone showed me where Yorick is reading a comic about XX THE LAST WOMAN or something ...

Apparently the film rights revert back to Vaughn at the end of February.

I tried tried, but I bailed out somewhere in the middle of book 3 last night.

Don't feel bad, the ending is terrible.

https://news.avclub.com/against-all-odds-the-y-the-last-man-show-has-finally-1845512663

As far as having the source material complete to follow (or deviate from), that's cool.

First reaction though was not having enough energy/interest to commit to multiple seasons of Yorick wandering and meeting the various post-apocalyptic groups. The Walking Dead broke something in my brain that I associate with this series - maybe following them at the same time, somewhat similar structures, maybe the disappointing ends of 355 and Glen.

Still waiting on resolution to the last Saga trade, too. Guessing/hoping that was a fake-out. :\

well it's here now.

Is it... any good? I liked the comic, not sure I'm motivated to watch this over 2,000 other things. If they made a Saga TV show, on the other hand...

And Paper Girls by the Halt & Catch Fire team, obviously

will watch soon

Enjoyed it. They’ve expanded the world it’s set in interestingly enough.

Yeah, first two episodes aren’t bad. They made the good choice - and I hope they maintain it - of decentralizing yorick from the narrative and turning him into more of a doofy macguffin..