With its perfect combination of memorable characters, imaginative speculation about a post-apocalyptic world and a seemingly never-ending supply of surprising plot twists, Y: The Last Man continues to rank as one of the best month-to-month reads that the comics industry has to offer. "Girl on Girl," the latest story, is another barn burner, featuring the culmination of a romantic relationship long in coming, a look at what the high seas are like in this new world and of course, a plot twist or two that leaves me again stomping my feet impatiently waiting for the next issue.
Though Y: The Last Man doesn't often focus on the more dire aspects of the plague, that doesn't mean that Vaughan ignores what has been lost in creating his science-fiction world. This issue features a great two-page flashback that indicates a bit of how Yorick related to women early on as contrasted to how he is forced to now, and there's also a terrific outpouring of frustration as it hits him that all his guy friends who he liked and trusted really are gone, never to return. Vaughan also holds out a little hope for Yorick to get some temporary happiness, although there is of course a bit of a complication to even that simple happiness for him.
Probably the key fallout of this issue, though, is the surprisingly sudden revelation about 355 and Dr. Mann to Yorick. Not only does it give Vaughan an opportunity for his always-witty dialogue (the "Spock/Bones slash fiction" comment cracked me up), but it adds another layer to what has been an interesting relationship from the start. Truthfully, I'm a little annoyed that the happiness of these two characters amounts to little more than a burst of sexual intimacy, because it almost feels like forced tension for dramatic sake, but it's not unrealistic, and is certainly in keeping with the generally-stressed tone of the characters in this book.
From a plot standpoint, this issue comes with two revelations, one of them the kind of thing the reader could have guessed from the previous issue and the other something that would have been pretty damn hard to guess at. Clearly, someone is lying, maybe even more than one someone, and I'm very curious to find out who, especially since it involves post-plague Australia, an important part of Yorick's life thanks to the locale of his girlfriend Beth.
I've always liked the art on Y: The Last Man, whether it's from regular artist Pia Guerra or one of the Gorans who guests, and the art by Goran Parlov is no exception. Jose Marzan Jr.'s inks provide a nice consistency between guest artists, but there's also a general consistency of style, which focuses less on flash and more on substance, strong storytelling cues and distinctive characters that remind me more than anything of the perfect storytelling of Steve Dillon on Preacher. Y: The Last Man is, for me, a book that thrives in no small part thanks to Vaughan's writing, but one shouldn't undersell the importance of a good art team in making this book a must-read, month-in and month-out. 10/10
