Y The Last Man How Frankenstein’s Author Influenced A Vertigo Classic

Y: The Last Man: How Frankenstein’s Author Influenced A Vertigo Classic

The Vertigo classic “Y: The Last Man” was influenced by the work of Mary Shelley, the author of “Frankenstein,” who is referenced in the series.

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Y The Last Man How Frankenstein’s Author Influenced A Vertigo Classic

The fan-favorite Vertigo comic Y: The Last Man is finally scheduled to release its TV adaptation in 2021. Covid-19 caused shooting to be delayed, which is ironic, since not only does the comic concern a mysterious global event that wipes out all of the men on Earth, but it is also inspired by a much older novel about a plague that wiped out mankind. The novel in question, appropriately titled The Last Man, was penned by none other than Mary Shelley, whose best known book, Frankenstein, was one of the first science fiction novels ever written.

Y: The Last Man was created by Brian K. Vaughan and artist Pia Guerra. At the end of the first issue, a mysterious global event kills off every animal with a Y chromosome on the planet in an instant, except for the protagonist, Yorick Brown, and his pet monkey, Ampersand. An unlikely hero, Yorick is a puny twenty-something with an English degree and love of escape artistry. His mother, a member of the US Congress, survives the plague, as does his sister, Hero. Accompanied by a bodyguard known as Agent 355 and the geneticist Dr. Allison Mann, Yorick crosses the post-apocalyptic US to reach a lab in California where Dr. Mann can learn how he survived, and whether cloning can preserve the future of the human race.

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Y The Last Man How Frankenstein’s Author Influenced A Vertigo Classic

The series is filled with literary references. Yorick and his sister Hero were named by their father, a professor of English literature, after Shakespeare characters. During the story “Safeword,” Yorick–always willing to use his English degree–references everything from Nathaniel’s West’s novel The Day of the Locust to Henrik Ibsen’s plays. When he is handed a Walther PPK, he quotes Dr. No.

Interestingly, one of the most important references is not made by Yorick at all, but by a minor recurring character in a theater troupe. After Ampersand goes missing, he is found and taken in by the troupe in the story “Comedy and Tragedy.” The group’s leader, Cayce, writes an original script for a play about the last man on Earth, naming the protagonist Lionel. When the actress playing Lionel complains and asks for a character with a Shakespearean name, Cayce responds, “if there’s one thing I hate, it’s crappy works of fiction that try to sound important by stealing names from the Bard.”

Beyond the self-referential meta-humor mocking Yorick’s own Shakespearean name, the scene is an inversion of the original Shakespeare productions, where women’s parts were played by men in drag. However, the best reference is actually the name Lionel, which Cayce explains is from Mary Shelley’s novel The Last Man.

This 19th Century novel is about a 21st Century plague that kills off every man except for Lionel. Y: The Last Man’s title even references Shelley’s book, showing what an influence it was. Writer Brian Vaughan uses the character of Cayce to make additional parallels, observing that the novel critiqued how “unchecked masculinity” was a destructive force that threatened the world, and how Shelley never explained the origin of the plague that killed off the men–just as Vaughan himself intentionally wrote multiple possible sources for the gendercide in the comic. The Last Man also explores the formation of England’s republic, while Yorick’s own mother is a Congress member who discusses aspects of the United States government.

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Y: The Last Man takes readers through a profoundly emotional journey. As it looks to have a new surge in popularity in the near-future, fans should consider the literary works which inspired it, not least of all Shelley’s novel.

Link Source : https://www.cbr.com/y-the-last-man-mary-shelley-influence/

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