Y: The Last Man Vol. 10: Whys And Wherefores (Paperback)

by Brian K. Vaughan

book data

1,423 ratings, 4.30 average rating, 237 reviews (more data...)

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2		3%
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published

June 18th 2008 by Vertigo

binding

Paperback, 168 pages

isbn

140121813X (isbn13: 9781401218133)

description

Yorick Brown's long journey through an Earth populated only by women comes to a dramatic, unexpected conclusion in this final volume, collecting issue...more

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11/16/08

Montambo rated it:

bookshelves: death, graphicnovel-comic, so-this-is-love

Read in November, 2008

recommended to Montambo by: Steve Mort
recommends it for: fans of comic book lesbian sex (The Maxim-Model type of lesbians)

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Okay, I'm done. I read 10 volumes of a speculative fiction graphic novel series for my friend, Steve. This is really not my genre. I've just never really read science fiction (unless you count Ender's Game and A Wrinkle in Time) and I never watched that Mulder and Scully show and I've never seen The Matrix. So why did Steve recommend this to me and insist I continue even though I hated them in the beginning? I think because I like LOST.

Here is what I liked about this story:
--It...more

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9 comments

02/21/08

John rated it:

Read in February, 2008

recommends it for: Anyone who made it this far

It'll be hard to respond to this without spoiling a lot, but here goes...

So we finally bring all the characters together, and all the longing and all the inconvenient things that could happen do. Someone wants to confess something only for someone else to interrupt with another earthshattering event. Who does Yorick want to be with? Y: The Last Man has always had an element of soap opera disguised as philosophy, but this is by far the most heavyhanded and ignorantly blunt volume in t...more It'll be hard to respond to this without spoiling a lot, but here goes...

So we finally bring all the characters together, and all the longing and all the inconvenient things that could happen do. Someone wants to confess something only for someone else to interrupt with another earthshattering event. Who does Yorick want to be with? Y: The Last Man has always had an element of soap opera disguised as philosophy, but this is by far the most heavyhanded and ignorantly blunt volume in the run. The big reunion is a total bust (and not in the Lonesome Dove fashion of deep and meaningful change over time), and turns into fodder for one more big fight scene (admittedly with a couple of great allusions to the visual history of the series). The meta-fictional story where a director turns to comic books deserves the "Meh" Yorick dumps on it at the end. I understand the drive to do something deeper within escapist entertainment, but Y: The Last Man isn't nearly deep enough to be patting itself on the back for it, especially not after a streak of disappointing stories. The final arc is certainly a step up from the penultimate one, but does not step nearly high enough on all that was built throughout the series.

The final chapter is a cop-out, first skipping ahead sixty years, then bebopping around within the sixty year timeframe, robbing us of the thorough resolution we read over one thousand pages to reach. Many of the things we glimpse in these future tenses are cool, but highly improbable or unbelievable without proper explanation, and because this is the end, we'll never understand how or why they happened; not the cultural or scientific advances, not how characters grew to the point where they did the things they were depicted as doing. At the end of such a long journey, this was a very disappointing ending, and far from an apt one when you realize all the characters you followed either died or wound up doing things that bore little or no relation to what they'd been doing for 1000+ pages.

Understand that I'm not mad, just sourly disappointed after how good this series was.(less)

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08/31/08

Nicki rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, graphic-novels

*Spoilers Ahead!*

If I think on it too long I can't help but feel just a little let down by the ending of this series. But, that said, doesn't mean that I'm altogether unhappy with the ending or that I think it should have been done differently.

All mysteries are not fully revealed. I have to think that perhaps that was intentional. We don't always get all the answers in life, right? Society and periods in history (some more than others) are messy and complicated and ...more

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06/24/08

Tom rated it:

I could pontificate on the wondrous series that is Y and why it brings a crooked toothed smile to my kawaii little face but if your here with me on the terminus of the series I'm sure we most likely share that sentiment. I would rather voice my concern for the impending movie adaptation whose ending credits will most likely leave me shedding a single disappointment flavored tear and spawn within my depths a milkshake belly-ache full of resentment. Its obvious the Hollywood Rape-O-Matic has its ...more

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04/16/08

Party rated it:

bookshelves: comics--graphic-novels, end-of-the-world-zeitgeist, flat-out-awesome, speculative

Read in June, 2008

recommends it for: People who like unflinching excellence.

I imagine I'll update this review to say much, much more later, and to tone down the high minded pretentious to come, but I definitely wanted to write something right here and now, moments after turning the last page, absorbing the last image, and finishing this book (for the first of what will probably be many, many times). But here goes: In many, many truly wonderful and dazzlingly cogent ways, Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra have created a smart, funny, thoughtful and seminal work. This serie...more

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08/13/08

Eric rated it:

Read in August, 2008

A bizarre ending, but probably the only ending that could have made any sense.

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07/12/08

Jamil rated it:

bookshelves: comics

Read in July, 2008

'As far as answers go, it was...vaguely unsatisfying."

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07/29/08

Seth Hahne rated it:

bookshelves: graphic-novels

Read in July, 2008

recommends it for: Anyone with sense

[[note: this review covers the entire series of ten volumes]]

Imagine a world in which every creature possessing a Y chromosome has just died. In a single moment, the world's animal population has been reduced by roughly half. This is a world where most of the world's politicians, most of the world's scientists, most of the world's military, most of the world's pilots, most of the world's film-makers, and most of the world's businessmen are no longer with us. This is a world of chaos ...more [[note: this review covers the entire series of ten volumes]]

Imagine a world in which every creature possessing a Y chromosome has just died. In a single moment, the world's animal population has been reduced by roughly half. This is a world where most of the world's politicians, most of the world's scientists, most of the world's military, most of the world's pilots, most of the world's film-makers, and most of the world's businessmen are no longer with us. This is a world of chaos and desperation, a world trying to find its way in the cataclysm-wrought darkness.

And this is a world of nightmares and madness for Yorick Brown, the lone surviving man.

Y: The Last Man begins on July 17, 2002—about a half hour prior to the great extinction, and introduces Yorick, his pet monkey Ampersand (also male and also a unique survivor of the coming pandemic), and the beginning of a large cast of well-conceived female characters. The second chapter picks up several weeks after the plague hit, revealing a world very much changed. Apart from those women who are simply scrambling to survive in and make sense of this new world, the new society-in-flux has given rise to numerous factions struggling with and abusing power. From the ultra-feminist Amazons who burned all the sperm banks to assure that the world would never again be plagued with men to those women who were involved in politics and the military prior to the fall of man, author Brian K. Vaughan presents a world that believably captures both the horror and hope of the human condition.

And all the while Yorick is racing from Boston to find his would-be fiancée Beth, who was participating in anthropological research in Australia when the plague hit.

It's a very slow race. The entire scope of the ten-volume series covers approximately five years and follows Yorick as he and his two companions Agent 355 (an American spy) and Dr. Allison Mann* (a bioengineer who hopes to clone Yorick to preserve the human race) as they traverse the globe (via foot, train, and boat) in search of Yorick's Beth. Because of their travels they experience enlightening episodes with Amazons, astronauts, agents, assassins, actors, antagonistas, androbots, atheists, angry Arizonans, and a whole mess of lesbians (both long-time and newly blossomed).

As far as speculative fiction goes, Y: The Last Man is really the creme de la creme, hitting all the right notes and being funny, grim, and mind-blowing for its duration. Vaughan has lessons to leave and pedagogy to forge, but he never gets preachy—and the moment he begins wading in that direction, his characters themselves seem to call him on the carpet for it. These are intelligent people and pretty well representative of the human race. While the book most overtly concerns Yorick and his quest, this is merely a framing device for an exploration of humanity itself (and to a lesser degree, women). Vaughan succeeds wholly in taking a genre concept that could have been been the basis for the typical male fulfillment fantasy and spinning into one of the most worthwhile fables of the last hundred years.

Y: The Last Man gets my highest recommendation.

Hm. As an epilogue, I suppose I should speak briefly about the art. Largely visually composed by Pia Guerra, the illustrations of the book sing in their subtly. This is not a book featuring dynamic duos or caped crusaders. It's about real people. And Guerra's line captures that about as well as any artist out there. So goo is her skill that I cannot imagine any other artist succeeding so well at capturing Vaughan's story, characters, and setting. Her talent is made more so obvious by the occasional instances of filler artists.

*note: Allison Mann is A. Mann, get it?
(less)

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07/26/08

Brad rated it:

bookshelves: comics, vertigo-comics

Read in July, 2008

Only after reading this last volume of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's career-defining book was I okay with how they ended things.
I liked every part of Beth and Yorick's reunion--before I read the book I told a friend that Vaughan really needed to let those two be naked for a whole issue. I glad Vaughan obliged. And I loved Other-Beth, though I wasn't thrilled with how her relationship with Yorick ended up. They didn't even had an on-panel reunion in Paris. And the resolution of 355 ...more

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07/24/08

Allison rated it:

bookshelves: summer-2008, tpbs

Read in July, 2008

So, it had been a while since I last picked up this series. Still, I was able to jump right back into the swing without a review of the last book.

I have some complaints, some congrats, some spoilers. You've been warned.

#1: I admit it. I was moved to tears during the end of the last chapter, with Ampersand's death. Wow. That was beyond sad. I figure an author is pretty damn good if he can move me to feel a physically expressed emotion. Unfortunately, this one, and disgus...more

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09/02/08

Oscar rated it:

bookshelves: graphic-novels

In the last installment of the Y: The Last Man Vaughan delivers the goods when it comes to creating a powerful comic that is more about interpersonal relationships and less about ticking bombs. If he could have delivered a worthwhile explanation as to how all the males disappeared I would have given the series a higher rating but I still love this series for all its little moments and the cool exchanges between all the characters.

On the plus side, Pia Guerra's art is a joy through the...more

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07/24/08

Brian rated it:

I have to judge this series as a whole... some of the individual issues and arcs may not be 5-star. It's got a few places that seem to mis-step, but it's just a fantastic work of writing, of fiction, imaginagion, knowledge, and insight. Yorick's no hero (pun not intended), nor is he an anti-hero. He grows, he messes up, he does and doesn't come-of-age, and he learns. He also learns that, well, not everyone learns. Not everyone's making the same journey, or wants to. Meanwhile, he's hilari...more

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06/19/08

Joseph rated it:

Read in June, 2008

Kind of a letdown. The entire series thrived on a great concept that was very-well executed, but the ending just felt uninspired. I don't buy the changed relationship between Yorick and 355, and the "I just want to be killed by a man" resolution to the story with the Jewish army girl bothered me on a number of levels. I did like the idea of jumping forward in time to end the series, but the sudden shift to a world where suddenly everything seems to be going great didn't feel earned....more

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05/06/08

Molly rated it:

Read in May, 2008

Holy crap. I didn't realize that a comic book could make a person cry. Damn, this is such an amazing series. I started reading it when it came out years ago, but went back through the entire series since the last issue was completed not long ago, and it's such a compelling narrative. I'm hard-pressed to say what exactly the story is about, but there are serious questions about manhood, gender, love, survival, escape, and the purpose of art being raised. On top of that, the character develop...more

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10/29/08

Patrick rated it:

Read in June, 2008

recommended to Patrick by: jim the comic book guy.

This is my review for the whole series not just vol 10.

The local fatso comic book guy sold my wife this whole series at once.

Overall a pretty fun and interesting read.

The conclusion is a bit unsatisfying and the lead character's motivation is a bit altruistic. Pretyy much most of the read is highly enjoyable however.

I think if you took more than a week to read these it would seem better and you'd look forward to each episode.

Reading ...more

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03/10/08

Ariel rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, dystopia, graphic-novels

Read in July, 2008

recommended to Ariel by: Sophia

While it was interesting, I really felt that Volume 10 ways sort of a disappointment as a conclusion of such a mostly solidly unique series. Also, it made no sense to me that all the clones would be called after the original person, which just seems like asking for more confusion. I liked the stuff with Ciba and Natalya and Hero and Second Beth, but I seriously but felt like all the pieces didn't add up to a good whole and that the romance directions they took were really quite tacky in the end...more

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06/24/08

Jordan rated it:

bookshelves: brian_k_vaughan, vertigo_comics

Read in March, 2008

Alas...

I'm not sure how a book like this with such high expectations could ever end and leave everyone satisfied, but it did the trick for me. Sure, I want to know more. But it wrapped enough up to leave me feeling like the journey is complete. The resolution of Yorick's search for Beth played out pretty much the way I expected and a major plot point was spoiled for me (#!*% Wizard Magazine). But the executions of these moments were so perfect, they were both still shocking when ...more

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08/04/08

Sarah Pi rated it:

bookshelves: 2008, comics, speculative-fiction

Read in August, 2008

This entire series has been excellent: great concept, solid art, diverse and believable characters and dialogue. Lesser writers could have explored the theme more quickly, but Vaughan has presented a fascinating and detailed exploration of how people cope and change. He did a nice job of summing things up in this last volume, and made a good attempt at a satisfying ending. Good for him for recognizing that most good stories deserve endings, and for finishing the series in a logical way. If I di...more

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01/25/09

Jodi rated it:

bookshelves: 2009-read

Read in January, 2009

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 th...more

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12/21/08

Caroline rated it:

bookshelves: graphic-novels, read-in-2008

Read in December, 2008

recommended to Caroline by: Andy

After months of waiting for my library to get their copies in of this so I could devour it immediately, it was definitely well worth the wait! The series, as a whole, definitely earns a 5-star rating from me. Some of the story arcs were weaker than others, but the over-all story and characters were fantastic.

I had no idea how Brian K. Vaughan was going to end this series, and I'm happy to say I didn't feel like he pulled a cop-out ending like so many things do. I love the sadder endi...more

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"No. No, first comes boyhood. You get to play with soldiers and spacemen, cowboys and ninjas, pirates and robots. But before you know it, all that comes to an end. And then, Remo Williams, is when the adventure begins." More quotes...