Y The Last Man Book 4: Safeword
Y The Last Man Book 4: Safeword, by Brian K Vaughn, Pia Guerra, Goran Parlov & Jose Marzan Jr; Vertigo/DC Comics
THIS BOOK collects #18 – 23 of the comic book series, with regular artist Guerra taking on the first half with the Safeword storyline and Parlov drawing Widow’s Pass. Artistically it’s as competent as ever, throughout. Storywise Vaughn’s diverging.
It seems that in Book 3 Ampersand, Yorkick’s monkey, got injured and the doc and Agent 355 go off to get him fixed while they leave him alonge with an agent 711.
From there on for the Safeword part of the book he gets drugged then wakes up to find himself half-naked and tied up with agent 711 hovering over him with a whip in hand and scantily clad herself... So far, so good, and if it’s just a case of seeing if Yorrick will succumb to sexual temptation and betray his heart’s desire we’re fine even if it's a little too earnest. However it gets into a whole Machurian Candidate affair where agent 711 tries to see de-programme any Freudian psychological hang-ups the lad might have.
Part of it reminds me of some old Gerbers’ Defenders comics from the 70s, part of it Grant Morrison’s more recent The Invisibles series, some awareness that they remade The Manchurian Candidate this millennium, that spicing things up with potential sexual encounters is easy marketing to get some press coverage on a series, and that this far into a series a writer probably wants to play and experiment in his storytelling.
Okay the last part is fair enough. The end result doesn’t prove much (at least not in this book collection). And it takes too long to get over what little message it does intend to portray. And, such experimentation, as noted in the last paragraph, has been done before, recently and in the dim past, and better.
Fortunately the Widow’s Pass story brings matters back in line, where we find a bunch of southern ladies are togged in paramilitary gear, playing the isolationist game and the problem that food and medical supplies not reaching the rest of America. The downside being it’s all a prequel to Book 5, and makes it obvious that this is a part work rather than a full collection that can be read in and of itself.
