The Hub

…I give you the working precis of my thesis. 20 pages about a comic. My parents’ money is being put to good use.

Despite being almost completely male-free, the post-apocalyptic future of Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra’s comic book series Y: The Last Man brings to light many of the problems with masculinity in the early 21st century; but, more importantly, it provides a possible solution. Before nearly all the men on Earth were killed by a mysterious plague, main protagonist Yorick Brown was one of the many men in America that were still slaves to their desire to escape from women (Kimmel 287); that this predilection has continued to be common among males for centuries is due to the homosocial nature of masculinity that Michael Kimmel discusses in his book Manhood in America (5-6). When Yorick finds himself in a world almost entirely populated by women, this desire to escape is exhibited in his tendency to put himself in danger, as the only true escape from women in a world like this is through death; however, over time he is able to learn positive masculine traits from the example of his female bodyguard, Agent 355, and abandons this self-destructive drive. The man of the new millennium must learn what Yorick does: Female masculinity does exist, despite the difficulty contemporary culture has with separating masculinity from maleness (Halberstam 2). If he can accomplish this, then he will no longer have to continue basing his masculinity solely on the expectations of other men, and may finally be free from repeating the same mistakes of his forefathers.