Oh my dear lords on Mount Olympus, what a waste of time. This title's been around for some time and it's recieved some attention. When I heard the premise, I was not anticipating sterling work. When a few people assured me it was fascinating, and even witty, I repressed my instincts and gave it a look.
The premise, by the way, is that all animals with a Y chromasome die, except one man and his monkey. Not to get inflamatory, but this one man is, of course, American, and white. Anyway... I read the first few issues and I'm not impressed. The concept of the comic is something out of lame on-line porn. The last man on Earth surrounded by women forced, forced!, to find affection in each other's arms, but who desperately long for the strong touch of a man. The comic isn't quite that bad, but it's similarly half-baked and pointless.
The first plot element is political. The American government, because it's mostly comprised of men, all but collapses. The wives of dead Republican senators claim a hereditary right to their dead husbands' seats, and the Army is severely understaffed for pretty much the same reason. But Israel is doing just fine because all women between the age of 18 and 24 have to serve in the military. Uh huh. Whatever. By issue four we have the oh so very predictable man-hating lesbian biker chicks who've decided that all the men dying wasn't such a bad thing. They even burn off their left breasts to emulate the ancient Amazons.
I'm not sure what Brian Vaughan was going for when he came up with the concept of the title, but I can only hope that it wasn't what he actually came up with, because what he came up with is boring, pointless, and utterly generic.
Posted by orion at July 16, 2004 11:11 PM