Y: The Last Man #04: Safeword

The fourth collection of the acclaimed Vertigo series, Y: The Last Man: Safeword reprints issues #18-23 of writer Brian K. Vaughan's and artist Pia Guerra's dynamic series. As the Last Man on Earth and his companions continue to head West, the story takes a detour into the psychological.

In the care of a fellow Culper Ring member, Yorick Brown is forced to confront his tremendous feelings of survivor guilt that lead him to constantly put his life in danger. Once on the road again, the group runs up against a literal roadblock in Arizona, where the female remains of the Sons of Arizona militia have cut the interstate to keep out any vestiges of the U.S. government.

"Vaughan and Guerra have crafted a frequently funny, sometimes compelling, postapocalyptic American road story with a twist. A mysterious plague has wiped out every man around the globe, except for one: a sardonic 20-something romantic named Yorick. Poor Yorick, however, has to conceal his identity from man-hating Amazons, renegade separatists and all sorts of other female factions who want to use him for one thing or another. He's on the run with a government agent and a geneticist as they hope to figure out what caused the plague and how Yorick survived. This volume focuses on the character development of Yorick and geneticist Dr. Alison Mann. Vaughn spends three chapters on Yorick's past and present psychosexual traumas, as he encounters a very eccentric therapist; the next three chapters follow Dr. Mann down some dangerous roads. Vaughn is an excellent episodic writer, able to sustain a suspenseful arc of plot, themes and realistic characters from one moment to the next. Guerra's art is unremarkable but competently conveys all kinds of action. Most important, Vaughn makes readers care for his characters. In the tradition of much good sci-fi writing, his fantastic plague backdrop is a very clever way of isolating and expanding on simple human themes of love, loneliness, fear and, of course, gender relations." Publishers Weekly (Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information, Inc.)

"[A]rtfully written and plainly drawn, Y remains a helluva trip." Booklist

The Last Man on Earth and his entourage continue to head west, even though their journey is impeded by one of Agent 255's fellow Culper Ring members who forces Yorick to confront his tremendous feelings of survivor guilt.

When a plague of unknown origin instantly kills every mammal with a Y chromosome, unemployed and unmotivated slacker Yorick Brown suddenly discovers that he is the only male left in a world inhabited solely by women. Accompanied by his mischievous monkey and the mysterious Agent 355, Yorick embarks on a transcontinental journey to find his girlfriend and discover why he is the last man on Earth. But with a gang of feminist extremists and the leader of the Israel Defense Forces hunting him, Yorick's future, as well as that of the human race, may be short-lived.