This week it’s all about the Y – The Last Man finale. Props from Picks & Pans, courtesy of Adan Jimenez & Ernie Estrella.

DOUBLE PICK! Y – The Last Man #60

It’s rare that we get to follow something from beginning to end and care enough to take the complete trek. And here we are staring at the end of It’s bittersweet to see something as good as Y close, but it does so in a right and just way. Many stories try to make a complete circle, but most head in one-way direction blooming into something based on the seeds planted. Environment and climate can change anything. Brian Vaughan, Pia Guerra and Jose Marzan pruned this prize plant into a double sized finale–and last arc–for the last year and what a sight Yorick’s become. In all of his silliness we wouldn’t have asked for a better leading man.

While most of us fantasized Brown taking full advantage of being the only man left in a herd of women, he left us dumfounded or slapping our foreheads. Flawed but still perfect, Yorick Brown is the reality of who we are instead of the fantasy and for that we wanted to know what would really happen to this guy. Midway through it all we made room for four or five women and one hyper, poop-throwing monkey. Vaughan made many Shakespeare references throughout the series and like the playwright he gave us comedy and tragedy–in modern poetic fashion. We were introduced to Guerra at the same time as Brown; how fitting that we care about her just as much. The last year has been an emotional roller coaster, and you can thank this woman for that ride. If you haven’t read the last issue by now, what are you doing reading this review? I’m not going to spoil it. Just bring a box of tissues and get ready to love it like I did.

Shock Value: A+ -Ernie

*sniff*

The most handsome man in comics ends the opus that was Y. This issue had it all: pirates, pathos, clones, lesbians, humor, crazy old people, monkeys, and pirate lesbians. This issue was a microcosm of everything the series was, and more.

Every major character gets her time in the denouement, set sixty years in the future, so you’ll know exactly where everyone is and what they’re doing at the end of the world, which frankly, isn’t what I normally see in a post-apocalyptic future. This isn’t to say that it’s a perfect world just because the men are all gone, but it isn’t Mad Max either. In fact, BKV leaves us with many tantalizing questions about the state of the world and its politics now that womankind has figured out how to keep the human race going. So tantalizing, I may have to analyze these politics in a future write-up.

Regardless, this was a great end to a great series. A friend of mine once said the best ending a story could ever have was to be set one thousand years in the future (a lá the alternate ending of Army of Darkness). Y didn’t go that far, but I can see his point.

No joke, I actually cried a little while reading this, and unless you’re some inhuman monster, you’ll tear up a little too. And that last page is magical. Thank you, Brian, Pia, and Jose, for one of the best comics of all time.

Shock Value: A+ -Adan