Brian K. Vaughn and Pia Guerra’s Y: The Last Man focuses on Yorick Brown, the literal last man standing after an unknown plague eliminates the majority of male life on the planet. As he journeys across America with Dr. Mann and Agent 355 in hopes of finding a way to ensure the survival of humanity, he joked about being the most cursed hero of this apocalypse. Although Yorrick eventually felt grateful to be the last male alive, he couldn’t shake the feeling that he was a curse, not so much to himself, but to the people he cared about the most, a fact cemented by a few key deaths that occurred during his travels.
Although Yorick knew that he held the key to mankind’ survival in his genes, his main goal was to get to Australia so that he could marry his girlfriend Beth. He proposed to her the day the plague struck, and held fast to the hope that she was still alive.
However, Yorick knew deep down that Beth was just about to break up with him, and as such he is tempted by several women he meets along the way. The first was Sonia, who lives in an idyllic town in Marrisville, Ohio that is run by ex-convicts. As Yorick contemplated sleeping with Sonia, the Daughters of the Amazon, including Yorick’s older sister Hero, raided the town.
The Daughters were extremists who wanted the last man dead, brainwashed into thinking he’d revive oppressive patriarchies. Sadly, the attack led to Hero shooting and killing Sonia and sending Yorick and his allies fleeing. It got worse later on when Yorick’s team jumped on a ship in an attempt to reach a mysterious doctor and recover Yorick’s stolen monkey Ampersand just in time for another romance to go awry with the ship’s captain, Kilina.
It turned out Kilina was a drug dealer and dealt in many shady activities that led to an attack by the Australian navy. They bombed the ship and while Yorick and the others survived, the captain was presumed dead. This led to Yorick wondering if every woman he was interested in would end up dead as well. He had lost hope that Beth was alive by this point, but a spark of hope reignited for him when he found his girlfriend in Paris months later. However, after a night of passion Yorick realized that Beth was just settling for him as he was the only man who was left. This led him to finally confess his love for Agent 355, who he had developed feelings for over the long trek, acknowledging that she was his true soulmate.
Unfortunately, as Agent 355 revealed her real name to Yorick, Alter, the Israeli terrorist who had hunted them throughout the series, killed the agent with a sniper shot to the head. The Last Man was understandably shattered by the death of the woman who he not only loved, but who had also sacrificed much in the name of protecting him.
Clearly, Yorick just wasn’t meant for love in this plagued reality, and while his clones would repopulate the Earth under Dr. Mann’s watch, the original Last Man ended up institutionalized as he was believed to have gone insane. Adding insult to injury, his sister Hero and former love interest Beth started a relationship together, leaving Yorick forever devoid of the one thing he really wanted: companionship.
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