Optional Book Club Discussion: Y, The Last Man Vol. 1: Unmanned by Brian K. Vaughan - Oct 31 to Nov 30 (may contain spoilers)

[Sérgio]

These discussions aren’t particularly setting our group on fire right now, eh. I’ll give my opinion about the first trade of Y: The Last Man, see if that gets things rolling.

I had already read this book and I have to admit I hadn’t enjoyed it, and this time I wasn’t fonder of this Vertigo title.

I mean, the idea behind it is original, but having a good starting point doesn’t really make a comics series good for itself, and there were aspects of Y that were troublesome for me.

One of these things was the kind of dialogues that Vaughan wrote. It seems that he wanted his characters to say as many witty things as possible, especially geek culture references, and for me that only made them irritating and kind of douchey. It really made me not care about the characters, even Yorik – if the way he finds to express to his girlfriend that she’s special is saying he’s never met any other girl that liked some Cohen Brothers movie, I can only consider him as shallow as any comic character I’ve seen.

The crappiest dialogue for me was when Yorik’s mother, a middle-aged White-house politician, is arguing with a colleague and she says: “Am I about to get spanked? Because I usually leave that for my husband”. For me, that’s not credible dialogue and it's cringe-worthy.

One other thing that bothered me was that Vaughan had to make Yorik act really dumb for no good reason to get him to be persecuted by the amazons. So let’s see the reasoning behind Yorik’s behaviour: “I could be humanity’s last hope so I’ll try everything to get into trouble, including going to a memorial to the dead filled with women who would do god-knows-what if they discovered that a man had survived, and then I reveal myself to them when the first opportunity comes.”

To me that’s just lazy writing.

Art-wise I found this to be really uninteresting. Pia Guerra’s (pious war in portuguese, cool name) keeps the art simple, which is good when you’re making a monthly comic, but it’s never really engaging. I found the characters to be really limited in their facial expressions and the backgrounds weren’t as detailed or interesting as I expect of “realistic” comics.

Anyway, I’ll stop ranting. Although I said what I said I don’t think this is a horrible comic. It’s kind of entertaining and it’s well-made enough to say that it’s far from the worse thing I could have spent an hour reading.


Now I expect the Y: the last man fans to come up with arguments as to why I’m dead wrong. Bring it on! :P

[Dana *]

Wow, I have been out of pocket this whole month, and I am sad to see there is no discussion on this book.
Well, I like the series, it has it's highs and lows.

Sergio, I definitely see your point, I agree that they make Yorik very dumb. And the dialogue is not the best, especially when they go for the laughs. I think it gets better in subsequent books. I like the interaction between brother and sister.

I guess the last man is more an average joe than a superhero, which is why it is interesting to me.

[Slayerscott]

Sorry to be late folks...

I have difficulty commenting on this because I've read the entire series and my brain can't properly separate the first book from the series as a whole. I can appreciate Sergio's criticisms (though FYI you give the impression that you passionately hated it)of Yorick as a somewhat one-dimesional character and the choppy dialogue. However, I think that as the series progresses there's more character development. Also, Yorick's shallowness is more an expression of his "everyman" character. They should have sent a poet, but instead they sent one guy at random who isn't necessarily articulate. Yorick might just be dumb, but he's now offically the smartest man on earth.

I suppose I am a fan of the series as I collected all ten books, but I've got a nubmer of issues with it myself. Pia Guerra's art seems to fit perfectly, because a story like this benefits from being as unassuming as possible. At it's heart are gender issues and mundane human relations in fantastic circumstances. It's almost as if gorgeous and/or ostentatious art would take away from the story. Often the questions raised by the story are more interesting than the story itself. And mainly I'd say than Unmanned is NOT one of the better volumes of the story.

[Sérgio]

Slayerscott wrote: "though FYI you give the impression that you passionately hated it"

Yeah, well it's true that I was a little harsh (maybe I was less tolerant to the flaws I find on this book, I guess) but I thought it wouldn't hurt the debate :)

But I see some qualities in Y:The Last Man. I really like the concept of the last man on Earth, I think you can tell great stories with that. I liked the way the death of the men was shown in the first issue/chapter, by focusing in a lot of individual stories instead of going for a "disaster movie" feel (you know what I mean: shots of several well known places - like Times Square or the Big Ben - with lots of corpses lying around).

I also liked the coup d'état by the republican housewifes. That was a cool idea.

So it ends up not being all bad :)


Dana wrote: "Wow, I have been out of pocket this whole month, and I am sad to see there is no discussion on this book. "

Me too.

This group was a great idea. It would be a shame if it becomes completely inactive.

[Dana *]

I think I was on volume 6 at the last point, so I need to finish the series. I hope discussions become more active also!!

[Brian]

Great series overall. Taking it on as a one book at a time is harder. Maybe going over the whole rather then one at a time? I loved the last book most, especially the last few pages.

[Dana *]

Ok so I finished and I loved the last three volumes. I thought the ending very well done.

[Peter]

I really liked this series. And while I agree with some of Sergio's criticisms, I guess I was just taking this as entertainment and allowing myself to enjoy it on that level. I found it addicting. I couldn't wait to read each next volume.
I actually enjoyed the Yorick character and his nerdy pop-culture references. I thought his character was funny, and that was one of the things I enjoyed most about the series was some of the comic relief. But humor is so subjective, what is funny to one person is dumb to another.

But I would agree with the comment above that many of the questions it raises are more interesting than the story itself.

And I would say that it definitely gets better as you get further into the story.

Which leads me to a question... was this club reading intended to be only on Volume 1? Or the whole series? Because this is really an incomplete story if only volume 1.

[Sérgio]

Peter wrote: "Which leads me to a question... was this club reading intended to be only on Volume 1? Or the whole series? Because this is really an incomplete story if only volume 1. "

Hi Peter.

The group discussions are intended to be about one book only, not a whole series. I think this works well because asking of people to read a nine books series for a group read is a bit too much.

That doesn’t mean a discussion can’t get into further volumes a bit, and obviously this group is not just about group reads. You can also start buddy reads or create a topic about whatever subject you feel like discussing (such as the Y: The Last Man series).