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Y: The Last Man
Yorick and Ampersand on the cover of issue 23
Publication information
Publisher	DC/Vertigo
Schedule	Monthly (Issues 1-55) Bimonthly (Issues 56-60)
Format	Maxiseries
Publication date	September 2002 – January 2008
Main character(s)	Yorick Brown Agent 355 Doctor Allison Mann Ampersand
Creative team
Writer(s)	Brian K. Vaughan
Penciller(s)	Pia Guerra Goran Sudzuka Paul Chadwick
Inker(s)	Jose Marzan Jr.
Collected editions
Unmanned	ISBN 1-56389-980-9
Cycles	ISBN 1-4012-0076-1
One Small Step	ISBN 1-4012-0201-2
Safeword	ISBN 1-4012-0232-2
Ring of Truth	ISBN 1-4012-0487-2
Girl on Girl	ISBN 1-4012-0501-1
Paper Dolls	ISBN 1-4012-1009-0
Kimono Dragons	ISBN 1-4012-1010-4
Motherland	ISBN 1-4012-1351-0
Whys and Wherefores	ISBN 1-4012-1813-X

Y: The Last Man is a comic book series by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra, about the only man to survive the mysterious simultaneous death of every male mammal on Earth. The series was published in sixty issues by Vertigo, and collected in a series of 10 paperback volumes. The series' covers were primarily by J. G. Jones and Massimo Carnevale.

Contents 1 Plot summary 2 Main characters 3 Storylines 4 Le Grand Départ 5 Film adaptation 6 Collected editions 7 Awards and Honors 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Plot summary

In the series, on July 17, 2002, something (referred to as a plague) simultaneously kills every mammal possessing a Y chromosome - including embryos, fertilized eggs, and even sperm. The only exceptions appear to be Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, and his Capuchin monkey Ampersand. This premise is somewhat similar to the mid-1980s DC graphic Novel Me and Joe Priest, except that in the prior story, rather than all men but one being killed, all men but the main character were rendered infertile.

Society is plunged into chaos as infrastructures collapse and the surviving women everywhere try to cope with the loss of the men, their survivors' guilt, and the knowledge that humanity is doomed to extinction. Vaughan meticulously crafts the new society that emerges out of this chaos, from the conversion of the Washington Monument into a monument to the dead men, to the genesis of the fanatical ultra-feminist Daughters of the Amazon, who believe that Mother Earth cleansed itself of the "aberration" of the Y chromosome, to male impersonators becoming valued romantically and professionally.

Over the course of their journey, Yorick and his friends discover how society has coped in the aftermath of the plague. However, many of the women they encounter have ulterior motives in regard to Yorick. Though the subject matter of the series is entirely serious, Y: The Last Man is also noted for its humor. Yorick in particular is a source of one-liners, although the other characters have their moments as well.

[edit] Main characters

• Yorick Brown, a young amateur escape artist, is the last man on Earth.
• Agent 355 is Yorick's bodyguard who works for a mysterious US government agency.
• Doctor Allison Mann is an expert geneticist, seeking to discover the cause of the plague and why Yorick survived.
• Ampersand is Yorick's Capuchin monkey and the only other male mammal to survive the plague.
• Beth Deville is Yorick's girlfriend. When the plague hit, she was engaged in anthropological work in Australia.
• Hero Brown, Yorick's older sister, joined the Daughters of the Amazon after the plague.

[edit] Storylines

The storylines, broken down by trade paperback collections.

1. Unmanned (issues #1-5)
   • On July 17, 2002, a mysterious plague strikes, killing every male mammal on earth except for Yorick and his monkey Ampersand^[1]. Two months later, Yorick arrives in Washington, D.C. and finds his mother, Representative Brown. The new President assigns Agent 355 to escort Yorick to Boston, the last known location of the geneticist Dr. Mann. They hope that Mann can study Yorick, discover the reasons behind Yorick's survival, and help repopulate the world^[2]. Three days later, Alter Tse'elon, new chief of the general staff for Israel, is informed of Yorick's existence^[3]. Israeli soldiers destroy Dr. Mann's lab, forcing her, 355, and Yorick to travel to San Francisco California to her backup lab^[4]. All the while, Yorick is more concerned with finding his girlfriend Beth, on vacation in Australia, to whom he proposed over the phone the instant the plague hit.
2. Cycles (issues #6-10)
   • The three main characters hop a train and find themselves in a strangely idyllic town in rural Marrisville, Ohio run by convicts. After only a brief rest, Yorick meets and is instantly attracted to Sonia, a convicted drug dealer^[5]. The Daughters of the Amazon, including Yorick's older sister Hero, track Yorick to Marrisville and threaten to destroy the town if they can't kill the last man alive. In the end, their leader Victoria dies at the hands of Sonia before she can kill Yorick. Hero kills Sonia^[6]. Yorick asks the townspeople to lock up the Daughters of the Amazon.
3. One Small Step (issues #11-17)
   • In Oldenbrook, Kansas, Yorick, 355 and Dr. Mann help a Russian woman named Natalya Zamyatin race to recover two male and one female astronauts forced to return to Earth after being trapped on the International Space Station the day the plague hit^[7]. The four meet twins Heather and Heidi who are geneticists working in isolation^[8]. After Alter Tse'elon acquires Yorick for her nation, 355 tells Alter of the two men coming down in exchange for Yorick. Alter tries to use a surface-to-air missile to kill the astronauts but is stopped by Yorick^[9]. Both male astronauts die, but Dr. Ciba Weber is pregnant. The three go back on the road, leaving Natalya and the Twins to look after Weber and her unborn baby.
   

   

   Issue #13
   

   

   Issue #15
   

   

   Issue #27
   

   

   Issue #46
   • Comedy & Tragedy has a travelling group of actresses find a wayward Ampersand, inspiring them to write a play called The Last Man (The main character's name taken from Mary Shelly's novel The Last Man)^[10]. On the night of the premiere, the play is interrupted both by the local women (who find the play to be offensive) and a disguised Yorick, accompanied by a similarly masked 355 and Dr. Mann, looking for Ampersand. Yorick discovers that the play ends with the eponymous man killing himself to end the fighting over him, contributing to his growing depression.^[11]
4. Safeword (issues #18-23)
   • Yorick and his companions travel to Allenspark, Colorado, where 355 and Dr. Mann fix up Ampersand, while retired Culper Ring agent 711 forces Yorick to confront his survivor guilt^[12].
   • In Widow's Pass, the story moves to Queensbrook, set nine months after the One Small Step arc. Eight well-armed women from Arizona block the interstate, making travel to Dr. Mann's lab in California nearly impossible^[13]. In Oldenbrook, Kansas, Ciba gives birth to a boy, who is kept in the hot suite until geneticists can confirm there is no remaining trace of the plague in the air^[14].
5. Ring of Truth (issues #24-31)
   • Tongues of Flame has Yorick and company finally reach California. The story takes an interlude wherein Yorick leaves a sleeping Dr. Mann and 355 behind to examine a nearby church. There he meets a second girl named Beth, to whom he describes the events of "Widow's Pass"^[15]. After a sexual encounter, they are threatened by Amazons, whom Yorick scares off using parlor tricks. Yorick then leaves Beth to continue his journey to San Francisco.
   • Hero's Journey tells the backstory of Yorick's sister Hero, including the day the Plague hits, how she becomes a member of the Amazons, what happens after "Cycles", and ultimately, how unbalanced she is^[16].
   • Ring of Truth tells how, after two years roaming the country, Yorick reaches San Francisco. Dr. Mann finally discovers the apparent answer to how Yorick and Ampersand survived the Plague (Note that this was not confirmed as being definitively true. It is simply Dr. Mann's own conclusion)^[17]. Yorick's sister Hero tracks him to San Francisco. A new adversary swoops in and steals a major key to the cure.
6. Girl on Girl (issues #32-36)
   • Yorick and company begin a new quest to retrieve the stolen Ampersand. They join a ragtag band of female sailors on a voyage to Australia aboard an old cruise ship named "The Whale". Yorick falls for the ship's captain, and the relationship between Dr. Mann and 355 takes a new turn. Alter Tse'elon, former Chief of General Staff of the IDF, manages to escape court martial by shooting the judge^[18].
   • Boy Loses Girl brings the backstory of how Beth Deville meets and falls in love with Yorick and her life before and after the Plague hits. In the end, Beth has a cryptic dream that convinces her that Yorick is alive^[19].
7. Paper Dolls (issues #37-42)
   • Yorick is caught by a reporter while looking for his girlfriend in Australia. He finds out that Beth left for Paris. Alter Tse'elon shoots and kills Yorick's mother.
   • The Hour of our Death shows how Hero delivers a letter from Yorick to Beth II (from Tongues of Flame), who is eight months pregnant with Yorick's child. The two women go on the road together back to Kansas.
   • Buttons tells the origin of Agent 355, Yorick's loyal protector. A stand-alone issue in which the secrets of the mysterious Culper Ring and its most famous female agent are finally revealed.
   • 1,000 Typewriters explores the past, present and future of Ampersand, Yorick's missing pet, including how the male monkey ended up with Yorick, as well as where the animal has been since he was kidnapped by the female ninja Toyota.
8. Kimono Dragons (issues #43-48)
   • Yorick and his companions finally reach Japan in search of Ampersand, the key to mankind's salvation. Dr. Allison Mann and her lover Rose come face to face with Toyota, who, before the plague, worked for Dr. Mann's father's lover. Yorick and Agent 355 find and rescue Ampersand with the help of a P.I. from the hands of the new Yakuza boss. Allison's mother is kidnapped by Toyota.
   • The Tin Man tells the "Secret origin" of Dr. Allison Mann and her quest to clone herself.
   • Gehenna is the life story of Alter Tse'elon.
9. Motherland (issues #49-54)
   • Yorick is confronted by Dr. Mann's father. He believes that mankind outgrew a need for men after the first successful cloning of a human being. He sets out to kill Yorick and himself in an attempt to finish what nature started. 355 and Toyota battle to the death and the fate of the Australian spy is determined. Many people involved with Yorick's group begin to converge in Paris, as he and 355 separate from Dr. Mann and continue to search for Yorick's fiance Beth.
   • The Obituarist follows the body collector from Issue #2, Waverly, as she develops a relationship with a cross-dressing prostitute named Bobbi and is called to lay Jennifer Brown's body to rest.
   • Tragicomic focuses on the Fish & Bicycle Troupe who have turned to filmmaking in an attempt to reach more people than they could touring their stage production. When that effort fails, Cayce realizes that there's one very popular, cheap to produce method of communication they haven't tried....comic books!
10. Whys and Wherefores (Issues #55-60)
    • Yorick and Agent 355 race toward Paris to find Beth, the group of women protecting the daughter Yorick never even knew he sired continues to flee the Israeli soldiers led by Alter.
    • Yorick finds Beth, sleeps with her, and then she confesses that she was about to dump him pre-Plague before seeing how he changed and what he did to find her. 355 sells her gun for a dress and doesn't seem to see Alter's spy following her. Yorick leaves to go get some air and while he's gone, Second Beth and Beth, Jr. with Hero meet First Beth.
    • The three Beths and Hero are captured by Alter's group. Yorick goes to 355 and admits that the only reason he went on living the past few years was because he loved her. He even admits to seeing her in an Aphrodite-like pose when 711 nearly drowned him. 355 whispers her real name into Yorick's ear and is then shot dead by Alter.
    • Hero and the Beths are rescued by Ciba Weber and Natalya. Yorick fights with Alter, who claims that 355's group, the Culper Ring, was responsible for the deaths of all the other men. She says they created a chemical agent designed to prevent women from conceiving male children and introduced it in China, which they thought was a threat. However, something went wrong, and the chemical agent instead killed males of all ages. Yorick doesn't believe her, and realizes that Alter wants to die, and has been trying to get him to kill her. He refuses to do so and gives her to her troops, who leave Paris. In the end, Hero and the Beths are reunited with Yorick and find out about 355's death.
    • Alas, set sixty years after issue #59, shows an elderly Yorick reflecting on missing scenes from his past. Yorick 17, a 22-year-old clone of Yorick, visits him in an asylum in Paris, France. The real Yorick has been committed to an asylum after apparently trying to kill himself (though Yorick himself claims that he is the victim of his own misconstrued joke). After reminiscing with his clone, the original Yorick distracts him and escapes from the cell through a second-story window, freeing himself from his straitjacket in the process. There is no body below the window, and the final panel shows the straitjacket flying in the air, its sleeves flying to make a Y-shape.

[edit] Le Grand Départ

The source of the plague that wiped out every living mammal with a Y chromosome except Yorick Brown and Ampersand is never concretely explained. A number of possible explanations were given throughout the course of the book but none are definitive answers. Discussing the cause of the plague, Vaughan is quoted as saying,

"I feel that there is a definitive explanation, but I like that people don't necessarily know what it is. In interviews we always said that we would tell people exactly what caused the plague. The thing was, we never said when we were going to tell. We weren't going to tell you when we were telling you, I should say. We might have told you in issue #3. There might have been something in the background that only a couple people caught. It might have been Dr. Mann's father's very detailed, scientific explanation. It might have been Alter's off-the-wall conspiracy theory. The real answer is somewhere in those 60 issues, but I prefer to let the reader decide which one they like rather than pushing it on them."^[20]

Possible explanations include:

• The Amulet of Helene being removed from the nation of Jordan. The amulet's owner warned that if it was ever taken from its homeland, it would create a tragedy greater than the Trojan War.
• The successful cloning of a human female (which renders the reproductive role of men unnecessary) caused the Earth to "course correct" itself and eliminate all males.
• A combination of Dr. Matsumori's attempt to kill his daughter's unborn clone fetus by injecting a capuchin monkey (Ampersand) with a toxin engineered to target the clone's specific genetic code with a form of morphic resonance.
• The Culper Ring, who may have created a chemical agent designed to prevent women from conceiving male children. This agent was introduced into China to cripple their economy, however, something went wrong, and the chemical agent instead killed males of all ages.
• The Earth cleansing herself of the Y chromosome, as the Amazons believe.
• Changes in the Dreamtime impacting normal reality, as believed by some Australian aboriginals and Beth.
• The Rapture taking all men and leaving women as a punishment for original sin, as believed by an air traffic controller.

[edit] Film adaptation

The film rights to the series have been acquired by New Line Cinema, and as of July 24, 2007 screenwriter Carl Ellsworth and director D. J. Caruso, the team behind Disturbia, are attached to the project with David S. Goyer as a producer.^[21]

Caruso intends on finishing the script in the summer and filming during the fall of 2008. The script will be a rewrite of the original draft written by Vaughan himself.^[22]

Caruso claims that the source material was too much to be told in one movie and they decided to concentrate on the best first movie they can, which would end somewhere around issue 14 of the comic series. The entire comic series as a whole would be plotted into three movies.^[23] Rumors have been circulating that actor Shia LaBeouf will play the role of Yorick.^[24] Caruso and LaBeouf have worked together in both the films Disturbia and Eagle Eye. Caruso plans to use a real monkey, and not a CGI construct, to play Ampersand.^[22]

Many are suggesting that Zachary Levi (of the NBC show Chuck) should play Yorick. An easter egg in a recent episode of Chuck showed a Y the Last Man poster in Chuck's room, along with his sister's fiance reading the comic, which may confirm Zachary's involvement in the project.

[edit] Collected editions

The series is being collected in trade paperbacks.

#	Title	ISBN	Release date	Collected material
1	Unmanned	ISBN 1-56389-980-9	January 02, 2003	Y: The Last Man #1-5
2	Cycles	ISBN 1-4012-0076-1	September 01, 2003	Y: The Last Man #6–10
3	One Small Step	ISBN 1-4012-0201-2	April 01, 2004	Y: The Last Man #11–17
4	Safeword	ISBN 1-4012-0232-2	December 01, 2004	Y: The Last Man #18-23
5	Ring of Truth	ISBN 1-4012-0487-2	July 13, 2005	Y: The Last Man #24–31
6	Girl on Girl	ISBN 1-4012-0501-1	November 23, 2005	Y: The Last Man #32–36
7	Paper Dolls	ISBN 1-4012-1009-0	May 01, 2006	Y: The Last Man #37-42
8	Kimono Dragons	ISBN 1-4012-1010-4	November 22, 2006	Y: The Last Man #43–48
9	Motherland	ISBN 1-4012-1351-0	May 09, 2007	Y: The Last Man #49-54
10	Whys and Wherefores	ISBN 1-4012-1813-X	July 1, 2008	Y: The Last Man #55–60

After the finale, the series was re-released, in parts, as oversized hardcovers with alternate cover art.

#	Title	ISBN	Release date	Collected material
1	Deluxe Book One	ISBN 1-4012-1921-7	October 28, 2008	Y: The Last Man #1-10
2	Deluxe Book Two	ISBN 1-4012-2235-8	May 06, 2009	Y: The Last Man #11–23

[edit] Awards and Honors

Y: The Last Man, Volume 10: Whys and Wherefores was nominated for the first Hugo Award for Best Graphic Story.

[edit] See also

• Mary Shelley's novel, The Last Man.
• Juliusz Machulski's film, Sexmission.
• Frank Herbert's novel, The White Plague.
• Pat Frank's novel, Mr. Adam.
• P. D. James's novel, The Children of Men.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Y: The Last Man

• Y: The Last Man at the official Vertigo website
• Y: The Last Man at themovieinsider.com
• Yorick, Don't Be A Hero: Productive Motion in Y: The LastMan by Lyndsay Brown at ImageTexT
• Comics2Film: Y: The Last Man
• Y: The Last Man at the Comic Book DB