Top Single Issues – Y: The Last Man #57

Y: The Last Man is a phenomenal series. If you haven’t read it yet then you need to, stat. I don’t care what else you’ve got at the top of your buy pile, this needs to supersede it. This is hands down, gun to my head, flat out the greatest story I have ever read. In any form. Ever. Brian K Vaughan crafts an epic tale of the quest the last boy on Earth takes to become the last man alive. It’s funny as hell when it’s not busy making you cry. It’s full of great character work but the plot continually spins you into new directions. It is, without a doubt, perfect.

Fitting then that one issue, within the sixty published, would rate as my favourite single issue of all time. Yorick has spent the better part of half a decade travelling the world trying to stay alive and also find his lost love, Beth. Truthfully, he does much more of the latter and so it is most satisfying when he finally embraces her at the end of issue #56. It’s a moment years in the making and it doesn’t disappoint. Then, in issue fifty seven, we are delivered 22 pages of masterclass four colour entertainment. Boy, who had lost girl, has now found her. The story is winding down, or is it?

It is interesting, and quite telling, that the first page we get after the reunion of Yorick and Beth, and the introductory scene of this issue, is of Agent 355. We aren’t quickly thrown back into our star cross’d lovers. We don’t need to be, we know what Yorick’s instant reaction will be. He’ll be as giddy as a school girl who finally got her first kiss from a boy between classes. The real story, the drama that spins the world constantly, is to be found with 355 as she is now in Paris, alone, and looking to be in this state for the rest of her life.

355 was tasked with protecting Yorick upon his reveal of being the only man to survive the gendercide that took the male of every species. She took her duty seriously and made it her life for many years. Over this time, she’s secretly developed a crush that might have been fueled by proximity, or just for the fact that there was no other man alive and might not ever be. Either way, 355 became attached to Yorick and yet still spent years helping him hunt what he feels is still his true love, the girl he will propose to.

It is a sad tale and so once their reunion is affected, and not through the many haunting dreams Yorick has of finding Beth only to have her body decay instantly, there is not much more left to 355’s immediate tale except sadness. The issue opens on 355’s vacant stare. A bold caption, used consistently throughout the series to denote place and time tells us she is in Paris, Maintenant (French for now). A French voice intrudes from off panel, “Puis-je vous aider?” The bodiless voice wants to know if it can help 355. This is a futile question, nothing can help 355, but it’s nice to think the world still wants to try. This is a girl who needs help, she has lost her immediate purpose and her last, and the world’s only, chance at heterosexual love.

355 is in the store to purchase a dress. She’s spent years being the action chick epitome and finally, with nothing left to risk her life for, she is going to risk her image of who she is. She is going to let her guard down and step into a new form. 355 is a resilient character and when there are no more opportunities to explore she changes the playing field in hope that it will offer up something new to do.

The last thing 355 needs to change is to drop her last masculine aspect, the phallic weapon that has helped her survive for years will make a perfect exchange for the dress. 355 is going to let go of her weapons, her aggression, her ties to the way her entire life has been regulated and ordered. She is going to let go of the death she can deal and instead will foster the feminine within her. She will become the creator of man, not his destroyer.

The lady asks 355 if the gun is easy to use. Her response is quick and natural, she has known all her life this answer, she says, “Oui. / Too easy.” To take the lives of others has always been too easy not only because weapons have facilitated such violence but also because society continually made it a part of life. It didn’t become the rarity it should have been, to kill another person simply became more background noise in the hustle of living another day. 355 is finished killing, she is walking away from the violence. She may not know what she’s walking towards but she is closing this chapter of her life. This is the end of 355, in many ways.

This three page scene breaks 355 down completely as far as we see her continuing. It’s an economical use of a character and it’s a true reaction. From here we then move back into scene with Yorick and Beth. They have returned to a hotel room and we discover them mid-coitus. They look like they’re enjoying themselves and in the background a picture frame of some pleasant scenery is knocked on an angle. These two young lovers, back together again after far too long, aren’t just rocking each other’s worlds, they are making the globe spin on a new axis. The next splash page confirms this as we see the room trashed, clothes everywhere, lamp on the floor, the curtain rod hanging on by only one end. It’s not just the sex, it’s the entire release of being together again. Their world will never be the same but is this reconnection actually destructive?

Be damned if it’s not still fun and sexy to be in that moment.

You don’t have to think of the future, you only have to live in the present. You only have to feel the first thing that comes to mind, all subconscious desires, fears, needs, and concerns can be ignored. This is a moment to sate the id, cognitive thought can come later, and it does.

With the animalistic urges quelled, at least momentarily, Yorick does his best to deflect the fact he is standing in the middle of a room naked; he resorts to quips and pop culture reference. These quirky anecdotes are what make him feel insulated from the crap of the world, they always have, they just seemed more prescient and necessary in the later years of his life.

He then whips the conversation around to call back a moment from the first issue; he wants to discuss the last conversation he had with Beth before all the men died and they were separated for many years to come. A conversation they never finished. He might have come a long way, and he might have grown a lot as a person, but he’s still that same guy and he’s still in that same place. He has to know what she was about to say. He needs to know what she was about to tell him.

While Beth deflects having to tell the truth about what happened, Yorick does offer some meta-commentary about the cause of the gendercide. He tells Beth he was given some sort of explanation but it was ‘vaguely unsatisfying’. This is in direct reference to the fact that the series offered multiple theories as to what caused all the men to die but Vaughan was very clear in not defining which one was the true answer. He preferred to leave it open to interpretation and Yorick, probably like much of the readership, isn’t exactly happy with this decision but they have moved past it.

If Yorick is playing proxy reader then Beth gives the ultimate retort from the creator, she asks Yorick if ‘any explanation would have been satisfactory?’ It is a very good point for both us and Yorick to realise. Beth wants to move forward in the world, she wants to live the rest of her life, not dissect what had been lived before. Ultimately, she doesn’t want to discuss what was going to happen between these two love birds when she was so rudely interrupted over the phone.

But Yorick’s not buying any of it. The past matters to him, always has and always will. He is a man defined by it and the sort of bloke that would probably love nothing more than to wear a bathrobe and slippers, nothing else, and eat cereal on a Saturday night while wallowing in the memories of things past. He’s never going to change and Beth takes a panel to see this. She knows it’ll never end so she has to tell him now.

There is one last attempt to throw Yorick off the scent, Beth describes how her dreams led her back to him. She tells of being exposed to a more mystical environment while being in Australia with the Aboriginal people. She’s sure that the world is one big tapestry of fate and she’s just happy to have ridden a thread right back to her man. And then Yorick explains his side of the theory, as he relates his dreams that constantly meant nothing. They told him Beth was toxic, dead to him, and he shrugged it all off in his determined quest to find the only girl he’s ever loved.

It is interesting to note that during this conversation Ampersand is playing with the scarf 355 knitted for him on their travels. There is a tangible representation of 355’s love for Yorick but he’s never even noticed it. Beth can see what it most likely is and strangely enough is actually fine with it. She understands they’ve been apart for a long time, she knows that much has happened. It is then she realises that they aren’t the same people anymore and, most importantly, she needs to be the bigger person and let Yorick know he’s not that young guy in love with her. He has changed and should reflect this in his life and his actions. He needs to know what she was going to say all those years earlier.

Yorick needs to be told that she was going to break up with him.

This revelation leads to a magnificent splash page of Yorick, naked from the chest up, stripped of his protective layers, completely open, and wounded. The amount of work Guerra puts into Yorick’s face in this page deserves its own award. This is a man who has a heart slowly being ripped in half with bare hands and muted teeth. It’s a quiet moment, Yorick even whispers “What?”, and it’s worth lingering in because it’s real. This is how you find out your life is over. Someone tells you.

Beth goes into damage control to explain the whys and wherefores, if you will, but Yorick just can’t breathe. He’s being crushed. He knows his entire driving force has been false and while Beth says that things have changed, she wants him now, he knows the truth. He knows that he’s known all along. He knows the stupid boy that he was is the reason he’s here in this terrible joke and he knows only the man he will be will leave the room. He’s angry, he’s hurt, and he delivers what might be my favourite line, of any comic/story/anything ever, as he expresses his understanding of Beth’s choice in the situation.

“So you would have said no to the man… / …but yes to the LAST man.?”

He’s the sort of man that wouldn’t make a distinction about someone but just accept who they are to him and always will be. And now he sees that there is a difference for Beth, and he hates this truth. He instantly retroactively applies this knowledge to what he saw as his whole life, their whole relationship. He’s sickened with what he knows. He projects everything onto Beth and hates her in that moment. It’s heartbreaking to watch Yorick finally find his favourite toy but then want to break it. He hasn’t been told Santa Claus is a myth, no, he’s just caught his parents fucking under the tree and the Santa beard that was on his father’s face is now around his ankles. Yorick has been dumped into reality bleeding eyes first.

Beth doesn’t want him to leave her, in any sense of the word, and tells him if he exits the room he’ll be alone. He knows, at this very moment, this is completely true, in every sense of the word. He has finished with 355, he’s got nothing to go forward to with Beth, he’s the only man alive, and his heart barely feels like it has enough power to get his shirt on. But he needs to be alone, even if he knows he loves Beth. The love means nothing because he’ll always love her, but he can never let himself be in love with her again.

Beth stands, for a page, staring at the vacant door. The sun slowly rises behind her, it might be a new day but she wishes only to recapture the night. When there is finally movement she turns, hopeful, but instead receives Yorick’s sister, Hero. This might be a shock, and a welcome one, but what follows is extremely unwelcome to Beth’s world.

While she said she understood Yorick had been with other women, and she probably knew it was true, she wasn’t expecting to ever have to see it. Hypothetical women is one thing, but a blood and bone representation of Yorick’s wanderlust is another. That lady having the name Beth is yet another layer to the problem. The fact she is holding Yorick’s daughter is the final straw. Beth, Yorick’s first Beth, is now just as lost and uncertain as he is. She doesn’t know what to think, she doesn’t know where to go, she knows nothing can be the same. This is Yorick sending a big cosmic ‘fuck you’ to Beth without even knowing it.

We leave the issue with a final splash image, this time of Beth, uncertainty crossing her brow, her world suddenly much more crowded than before and yet she is still alone. She whispers, “What?” and we are left hanging. This page is a perfect end to the issue and a book end to Yorick’s page of despair earlier. They have both ruined each other’s lives. Yorick walked out on his news, Beth is stuck with it.

This issue gives us the glorious reunion of these two lovers who have gone through so much to get together. This issue also gives us their slow crumble apart as, like some sort of relationship Dorian Gray portrait, the cracks that are present are accelerated and we barely get a dozen pages to truly enjoy this end game moment. So, if this isn’t where Yorick needs to be then where does his happiness lie? Hint: she was about to leave the entire series in the opening pages.

Perfect scripting; biting lines of laughter, love, and loneliness; haunting moments and imagery to showcase the characters and their internal struggle; an issue I count as my all time favourite. Flawless.