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Without really ending, the story of Y The Last Man comes to it’s conclusion.

I know that Y The Last Man ended months ago for most people but I've held off reading it, waiting for the trade to complete my set a nice ten volume series.  I half debated getting issue #60, to see how Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra would end the series but I held off, briefly flipping through the book in comic shops but not seeing enough to  spoil the ending of the series.  Oh, I heard about the tragic killing just before the end of the series but events after that and particularly the end remained a mystery to me.

The five year journey ended not with a bang but also not with a whimper.  In fact, I'm not too sure if it actually ends or if it just gets to the end of one strand of the story.  The idea of Yorick being the literal last man on earth sets up the plot and gives Vaughan and Guerra a vehicle on which they can hang their story.  The quest to find out why Yorick and his monkey Ampersand lived when every other male animal on the earth died provides the context for the larger story, which we'll get to in a paragraph or two.  The basic quest story is the meat and body of Yorick's story.  It moves him from New York, across America, to Japan where they learned the truth about the virus, through Russia and finally to Paris to find Beth, the girl he was going to propose to five years ago just as the killing virus struck.

The secondary quest, the quest for Beth, has always been more representative of the heart and soul of this story yet it really isn't Beth that Yorick is searching for.  He's traveled around the world and, while Beth is the physical object of his quest, we don't get the final clue to the true story until Yorick and Beth finally reunite in oh-so romantic Paris, France.  More than the fact that he's the last man and doesn't know why, Yorick has spent the last five years wanting to find the person he wants to spend the rest of his life with, the person who he thought was Beth. 

In Paris, Yorick and Beth spend one passionate night, both of their personal journeys apparently fulfilled as they're reunited with the person they are going to marry.  But there are other quests that are over.  355 has safely seen Yorick find his beloved Beth.  With the two of them back together, she's fulfilled any responsibility she thinks she has after five years.  Yorick's sister Hero has also found her brother and with her, Yorick's toddler daughter Beth and her mother (the other) Beth (does anyone else think that this whole series was done to set up the line, "I'm sorry, Beth, but Beth has a right to know about... Beth"?)  It all comes together just as our lead character realizes that his search wasn't for his long-lost Beth but for someone a lot closer to him.

Let's just say that truly heartbreaking events happen (hopefully leaving this relatively spoiler free) before the story jumps 60 years into the future for one final look in on Yorick, still the last real man on earth.  An old Yorick sits in a dark room, strapped in a straight jacket, surrounded by a lot of clones of Ampersand.  It's a shocking and lonely scene before you realize that it's very similar to how we first met Yorick, right down to the same useless fact about Elvis Presley.  Is he being kept prisoner there or is he merely trying to hone his skills at getting out of the jacket?  Vaughan never really answers that but he does give us a few flashbacks of the years since Paris, of last meetings and farewells to characters we've grown to know and love throughout the series.  In the end, Yorick's story is sweet, touching but there's no real ending to it just as I guess there's no real ending to life.  In fact, if the last page is any hint, Yorick's journey never ends either.

Pia Guerra is one of the most understated artists around.  Her contribution to this book provides a solid foundation for Vaughan to build the story on.  She's not flashy or experimental, just easy and simple but she also has the hardest job, convincing us of the emotions and turmoil that the characters are going through.  This book is easily the most gut and heart wrenching of the bunch as we, along with the characters, have to face death and loss.  And we'll only buy into the loss if we can buy into Yorick's reaction to them.  It's easy for us to do thanks to Guerra's art.

I can't say that Y The Last Man has been one of my favorite books or one that I looked forward to on a regular basis.  Heck, I gave up on the book for a long time after I read the first couple of collections.  Eventually though, I floated back into reading the collections and I'm glad I did.  Over time, I wouldn't be surprised of Vaughan and Guerra's story becomes known as one of comics greatest love stories because that's what it actually is-- the story of Yorick's loves.  It was sweet, touching, frightening at times and in the end, it's like life in that it keeps going on even when we just want it to end or think it should end.

Y The Last Man: Whys and Wherefores
Written by: Brian K. Vaughan
Penciled by: Pia Guerra
Inked by: Jose Marzan Jr.
Colored by: Zylonol
Lettered by: Clem Robins
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