As I write this, Brian K. Vaughan has finished work on the last issue of his truly massive Y: THE LAST MAN series. In terms of sustained narrative, it will certainly go down as one of the longest, most epic stories in the entire world of comics and graphic novels.
The first two books in the series were good, very good, but this one might even be better. There are some wonderful new twists and turns, less of the rather caricatured versions of radical feminism that marred the first two books (the Amazons are the one completely false note in the books, simply impossible to accept or believe), and some great self-referentiality. The book ends with a pair of issues that simply drip with self-referentiality. In Shakespearean fashion (appropriate with all the previous Shakespearean references) we literally get a play within the play, as a troupe of actors put on a play entitled THE LAST MAN. That play refers indirectly to the series itself, while explicitly referencing the Mary Shelley's classic THE LAST MAN (her OTHER great book). There is another great self-reference when 355 and Yorick show up to rescue Ampersand. When the appear one of the theater members asks another, "What the hell is this?" She is told, "The deus ex machina." DEUS EX MACHINA is, of course, the title of one of Vaughan's other projects.
Much of the plot of this book revolves around the attempt of the two astronauts in the Soyuz space center to return to earth safely. There are some wonderful twists and turns dealing not just with their ultimate fate, but also of their female colleague. And we learn some interesting new things about the Israelis who are in search of Yorick. We also learn at the end of the book of others who are in search of Ampersand. |
Y: The Last Man Vol. 3: One Small Step Used Books New.