Despite how much I was looking forward to this issue, I was also a little nervous in one respect: Given how good the first issue had been, my expectations were high, and the chances of the creative team hitting those same heights again probably weren't too good. I needn't have worried, because Y: The Last Man #2 is every bit as good as the first, and it ends on another cliffhanger that has me dying to see the next issue. I see a lot of good books every year, and plenty of them get me very excited for what's next, but after only two issues, Y: The Last Man is bucking for best new series of the year as far as I'm concerned.
I love how much information Vaughan packs into his script without it feeling like he is spoon-feeding the reader. The opening sequence serves as great exposition, but it is also a vivid demonstration of the setting that Vaughan and Guerra have created. And as with the first issue, Vaughan's script is mobile, taking the reader all across the Capitol region to examine the changes that have occurred in the time between the first issue and the second.
Vaughan also knows how to grab the reader's attention, with some fantastic dialogue that really gets the enormity of the situation out there. Agent 355 gets to deliver a doozy of a line to a woman who I suspect will become very important to the story, and it's good to see that even an apocalyptic event hasn't dimmed Yorick's sense of humor. In fact, the whole book has a sense of humor to it, because while the events and ramifications are painted as dire and realistic, it is never dour and cheerless, but instead it has a life and energy that keeps the reader riveted to the page.
Of no small help in this regard is Pia Guerra, who has designed an enormous cast of characters and who seems, remarkably, able to deal equally well with post-apocalyptic settings and the mundane furniture, vehicles and clothing that are still left behind. In her characters, I see some of the same strengths of expression that Steve Dillon has, although Guerra actually is better at distinguishing characters' faces than Dillon is, for the most part. And one of the creepiest scenes in this book, one that actually gave me shudders and could well give me nightmares, is due largely to Guerra's ability to make me believe that the pencil and ink on the page is a horrific image of what happens to single men after the world for them ends.
It is no exaggeration for me to say that I already love this book. I wish that I had the first few issues out in front of me, because I can't wait to see more of the story unfolding, and at the same time, I'm loving the sense of anticipation that Vaughan and Guerra have created. I'm tempted to issue the usual caution about "waiting for the trade" on a new Vertigo book which might never see a collection if folks don't support it early on, but in the case of Y: The Last Man, I think my best argument is this: Read an issue. You won't be able to wait after that.
