Whys and Wherefores by Brian K. Vaughan

First Published: Y: The Last Man magazines 55-60, 2007
Edition Read: DC Comics, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4012-1813-3
Series: Y: The Last Man 10

The final Y is also the best. Not only that, it’s the best in the best way: in a way that wraps up the series but isn’t too neat; that brings together the thematic threads but isn’t too obvious; that doesn’t leave you wanting more because more would only ruin the grace of the ending.
I really don’t want to ruin the ending for anyone, so I’m not going to go into any spoilers. Instead, I’m going to talk a little bit about what makes this a good end to a series and the place I have to start is where I last left off – furious. That’s what I was at the end of the penultimate volume because it looked like the series was ending not with a bang but with a really stupid whimper. The first thing that made this a perfect ending was that it restored your faith in Vaughan. It said, “Hang on a bit. You didn’t give me enough credit. You think everything one of my characters says is true? That’s ridiculous. One of the series’ themes was doubt: self-doubt, doubt of society, doubt of humanity. Did you really believe that the ending wouldn’t involve doubt as well?”

Which brings us to the second reason that this was a great series closer: thematic wrap up. For graphic novels, plots are often not that important. Frequently, they’re ridiculous. Themes, on the other hand, are everything. Every major theme in this series finds a grace note in this final volume. Doubt I’ve already mentioned. Suicide, one of the biggest themes of the series, finds different expression in three characters. Escape, similarly, is explored in multiple characters. But the biggest theme of the final volume, the one that unites all the others, is scales falling from your eyes – that moment when you realise that what you projected onto the world was not of the world and was something you did for yourself and, most importantly, isn’t anyone else’s fault. That theme is finished perfectly in one climactic revelation. A revelation that you probably tried not to see coming, which is part of what made you like Yorrick.

Ultimately, the ending is graceful and that’s why I liked it. The plot doesn’t work perfectly – there are still things that don’t really make sense. The future world that we jump to in the final pages is not entirely believable (and not just because France seems to be the centre of considerable global power). But you are left with a sense of closure without knowing the ending, and that’s probably the best thing that can be said about a thought-provoking series closer.

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