Product Description: A perfect blend of humor and drama, Y: THE LAST MAN - ONE SMALL STEP is a fascinating tale of catastrophe and consequences. After a mysterious occurrence instantaneously killed every male human on Earth, twenty-something escape artist Yorick Brown suddenly found himself as the last man alive on a planet inhabited solely by females. But when Yorick and his secret service bodyguard learn of a Russian spaceship with two healthy males on board, they quickly journey to its projected landing site in Kansas to see if the rumor is true. Now as Yorick and Agent 355 wait to see if the cosmonauts will survive their return to Earth's atmosphere, a zealous faction of the Israeli military attempt to kidnap the last man for their own nefarious purposes.
Very thin plot. I kept wondering why Yoricks mother would betray him, she must have know that if the Israelis got him she would never see him again. And why would the Israelis try to kill the astronauts, it almost felt Anti-Semitic it was so irrational. Very weak plot in this story arch.
The second part of the of the book is much better though. It pokes fun at prevous issues and the characters are great. I almost wish we could forget about Yorick and focus on the troup of actors from now on.
"One Small Step" B+ / "Comedy and Tragedy" C- This trade paperback is really made up of two different stories. The first one, "One Small Step," is a continuation of some of the plot lines that began in Volume Two. As the three cosmonauts who were not on Earth when the plague hit, two of them male, prepare to land, a tip from a misguided woman lead the militant villain Alter to Yorick. There are many different plots at work here, and they're all interesting, but none of them were as gripping as the plot lines of Volume Two (the women of Marrisville, the face-off with the Amazons, Yorick realizing what his sister has become).
"One Small Step" was a good enough story, though what followed wasn't even close. Volume Three concludes with a two issue story arc called "Comedy and Tragedy" that strays away from the main plot of the series, shifting focus to a troupe of actors who are putting on a play about how women would react to the last man on Earth. Yorick, 355, and Dr. Mann only make a brief appearance in the last pages of the concluding issue. Brian K. Vaughan is a great writer, so these two issues were quite readable, but they strayed too far away from the central story. These new characters weren't even likable in the least. I don't know what possessed Vaughan to do this, but I'll be glad to see Yorick back as the central character in the next volume.
7/10
If anything, an improvement on the first two books As I write this, Brian K. Vaughan has finished work on the last issue of his truly massive Y: THE LAST MAN series. In terms of sustained narrative, it will certainly go down as one of the longest, most epic stories in the entire world of comics and graphic novels.
The first two books in the series were good, very good, but this one might even be better. There are some wonderful new twists and turns, less of the rather caricatured versions of radical feminism that marred the first two books (the Amazons are the one completely false note in the books, simply impossible to accept or believe), and some great self-referentiality. The book ends with a pair of issues that simply drip with self-referentiality. In Shakespearean fashion (appropriate with all the previous Shakespearean references) we literally get a play within the play, as a troupe of actors put on a play entitled THE LAST MAN. That play refers indirectly to the series itself, while explicitly referencing the Mary Shelley's classic THE LAST MAN (her OTHER great book). There is another great self-reference when 355 and Yorick show up to rescue Ampersand. When the appear one of the theater members asks another, "What the hell is this?" She is told, "The deus ex machina." DEUS EX MACHINA is, of course, the title of one of Vaughan's other projects.
Much of the plot of this book revolves around the attempt of the two astronauts in the Soyuz space center to return to earth safely. There are some wonderful twists and turns dealing not just with their ultimate fate, but also of their female colleague. And we learn some interesting new things about the Israelis who are in search of Yorick. We also learn at the end of the book of others who are in search of Ampersand.
Continued Excellence in the Series Volume 3 of Y: The Last Man is just as good if not better than its predecessors. For one thing, this volume is by far the funniest and wittiest of the three. The storyline just draws you in with each chapter, and the artwork is consistent. Brian K. Vaughn just knows what he's doing witht Y: The Last Man. One of the best and most addicting series I've ever read. I truly hope they do make this into a movie.
Graphic SF Reader A few people have realised that Yorick is not the only man left alive, even if he is the only man on Earth, as there are still people in space.
Yorick's sister has gone completely nuts, and her and her band of fellow mammary removing armed maniacs are still after Yorick. So is a hardcase Israeli military officer and her team.
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