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Y: The Last Man [SPOILERS]
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i just finished reading the entire series in order. I didn't like how the series ended without a definitive explanation. So, my question to those of you who've read the series, which explanation do you think is the one which caused the "plague" that killed all the men, and why did Yorick and Ampersand survive?

 

Here's Vaughan's take:

 

"I feel that there is a definitive explanation, but I like that people don't necessarily know what it is. In interviews we always said that we would tell people exactly what caused the plague. The thing was, we never said when we were going to tell. We weren't going to tell you when we were telling you, I should say. We might have told you in issue #3. There might have been something in the background that only a couple people caught. It might have been Dr. Mann's father's very detailed, scientific explanation. It might have been Alter's off-the-wall conspiracy theory. The real answer is somewhere in those 60 issues, but I prefer to let the reader decide which one they like rather than pushing it on them."
Edited by Benjamin Grimm
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Vertigo has a lot of books swimming gently under the radar right now and Y is my second fave of them all. I even did Yorick at Dragoncon a couple of years ago. : )

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Oh lord, I read too fast!!

Throw me up a Spoiler Alert!!!

I realize I may be one of the few weirdos who hasn't read YtLM all the way through, but once I started reading this thread, I couldn't stop. Even the BKV stuff.

I am a glutton for punishment...

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Not providing a detailed explanation (or even an explicit explanation) aside, I found the ending to be very well done. Not just the final issue (which I thought was bang on, down to the last page), but the 10 or so issues leading up to it. Reading the series was a very satisfying experience and one of these days I'm going to sit down and read the whole thing from the beginning and see how differently it reads that way as opposed to monthly.

 

In any case, found it to be a better, or at least one I liked better, ending than EX MACHINA's. Fitting, but man...what a downer.

 

I expect SAGA will end on a brighter note. BKV is now a dad and having kids will definitely change one's world view (as I believe he has mentioned in one of his columns).

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i just finished reading the entire series in order. I didn't like how the series ended without a definitive explanation. So, my question to those of you who've read the series, which explanation do you think is the one which caused the "plague" that killed all the men, and why did Yorick and Ampersand survive?

 

Here's Vaughan's take:

 

"I feel that there is a definitive explanation, but I like that people don't necessarily know what it is. In interviews we always said that we would tell people exactly what caused the plague. The thing was, we never said when we were going to tell. We weren't going to tell you when we were telling you, I should say. We might have told you in issue #3. There might have been something in the background that only a couple people caught. It might have been Dr. Mann's father's very detailed, scientific explanation. It might have been Alter's off-the-wall conspiracy theory. The real answer is somewhere in those 60 issues, but I prefer to let the reader decide which one they like rather than pushing it on them."

 

Here is my take.

 

I believe the answer was give throughout the series. Yorick and Ampersand survived because Ampersand was a monkey that had been involved in experiments carried out by Dr. Mann's father. Thus, Ampersand had develop antibodies to the virus that killed all of the males. The antibodies were transported fecal-oral, thus by Ampersand throwing poop everywhere Yorick obtain the antibodies as well. . The main beef between Dr. Mann and her father is they were both on a race to clone the first human. Dr. Mann's father found out and created the virus to kill Dr. Mann's baby, however it killed all other males on the planet as well. That is what I remember but I read the series about a year ago.

 

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So which explanation do you think is the definitive one Vaughan referenced?

 

It could be any of them. For me, by the end, it didn't matter so much anymore. I realize that may come off like a cop-out, but the story was about Yorick's journey and by the end, that's what I cared about.

 

In that way, SWEET TOOTH borrows quite a bit from Y. I also found ST to be a very satisfying read, so recommend that as well.

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Ex Machina's ending was brutal. Nothing like changing your entire perspective of the main character in the last issue.

 

Tell me about it. On the one hand, I appreciate the audacity. On the other, I don't appreciate the punch in the gut.

 

If it had a more conventional finish, we'd hear it mentioned more than we do whenever BKV's name comes up. People still talk about Y while EM is now an afterthought. A shame since EM is a solid read in its own right.

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i just finished reading the entire series in order. I didn't like how the series ended without a definitive explanation. So, my question to those of you who've read the series, which explanation do you think is the one which caused the "plague" that killed all the men, and why did Yorick and Ampersand survive?

 

Here's Vaughan's take:

 

"I feel that there is a definitive explanation, but I like that people don't necessarily know what it is. In interviews we always said that we would tell people exactly what caused the plague. The thing was, we never said when we were going to tell. We weren't going to tell you when we were telling you, I should say. We might have told you in issue #3. There might have been something in the background that only a couple people caught. It might have been Dr. Mann's father's very detailed, scientific explanation. It might have been Alter's off-the-wall conspiracy theory. The real answer is somewhere in those 60 issues, but I prefer to let the reader decide which one they like rather than pushing it on them."

 

Here is my take.

 

I believe the answer was give throughout the series. Yorick and Ampersand survived because Ampersand was a monkey that had been involved in experiments carried out by Dr. Mann's father. Thus, Ampersand had develop antibodies to the virus that killed all of the males. The antibodies were transported fecal-oral, thus by Ampersand throwing poop everywhere Yorick obtain the antibodies as well. . The main beef between Dr. Mann and her father is they were both on a race to clone the first human. Dr. Mann's father found out and created the virus to kill Dr. Mann's baby, however it killed all other males on the planet as well. That is what I remember but I read the series about a year ago.

 

 

That explanation is definitely the most thoroughly explored at the end of the series. But it wasn't the virus which killed all the men, it was the insinuated reasoning that all men instantly instinctively knew they were unneeded for reproduction because of the cloning success and that's why they all dropped dead.

 

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