📺 Y: The Last Man (2021)
Based on comic
The 2021 FX on Hulu series Y: The Last Man brings Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra's landmark Vertigo comic series to the screen, over a decade after the source material concluded its sixty-issue run. Developed by Eliza Clark, the show adapts the comic's core premise: a mysterious global event instantly kills every mammal with a Y chromosome, leaving exactly two male survivors — amateur escape artist Yorick Brown and his pet monkey, Ampersand. The series stars Ben Schnetzer as Yorick, with Diane Lane as his mother, Congresswoman Jennifer Brown, who ascends to the presidency in the ensuing chaos.
The road to adaptation was itself a saga. Development began at FX in 2015, with original showrunners Michael Green and Aida Mashaka Croal attached. A pilot was filmed in 2018, but the project underwent significant retooling, with Clark taking over as showrunner in 2019. The lead role was recast — Barry Keoghan had originally been cast as Yorick before Schnetzer stepped in — and the series finally premiered on Hulu via FX on Hulu in September 2021. The show updated the comic's political landscape, with Jennifer Brown's party affiliation and the broader societal dynamics reflecting more contemporary concerns.
While the series received generally positive reviews for its performances and ambition, it faced the challenge of translating a sprawling, decade-spanning comic into a tightly paced television drama. The show expanded the roles of several characters, giving more screen time to the political machinations in Washington and the various factions vying for power in the post-apocalyptic landscape. Despite a dedicated fanbase, the series was cancelled after a single season, leaving the story incomplete and frustrating viewers who had waited years to see Yorick's journey brought to life.
Y: The Last Man is a critically acclaimed post-apocalyptic science fiction comic book series written by Brian K. Vaughan and illustrated primarily by Pia Guerra. Published by DC Comics under its Vertigo imprint, the series ran for sixty issues from 2002 to 2008. The story is set in a world where a mysterious plague has instantly killed every mammal with a Y chromosome, except for an amateur escape artist named Yorick Brown and his male Capuchin monkey, Ampersand.
The narrative follows Yorick as he travels across a devastated world, protected by a secret agent known only as Agent 355, and pursued by various factions with different agendas. These include the radical feminist group Daughters of the Amazon and Yorick's own sister, Hero. Meanwhile, Yorick's mother becomes the President of the United States, struggling to hold the country together. The series explores themes of gender, survival, and societal reconstruction.
Y: The Last Man was widely praised for its intelligent writing, complex characters, and thought-provoking exploration of a world without men. It won three Eisner Awards, including Best Writer for Vaughan and Best Penciller/Inker for Guerra. The series has been collected in multiple formats, including ten trade paperback volumes and five deluxe hardcover editions, and is considered one of the defining comic book series of the 2000s.