Y: The Last Man: Unmanned - Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan, Jr.
I'd heard about this series (which began in 2002) a while ago and flipped through it in the store, but just finally got around to starting it. In 2002, somehow all the males in the world, human or otherwise, die simultaneously. Except for Yorick, an unemployed English major, and his pet monkey Ampersand.
Fast forward a few months, and the women of the world are still looking for answers and trying to figure out how to build a society in this new world. Highways are a mess of wrecked cars; the US Government is in disarray, and a gang of women calling themselves Amazons is seeking to make sure there weren't any survivors. Meanwhile, Agent 355 of the Culper Ring has tracked down some mysterious amulet.
There's a bunch of other characters (female, of course) in the story, including Yorick's mom, a US Representative; the Israeli Colonel Tse'Elon; and Dr. Allison Mann, a scientist who attempted to give birth to her own clone. The story jumps around between various settings, but the first volume begins to tie the different strands together.
The premise reminds me a little of the recent movie "Children of Men," in which the world's population becomes infertile and there's one known pregnant woman: it's the "last generation" dystopia with only one chance for a future. So far in Y it's made purposely ambiguous whether the disaster was caused by a virus of some sort or something supernatural. Yorick has no idea why he and Ampersand were spared, but believes it has something to do with a little ring he bought at a magic store, and we're given very little to go on.
It's not the best writing, but I know that the series has won some awards along the way and I'm curious where the story will go.
Fed to jonathan's brain | February 10, 2007
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