Another solid read no longer delayed

Y: The Last Man
DC Vertigo
Creators: Brian K. Vaughan, Pia Guerra, Jose Marzan Jr., Paul Chadwick, Goran Parlov and Goran Sudzuka
Release date: July 2002 – January 2008

I’ve been on a bit of an unplanned Vertigo kick of late.

Now, I’ve never been a stranger to Vertigo titles. I started buying Fables while it was still in the midst of its first story arc and continued to buy the title in single issues throughout its entire run. I read the entire run of Transmetropolitan in trade form shortly after the series ended. I’ve also read a number of limited series and tried various issues of other titles released under the DC Vertigo imprint through the years. Some I’ve liked. Some I’ve really enjoyed. Others were simply meh.

But I unexpectedly decided to try reading Preacher for the first time not long ago after hearing the series recommended on a podcast I was listening to. You can read about my first impressions of that title here, if you haven’t already done so.

Since writing that post, I have finished reading all of Preacher, including the various one-shots and the Saint of Killers miniseries. Overall, I continued to enjoy the read-through, and hold the series in very high regard. I especially like how Garth Ennis and Steve Dillon make you care about the characters and root for them as they move along their respective journeys, even though they are not very likeable people. Even the protagonists in the story do things that I would otherwise find abhorrent and despicable, but I still wanted those protagonists to come out on top in the end.

Speaking of the end, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about the ending of that series. After liking and rooting for those protagonists through some seventy-plus comic issues, they didn’t exactly end up where I might have hoped they would. That’s not to say I think the writing was bad or faulty. The ending just left me unsure of how I feel about it.

My family has also recently watched and very much enjoyed the entire first season of “Sweet Tooth” on Netflix. I’ve never read the Vertigo title by Jeff Lemire in any form. But I’d heard some good reviews of the show by friends online, and my wife had heard many of the same positive reviews. We decided to try the show and were pleasantly surprised by just how much we enjoyed it. We definitely plan to watch the announced second season when it drops.

And that brings us, finally, to Y: The Last Man. I read the Transmet trades in late 2002 or early 2003, shortly after that series ended. Just before Transmet came to an end, Y: The Last Man began publishing. I decided to buy it in trades, but I also decided to wait until the series ended and I had the complete story before I would read it. That’s how I’d read Spider Jerusalem’s story; I figured it would work well for Yorick Brown, too. I bought each of the Y: The Last Man trades as they were released, and then I put them on the pile of books to read later, after I collected the entire thing.

I bought the series based on liking Transmet, so it seemed fitting to decide now was the time to read it after reading and liking another Vertigo title, Preacher. There was also the incentive of reading the entire series before it, too, becomes a streaming television program. “Y: the Last Man” the TV series is set to debut on the FX network next month, I believe. So I have spent the past couple weeks reading all 60 issues of Y.

Like the characters in Preacher, the people readers meet in Y: The Last Man are flawed individuals who do not always do the right thing. But I still found myself liking the main protagonists, being drawn into their world and rooting for them through all the twists and turns of their story.

The set-up for the story is a mysterious plague which immediately kills every mammal on the planet with a Y chromosome — every one except for a young man named Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand. The other principals in the story include Hero Brown, Yorick’s older sister and an EMT when the pandemic hits; 355, a government agent assigned to protect Yorick as he travels; and Allison Mann, a researcher who thinks she might be able to find a way to counter the effects of the pandemic with Yorick’s and Ampersand’s help. The story follows their adventures as they seek answers and solutions in the world that remains.

Of course, there are many, many more characters in the cast along the way. Our heroes come across hate groups, zealots, soldiers, former supermodels, secret agents, scientists, actors, astronauts, sailors, pirates, spies, journalists, ninjas and many others in their travels to Washington, D.C.; Massachusetts; California; Australia; China; France; and other stops all along the way.

Honestly, I don’t want to give away too many details of the story for anyone who hasn’t read the books or who plans to watch the upcoming FX program. Overall, Y: The Last Man was a fun, enjoyable read. Brian K. Vaughan writes an engaging tale that kept me riveted page after page. Primary artist Pia Guerra’s work is a nice mix of realistic and cartoony, and the fill-in artists, when used, produce a similar style, giving the entire series a uniform, cohesive look.

I’m glad I finally made time to give this title a try, and I’m looking forward to seeing what FX does with the streaming series. Once again, I had a bit of an issue with the ending of the series. I was not entirely happy with how some things turned out, including the explanation(s) of what exactly caused the plague which killed most male mammals on Earth. But I will say I liked the ending of this title a bit more than I did the ending of Preacher. And I have no problem recommending the series to anyone interested in giving it a read.

I think they gave too much away last time

Batman: Earth One Vol. 3
DC Comics
Creators: Geoff Johns, Gary Frank, Jon Sibal and Brad Anderson
Release date: June 2021

I bought and enjoyed the first two volumes of the Batman: Earth One series. The twists and turns these creators took with the familiar Batman origin tale kept me guessing a little bit, entertained even when I saw twists coming, and left me feeling satisfied with the final product. This third and final chapter is still a good read. But something feels just a little bit off or not quite as good as the first two installments.

I’m not a fan of the Earth One idea, in general. I tried the first two volumes of Superman: Earth One, and while I found them — especially the first one — entertaining, the stories just didn’t quite feel like "my" Superman. They didn’t feel quite right. Your specific reaction might have been different. That’s part of the fun of comics. Not every comic is every reader’s cup of tea. But for me and Superman: Earth One, something was off.

I tried Teen Titans: Earth One and hated it. Several of my favorite characters were excluded, and the story was so different, that I didn’t recognize the characters that were “included.” Based on those two experiences, I’ve never even tried Wonder Woman: Earth One or Green Lantern: Earth One. Flash: Earth One and Aquaman Earth One graphic novels were planned at one point, but neither has been printed to date.

But when I decided to give Batman: Earth One Volume 1 a try, I was pleasantly surprised.

First, the creators wisely opted to ignore the Joker right out of the gate. Too many similar projects feel a need to make the Joker the premier Bat villain, and that has led to the Joker being way overused. He’s no longer exciting if he’s everywhere and in every story.

Second, this Gotham was different from previous iterations of Gotham City. Bruce Wayne was different from previous iterations. And Alfred was introduced in a different way. That set the stage for many great changes to come — changes to heroes, to villains and to supporting cast members.

I normally try to keep spoilers to a minimum on this blog, but there will be a few here, especially for the earlier volumes of Batman: Earth One. Stop reading now if you want to avoid spoilers, and just know that I liked the series overall, but the most recent chapter a little less than the others.

******** SPOILER WARNING! ********

You’ve been warned.

The first volume of Batman: Earth One begins with Thomas Wayne running for mayor against a corrupt opponent. His campaign staffers are celebrating some early polling victories when Alred Pennyworth arrives at Wayne Manor. Alfred is a former member of the Royal Marines. He and Thomas Wayne served together or worked together in some unspecific capacity. They forged a friendship, and Thomas has sent for Alfred to head up his campaign security team. But first, Thomas and Martha have promised their young son a night at the movies.

That sense of foreboding you now feel is well-deserved as Bruce’s parents never make it back home from the theater. But rather than being killed by Joe Chill or a random mugger after seeing “The Mark of Zorro,” the Waynes never even see the film they planned to see. Instead, the theater’s electricity is cut before the movie begins, and the Waynes are attacked as they exit the theater through an emergency exit.

Bruce is left an orphan. Alfred, who wasn’t even certain he wanted the security job, now finds out that the Waynes have entrusted Bruce’s care to him in their wills. He feels honor-bound to accept the responsibility to keep the boy from becoming a ward of the state, but he has no real interest or knowledge of caring for a child.

Bruce vows vengeance as readers expect and is firmly convinced that the corrupt mayor was behind the hit on his parents. That mayor — Oswald Cobblepot — wins re-election, at least a couple more times, as he is still the mayor of Gotham when Bruce returns from boarding school a young man with a plan built on revenge.

The Batman that begins his career in this tale is new and inexperienced. He makes some mistakes. He has very few detective skills to draw upon, but he is smart. Alfred thinks the entire idea is ludicrous and tries to talk Bruce out of his plans. When that tactic repeatedly fails, he insists on training Bruce in a number of fighting techniques.

The big bads of that first volume are a new creation called The Birthday Boy and Cobblepot, who I don’t believe is ever referred to as Penguin in the story at all. But there are a number of other familiar names with not-so-familiar backgrounds and roles. Some of these include Jim Gordon, Barbara Gordon, Harvey Bullock, Lucius Fox, Harvey and Jessica Dent and Killer Croc.

The second volume continues the trend of giving readers familiar names and faces, but often throwing them into the mix in unfamiliar ways. For instance, I strongly suspected that Barbara Gordon might become Batgirl in the second volume of the series. She was introduced in Volume 1 and was shown to have a keen interest in the Batman’s activities. Instead, the creative team sidelines her throughout this second story with an educational trip abroad.

The villain of this second installment is the Riddler, but he sets himself up as a punisher of Gotham’s ongoing corruption. Mayor Cobblepot is no longer in the picture, but others have taken his seat of power and continue to benefit off the citizens of the city.

Batman faces off against the Riddler, but he does not do so alone. He continues to grow his team of misfits, or Outsiders, as more familiar names and faces are added to the mix. And along the way, the creators do a bit of foreshadowing that easily telegraphs the villain for the third installment, at least in my mind.

The third and final original graphic novel under the Batman: Earth One banner begins with a new “mystery” villain supplying weapons and materials to all the criminals of Gotham. No secret is made about this being Two-Face; but who is Two-Face? That is the question the characters in this story face. But most any reader who read Volume 2 already knows the answer to this question. There’s no mystery here.

Johns, Franks and the crew try to mask that fact by also adding a long-lost relative of Bruce’s and some Wayne/Arkham family history into the mix. But ultimately, while this is still an engaging read, this third installment in the series feels weaker, in my opinion, because of the too-early reveal.

As I said at the top of this post, this is still a worthwhile read. More familiar faces make an appearance, including some not usually associated with the Batman family of titles. More characters are introduced or fleshed out within the story itself. The wrap-up also shows where the story would likely head next, further expanding Batman’s team of Outsiders and finally bringing the Joker into the mix.

Overall, this is a good series, and the best of the Earth One titles I’ve read. But if I’m being honest, this third installment is the weakest of the Batman series.