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Yorick, 355, and Dr. Mann meet up with a Russian agent who is trying to get somewhere in the Midwest U.S., because the three astronauts who have been on the Space Station since the plague hit are going to try to land-- and two of them are men. Yorick, 355, and Dr. Mann go to a “hot suite” and try to make arrangements to protect the men (so the plague doesn’t kill them as soon as they land), but the Israeli military force that’s been tracking Yorick gets in the way-- kidnaps Yorick, attempts to take out the landing capsule, possibly contributing to its explosive landing.

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Does a good job of summarizing what happened in Vol.1 (all the males on earth died except Yorick and his pet chimp Ampersand), and reminding us what a male-dominated world we still live in, as most of the business owners, pilots, construction workers, etc. are now gone. Yorick, Agent 355, and Dr. Mann are working their way across the country to get to Dr. Mann’s laboratory and backup copies of the notes and data destroyed when her east coast lab was burned down. After a little incident on their train, they end up in a small town that seems Edenic in comparison to the rest of the places they have seen on their way through the country-- they have electricity, food, and seem to be taking care of themselves quite well, and even deal rather well with the news of Yorick’s existence (as compared to the other extreme reactions he’s seen before). Meanwhile, Yorick is being hunted-- by some Israeli troops, and by the extreme Daughters of the Amazon, now accompanied by his sister Hero, who seems to have been brainwashed by the care and attention of the leader who protects and feeds her and all the other women.

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This is the first volume of the acclaimed Y: The Last Man series, and it is engaging right from the start. Some unknown disease (or something) kills off all the males on the planet (not just humans but every species), and it happens all over the world at the same time. The only male survivors are Yorick, an out-of-work street magician and escape artist, and his pet monkey Ampersand. Vaughan presents a compelling picture of what the world might be like and how people might respond to an abrupt change like this. Some women form a new gang of Amazons, insisting that the world is better off without men; others mourn the incredible losses of all the talented musicians, scientists, and other great men that were taken away all at once. Even the political aspects are compelling: Congress is left with mostly Democratic politicians and the wives of the dead politicians demand their share of the power. The title of the series works beautifully on so many levels-- Y for Yorick, the last man on Earth, but also for the Y chromosome, as well as a play on the question, "Why?" since no one knows the cause of this disaster (although Vaughan offers a couple of possibilities in some of the different storylines).

The artwork is great, and so many little details-- in the art and in the story-- are delightful. Yorick's father is a literature professor who named his children after characters in Shakespeare (Yorick's sister is named Hero). The opening of this volume grabs you immediately because it shows the catastrophic event and then jumps back a little bit and gives you some of the different events in the storylines that lead up to the moment when all the males on the planet drop dead. This technique is very effective for this part of the story, but it began to seem a little overused when I saw it in the other sections of the story, at the beginning of some of the other issues in this volume, where it really wasn't needed to tell the story effectively.

Overall, very interesting and engaging. I will be looking to read more of this series.

Title:	Y: The Last Man - Unmanned
Author:	Brian K. Vaughan
Date published:	2003
Genre:	Graphic Novel
Series:	Y: The Last Man
Number of pages:	128
Notes:	gift from Jane (from my wish list)

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The return of Cloak & Dagger! Dagger has been badly injured by someone who looks an awful lot like Cloak, and she's lying in the hospital in a coma. Something jogs Dagger's memory, and he remembers the runaways (the Pride wiped Cloak & Dagger's memories before so they wouldn't send Captain America or someone like that to interfere). He brings them to New York to help investigate and clear his name, since no one else believes he's innocence.

The escapes in NY are pretty entertaining. Gert's dinosaur gets turned into a terrier so she'll be less conspicuous; the kids have run-ins with folks like Spider-man and Wolverine (Molly's apparently stronger than he is). They track down the dealers of a drug that temporarily gives the user superpowers, and then figure out that Dagger's got a stalker who works at the hospital, and they get there in time to clean things up.

Karolina leaves for some interstellar adventures early on in this volume (hope we get to hear more about that), but before she does the fact that she's a lesbian is made very clear. She seems to feel like more of a weirdo and an outcast over that than the fact that she's an actual outer-space alien.

Title:	Runaways Volume 5: Escape to New York
Author:	Brian K. Vaughan
Date published:	2006
Genre:	Young Adult Graphic Novel
Series:	Runaways
Number of pages:	144

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Kind of a reboot of the "Runaways" series. Their villainous parents are dead, and the runaways have escaped from their various foster situations and found a new home base (an old parental lair under the La Brea tar pits museum). Their parents used to keep tight control on the crime in L.A. (they had the monopoly), but with their death new villains are moving in-- so the kids are doing their part to try to keep it under control. One of the subplots is a group of former teenage superheroes (now forming a recovery-type organization) are trying to catch the runaways to keep them out of this life that's not for children. There's also a new, interesting kid thrown into the mix.

Future Gert shows up, and before she dies she warns them about a future supervillian who will/has destroyed the Avengers and all the main heroes-- and he's a kid in L.A. now. They take off to find Victor Mancha, and when they do his power starts manifesting and he learns that his father wasn't dead like he thought, but is actually (what else) a supervillain. Eventually, there's a big showdown and they figure out Vic was actually built (but given memories to think he was normal) by the evil robot Ultron. The Runaways hold their own in the fight-- which makes you wonder, are they really that much more talented and clever than any of the other heroes around (young or otherwise), or if there's something else going on.

The group of former teen-heroes and their group ("Excelsior") is pretty funny, and would probably be even more so if I was more familiar with the characters.

Also some hints of mysterious villains-- either new ones, or maybe the Pride is not as dead as we thought they were.

Title:	Runaways Volume 4: True Believers
Author:	Brian K. Vaughan
Date published:	2006
Genre:	Young Adult Graphic Novel
Series:	Runaways
Number of pages:	144

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The runaway children finally find out how their parents came to be supervillains and join together in the Pride, and have a showdown with their parents-- and the powerful beings they answer to. All along there have been hints that one of the runaways was a traitor to the rest, was still faithful to their evil parents; the parents argue over who it might be, all wanting to claim their own son or daughter as the one. This volume brings that story arc to a powerful and satisfying conclusion-- we find out who the traitor is, why they've done what they did, and their ultimate reward for such a betrayal.

When they first ran away from their parents, they stole a secret book and a decoder ring. Alex has been steadily working on translating it, and as he does the children learn the story of the Pride-- how their parents were recruited by an ancient, evil, giant race called the Gibborim to serve them and help them purify the earth-- by eventually destroying all of humanity. These six couples were specifically chosen for their diverse skills and origins, and after supplying the Gibborim with blood sacrifices for 25 years (to increase their power), six of the twelve would be given a place (and immortality) in the new, purified earth. In the meantime, they would all have power and prestige in human society for those 25 years.

Their underground hiding place is discovered, and after being rousted out, they decide to go after their parents. Alex determines that another rite is about to occur-- their parents will be delivering to the Gibborim the soul of the young woman they murdered. But they will be unarmed, so the kids make a plan and go after them.

And it all goes perfectly according to plan. Someone's plan. But that someone is actually the traitor. (Don't read this if you think you might read the books!) And once I knew the answer, everything made perfect sense. I was shocked and surprised, but everything made sense (the sign of a well-written twist). Even the fact that, when the kids first run away and decide to give themselves new codenames because they no longer want their identities defined by their evil parents, Alex chooses not to take one (although he gives a believable rationale for it). Alex is the strategic & tactical genius-- and he planned the whole thing from the very beginning. He purposely showed the other kids the blood rite (he'd discovered it the year before), and manipulated them into cleverly "finding" the gifts and tools of power from their parents. He even knowingly brought a vampire into their midst to toughen up their fighting skills. In watching his parents, he had discovered that two of the couples were planning to kill all the others so that they and their children could be the six immortals in the Gibborim's new earth. So, he maneuvers all of this (quite cleverly) to save his parents.

Unfortunately for him, he underestimates the skill of his team, and they manage to overpower him. The youngest and strongest, Molly, destroys the soul that was to be delivered to the Gibborim-- and rather than let his dad take the brunt of their displeasure, he offers himself and is destroyed. The other children escape the Gibborim's underwater citadel before it explodes and (presumably) kills their parents.

After they've taken down the Pride on their own, Captaim America shows up to take care of things-- not that there's much left for him to do. The kids are all sent to foster homes or schools appropriate to their powers and abilities-- but at the end of the book the meet up and runaway again, because they'd rather be together. Sets up further adventures neatly-- but I don't mind, because I want to read more of them.

Title:	Runaways Volume 3: The Good Die Young
Author:	Brian K. Vaughan
Date published:	2005
Genre:	Young Adult Graphic Novel
Series:	Runaways
Number of pages:	144

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In hiding from their parents and trying to live on their own, the runaways come out of their hiding place to find some food. They see a convenience store robbery in progress and decide to use their powers for good and stop it. They run into Topher, a young man their own age who says his parents forced him to rob the store-- since he's in the same boat they are, they take him back with them. Later, the super-duo Cloak and Dagger, themselves once runaways, come to L.A. to try to find the kids, who they think are murderers and kidnappers.

The Runaways are adapting to their new powers and new understanding of the world & their parents. The introduction of Topher causes all kinds of problems-- social friction between the different girls who think he's cute, but even worse conflict when they discover he's actually a vampire. He's over a century old, and he can handle Gert's velociraptor without losing his breath. They eventually defeat him, although almost by accident. The alien, Karolina, draws her power from the sun-- so when he bites her, she tastes like sunshine and it burns through him and destroys him. (Hmm, reminds me in a small way of Robin McKinley's title character Sunshine.)

The Runaways also have a run-in with Cloak & Dagger, a super-duo from back east (Alex calls them "B-list," which kind of offends them, but I don't think I've heard of them before). An enterprising L.A. policeman called them in, thinking-- who better to find super-powered runaways than one-time runaways and orphans who are now practicing superheroes? (His bright idea later gets him into pretty severe trouble with the Runaways parents, the Pride). The kids are pretty much beaten and captured by Cloak and Dagger, but the duo quickly realize the kids are innocent, and promise they'll send help to take care of the Pride.

Title:	Runaways Volume 2: Teenage Wasteland
Author:	Brian K. Vaughan
Date published:	2004
Genre:	Young Adult Graphic Novel
Series:	Runaways
Number of pages:	144

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A group of six teenagers living in L.A. see each other once a year when their parents get together for some kind of yearly business transactions (they've never paid much attention). Because they're bored, they decided to spy on their parents-- and are surprised to see their parents in strange costumes. At first they think they've discovered their parents are superheroes, but then they see their parents murder a young girl their own age in some kind of rite, and realize their parents must be supervillians. After they decide to run away, the call to mind all the "lies" their parents told them-- the kind of things parents stereotypically say, whether super or not. When they realize their parents are evil, one of the girls responds, "Well, duh. I've known our parents were evil since I was five."

Once they get over their shock, the kids plan to turn their parents in to the authorities-- but even in a world of superheroes, their story sounds crazy. And what's more, the police, media, etc are all in the pocket of the Pride, their parents secret organization. As a group they stop by their different houses and make discoveries-- about their parents, about their own legacies of power. When they realize they can't turn their parents in, and aren't strong enough to beat them, they decide to lie low-- and also to do some good, to compensate for their parents evil-doing.

The kids and their parents are a great mix of different kinds of heroes/villains. The mafia kingpin parents have no super-powers, but their son Alex is a tactical & strategic genius. One couple are magicians, another aliens (their Karolina had unknowingly worn a charm bracelet to suppress her appearance all her life), another are mutants, and another set are genius inventors with all kinds of crazy gadgets (their son steals powerful gauntlets & x-ray goggles), and yet another are time-travellers who left their daughter a genetically engineered velociraptor telepathically tuned to her.

Fun, quick read. The books are paperback-size, so they seem even shorter than trade paperback comicbook collections usually do. Lovely artwork-- I especially liked the issue covers; realistic and beautiful without being too much different from the way the characters were depicted throughout the book.

First heard of this series because Joss Whedon is writing the new issues. This is good stuff.

Title:	Runaways Volume 1: Pride and Joy
Author:	Brian K. Vaughan
Date published:	2004
Genre:	Young Adult Graphic Novel
Series:	Runaways
Number of pages:	144

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