Y: The Last Man is my favorite comic series of all time. If you aren't familiar with it-the premise is as follows: One day, simultaneously every male animal on earth drops dead. Except-our title hero, Yorick Brown and his pet capuchin monkey. Yorick happens to be on the phone with his girlfriend Beth (who is overseas) at the time of the event-and he just proposed over the phone. All phone lines go down-all communication is practically out. So Yorick sets out to find his mother, a US Congresswomen and his girlfriend Beth.
Meanwhile as you can imagine the rest of the world is in chaos. Everything from food supplies (with all male animals dying, extinction is imminent) to government (most elected officials are male-so should their widows take over their roles?) to military. Of course the secret news that there is one man alive is highly valuable information so there are naturally people chasing after Yorick for their own variety of reasons.
Two main characters also join Yorick in his journeys: Agent 355, who is a mysterious bodyguard protecting Yorick and who belongs to a secret organization.
Dr. Mann (heh) a geneticist researching the plague and who might have some secrets regarding it's origin.
To say anymore of the series would reveal too much, because it is a masterpiece to read-literally every issue ends in an amazing cliffhanger-reading this month to month was torture. The writer of the series, Brian K. Vaughn went on to work on the TV series lost and is now writing the very populate Saga for Image comics.
The series premiered in 2002 and The final issue was released in March 2008. I haven't read anything of it since-the final issue of this series completely wrecked me emotionally-It's brutal. Not brutal as in violent, but just heartbreaking-these are characters you'll come to love-and the final issue is very satisfying narratively but also emotionally wrenching. If you've never read it - believe me that you should seek it out now and read along. You won't regret it.
And if you have read it before, let's share our memories of this phenomenal series.
Oh-and we can discuss the development hell that this is in in as far as a Hollywood adaptation.
Also-try to find the hidden "Y"s in the covers.
