This is a previous blog post from another site that I've recently given up on, this series of blogs though has been something that I've been meaning to revisit and continue with so I thought that I'd post it here and then carry on with the countdown in the future.

I'm quite an avid reader of most types of literature and of late I have started rediscovering comic books (I was a huge comic book geek when I was younger) and I've recently been catching up on books that I've missed out on over the years and some huge culturally significant titles that, in my view, have managed to push the art form from being strictly pulp entertainment to an art form to be admired and analysed as much as other established forms.

Below is a quote from this comic book series that pretty much ticks all of the things that I'd like to hear about in a story that involves one man, a monkey and a planet full of angry women...

"No. No, first comes boyhood. You get to play with soldiers and spacemen, cowboys and ninjas, pirates and robots. But before you know it, all that comes to an end"

If you're interest is piqued by such a synopsis I'd suggest that you read further...

#5 Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan

Y: The Last Man was a comic book series written by one of the main writers of the TV show, Lost. The story is based around a character, 'Yorick Brown' and his pet monkey 'Ampersand' who, for reasons that are revealed throughout the series, are the last two living males on the planet. The first issue shows the final moments of 99.9999999% of the male population and the chaos that ensues; think planes falling from the sky, nuclear reactors going into meltdown and the fate of billions of food jars that will forever remain unopened due to the lack of a helping hand with a manly grip...

Whilst in the hands of another writer this premise for a story would devolve into a messy mish-mash of sex and debauchery, Vaughan though manages to create a character that you can actually care about. Yorick spends most of the series searching for his girlfriend, who at the time of the gendercide was on the other side of the planet and the rest of the time trying to discover what it was that destroyed every other Y chromosome on Earth.

Faced with an apocalyptic future (and no one to remove spiders from bath tubs) the women of the world begin to split into a number of different camps; the women who want to restore order and civilization, the women who believe that the death of Man was an act of God, the women who decide to stick stubble on their chins and strap down their breasts with tape in the pursuit of money and romance and the women that fail to come to terms with the loss of their fathers, husbands, sons and friends.

Now if you are reading this far you may be thinking that this is beginning to sound very sexist and anti-feminist but Y: The Last Man is the polar opposite. Vaughan's protagonist is not exactly the stereotypical broad shouldered, square jawed super man of comic book archetypes, instead Yorick shows to his readers many aspects of the modern man that mainstream comic books fail to highlight; he is vain, he's a coward, he believes in true love, he believes in equality and he refuses to be seduced by the women that he meets during his quest (well, he does for most of the time) as he remains faithful to his college girlfriend that becomes almost mythical in standing as she remains elusive throughoutthe books.

Yorick is joined by a number of sympathetic allies on his mission to discover the fate of the world, the people that help him on the way include:

'355' - a female agent employed in a mysterious group known as 'the culper ring' that is ordered by the president to aid the last man and to ensure that the human race is restored, she is the other main character throughout the series and the friendship between the two protagonists really helps to drive the story forward. 355, like most agents employed by shadowy groups, is a trained killing machine that manages to be cold and efficient when defending Yorick but begins to soften and become more likeable as the series progresses.

'Doctor Alison Mann' - A geneticist that joins the group, determined to discover the cause of the plague.

The group travel across the globe, traversing the chaos of post-apocalypse America, Australia (that has become crippled by drug runners - the Sydney opera house becomes one huge drug den), Japan (where they meet the new head of the Yakuza, a former pop star turned megalomaniac), Russia and Europe. The iconic landscapes and landmarks featured in their journey are drawn by artist Pia Guerra and through his stylish graphics, he provides the reader with a view of how the world would disintegrate in the wake of a global crisis.

Like Vaughan's work in Lost, Y: The Last Man is littered with pop references and satirical swipes at genre defining titles of both the comic book world and TV/Film that seem fresh and relevant without seeming forced and obvious. Y: The Last Man, like the majority of the other titles that will feature in this countdown is a very rewarding and literate series, Vaughan is not interested in capes and super powers, he wanted his readers to think about the roles of masculinity and femininity in our present culture and how everything can fall apart; with the first spluttering of a cough, the push of a button or the click of a trigger...

In summary, you need to read at least one issue of this title. If you are intrigued enough to purchase one of the volumes of this series than you should buy volume one; it is an obvious starting point and introduces the majority of the characters that will feature throughout the series. If you are uncertain about whether to take a gamble on a book recommended to you by a stranger then why don't you Google 'cbr, comic book reader', download the program and then download the torrent that is available on Isohunt that contains the entire collection in .cbr format... but don't read them all that way, just read enough, allow yourself to be drawn into Yorick's world and then buy/borrow/steal (ok, don't steal it) every volume...