Y: The Last Man # 60
by mcg
Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra bring the curtains down on the adventures Yorick and his monkey Ampersand in a world where all the men died and women were left to carry on.
The last issue is certainly didn’t deviate too much from the general tone of the series: rife with pop-culture references, a great balance of humor and pathos, and an ending which flew in the face of comic-book conventionalities. The last story arc itself pulled no punches as Vaughan refused to give in to the usual comic-book gimmicks opting instead to follow the story where it led him – the dead stayed dead and his characters behave more like real people than caricatures.
One of the things I appreciated about the series was that, from the get go, it wasn’t about your usual end-of-the-world scenarios from other books and movies. It was about a boy becoming literally, the Last Man on Earth. The women in Yorick’s life weren’t damsels to be saved. More often than not, it’s Yorick’s ass that needed saving.
I guess I’m not revealing too much if I say that #60 is set some years in the future. We see a glimpse of what has become of Yorick and what has become of the world ran by women. Things have settled down from the initial cataclysm of losing all the males and the women have picked up where humanity has left off. Yorick has played a crucial role in rebuilding the remnants of society.
Yorick literally confronts himself and comes to grips with the choices he had made. He has decided let go of all sentimentality, of all ‘could’ve beens’ and be the man he has chosen to be. Vaughan couldn’t have ended it better.