Thursday, January 14, 2010

Y: The Last Man - Cycles

Title: Y: The Last Man - Cycles
Author: Brian K. Vaughan
Genre: Graphic Novel
Page Count: 118
Why I read it: 2nd in series, graphic novel challenge
Grade: C

Synopsis:
Cycles continues the story of young escape artist Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand, the only survivors of a mysterious plague that killed all the male mammals on Earth. This title finds Yorick and his pet are under the care of biologist Dr. Mann and Agent 355, an operative of the collapsed U.S. government. The two decide to sneak the somewhat willing Yorick from battle-torn Boston to a laboratory on the West Coast to discover what allowed the pair to survive. After Yorick disguises himself in a gas mask, the three hop a train and find themselves in a strangely idyllic town in rural Ohio. After only a brief rest, the feminist terrorist group Daughters of the Amazon tracks them down.

My review:
I didn't like this one as well as the first.  I think what I liked so much about the first one was that the whole idea of all the men being gone was new, and gave me a lot of things to think about.  Now that the idea isn't new anymore, and the story is just about Yorick trying not to get killed, it's not quite as interesting.

It's still good, and the artwork is great, but the language is pretty bad.  Does every character have to use the F-word constantly?  Seems like the author could have tried harder to make the characters more distinct, instead of basically being all one character with different faces.  And, although I know it's hard in a graphic novel, I would like to see some character development.  Like what happened with his sister?  How did she get to the point where she is?  Honestly, Yorick is not that interesting, so too much revolving around him isn't as good as this story could be, I think.

Still, I would recommend this to fans of graphic novels.  I'm still looking forward to seeing where the story goes.