Analysis Of Brian K. Vaughan's Y The Last Man

“Our opponents are gone now… But that doesn’t mean that we’ve won. There are misguided women out there who will attempt to remake the world exactly as it once was,” said Victoria, leader of the amazons (Vaughan). In Brian K. Vaughan’s graphic novel, Y The Last Man: Book One, something of the unknown has wiped out all of the males of the various species, leaving only Yorick, our main character and seemingly sole male survivor of the human race and his helper monkey, Ampersand. With Yorick’s only talent of being an escape artist, he and Ampersand escape many life threatening and near death encounters with the various groups and cliques of strong-willed women. Our author sought to rouse the reader from seemingly misogynist social norms and

One possible factor can be male-specific diseases, such as prostate and testicular cancer. Studies show, “About 1 man in 7 will be diagnosed with prostate cancer during his lifetime… [and] more than 2.9 million men in the United States who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer at some point are still alive today,” (ACS). “…About 1 of every 263 males will develop testicular cancer at some point during his life… Because testicular cancer usually can be treated successfully, a man’s lifetime risk of dying from this cancer is very low: about 1 in 5,000,” (ACS). Though these two forms of cancer have a tendency to be non-aggressive and treatable, they are still, nonetheless, specific to men and can cause death. If a risk factor of the two were to become a catalyst of some sort, then the diseases would become aggressive, thus leading to male extinction. The latter theory, in fact, does explain a possibility, but in turn is a merely a theory as previously indicated. Yet, men are diminishing before our very eyes. Our sex chromosomes tell a lot of the inevitable male extinction to come. The human sex chromosomes are made up of genes. “The female, or X, chromosome contains a healthy 1,000 or so genes,” (Macrae). Whereas males once had the same amount of genes in their Y-chromosomes hundreds of millions of years ago, their gene counts have diminished significantly. In fact, their Y-chromosomes contain a

Vaughan does a great job of showing understanding of what would happen with women, if the demise of men were to come about, in his graphic novel. In the book, our author shows the various problematic scenarios women may run into or create without men. He paints many of the female characters with savage-like, warmongering, and overbearingly strong attributes. Though fictional, these characteristics would surely evoke within women given the circumstances. However, the women’s qualities depicted in the book are no different from the characteristics our male figureheads in today’s society. In fact, it almost seems as if women, being the adaptable creatures that we are, would have taken on the previously referred “male” traits as a means of adjustment to the unexpected change. Women, often seen as the nurturing, sensitive, and at times, protective gender embodied the vengeful, emotionally contained, yet explosive, mannerisms we usually associate with their male counterparts. As opposed to intentionally painting women as villains, Vaughan attempted to show the reader that traits, characteristics, and qualities were not gender specific as implied by society, but rather, human nature and necessary as a means of