So, Y: The Last Man Has come to an end.
How do we all feel about it?
I’ll submit this post in consideration of the mouseovers who’d otherwise suffer spoilers, then return with my own thoughts.
I liked the ending. The alternative would have been for Yorick simply to die, so leaving it ambiguous was a nice way to blunt that.
The president of France was California-Beth, yes? I wasn’t sure, because she didn’t have the scar on her face. I assume in a world with cloning it’s easy enough to remove a scar.
Amp’s death made me cry. How long do Capuchin monkeys live, anyway? Yorick looked like he was in his fifties or older in that scene, which would make Ampersand thirtysomething.
Hero and “original Beth” as a couple made perfect sense to me, so that was nice. I wanted to know where they were in the “plus 60” timeframe.
Is there a reason we’d know of why Dr. Mann died so young?
What about the rats we saw a few issues ago? We know that in 60 years there will be male humans and monkeys thanks to Yorick and Amp, but the former supermodel a few issues ago saw live rats, and that was before cloning. How did the rats come back?
Overall, I thought #60 was a great finale to the series, and I’m going to miss Y: The Last Man terribly.
Wasn’t that Yorrick’s daughter, and her mother was California Beth (based on the painting?)
Yeaaaah…I liked it, I guess, but I was a little unsatisfied. That’s to be expected, though. I honestly felt like I missed a couple of issues or something.
:smack: Right. You’re absolutely right. Of course the scar wouldn’t have been hereditary.
Well, yes. We missed 60 years’ worth of issues.
I’m still upset about 355’s death, because it wasn’t foreshadowed, and I don’t see why it was necessary to the story.
The president (and there’s hints that she rules more than France) was Beth Jr., daughter of Cali Beth and Yorick, yeah.
I found it pretty profoundly depressing. I mean, we know that Yorick has lost his true love. That he’d probably end up with one of the Beths by default. That his one real friend would probably die before he would (Capuchins have lived up to 45 years in captivity). Even Dr. Mann’s early death is hardly unexpected (complications from the cloning experiment catching up to her). That he’d always be a bit of a freak and an asset to be protected more than a free man. But to actually see it…
It’s a bit of a kick in the gut.
The actual ending was golden though.
There were? I should re-read, I guess.
Absolutely. I’d love to buy the original art for that last page.
I’ve heard it suggested that 355’s name is actually Peace, rather than it just being a thing to put on her grave tree.
I liked it. I think it managed to be both realistic in terms of the story so far and still be a happy ending (or at least as much as it could be).
Maybe it’s just that France is ascendant in world politics in the future presented. Yorick XVII is delivered by the Culper Sphere (the Culper ring was an explicitly American outfit) and they mention the North Atlantic Sororite. Also, Yorick’s comments about Canada seemed to indicate France had a bigger role than it does today.
I know this thread is older, but I wanted to comment. I just finished reading the series today. Wow…what an ending. I’m so sad to see this story come to a close. I connected so deeply with Yorick, I feel like I have lost my best friend. And the last few issues were so good, but also so depressing. I knew 355 was a goner when I saw her on the cover of #58 giving that peace sign. And I DO think Peace is her name. It gives a whole new meaning to that cover, doen’t it? I’m definately going to miss her, too. And, Amp’s death. I broke down into tears at that point. Poor Yorick indeed.
I actually just got into the book about 2 years ago, around the time of the Ring of Truth story. I read the first five trade paperbacks, then read the next two as they came out. After that, I took a bit of a break from it until recently, and I have spent the past week re-reading the first seven books (amazing how many little things I had forgotten) and reading books 8, 9 and the final 6 issues.
I loved the story so much. In fact, it may be my favorite story ever. Tough call between Y and Watchmen.
As for the rats a few issues back, I guess it goes along with what Dr. Mann’s father was talking about before. How when one species learns something, another group completely disconnected from them will learn it too, through cognitive resonance or whatever. Maybe once humans learned how to reproduce asexually, the knowledge somehow found its way into other mammals?
One question I do have: what was up with the cover to #59? Remember, the one with Amp getting picked up by the neck? The cover always relates to the issue’s content, but nothing happened to him that issue.
I wish I’d stopped reading after book 9. I’m just so profoundly heartbroken, I can’t move on. They didn’t make any alternate endings? Why does 355 need to die?
I remember this series well. I never participated in the discussion of the book threads, but I pre-ordered this series before it started because of the recommendation of a Doper that had a friend working on the book. Now I can’t seem to find that ancient thread.