Characters / Y: The Last Man

Characters from Y: The Last Man

For the characters the TV Adaptation go here

Main Characters

Yorick Brown

• Action Survivor: The series-long theme. His specialities are English, prestidigitation and failing to train helper monkeys: his world is in the midst of an apocalypse.
• Am I Just a Toy to You?: To Beth II.
• Animal Motifs: Monkeys
• Celibate Hero: Initially. And what he would like to be, in spite of his one-night stand with Beth II.
• Cool Old Guy: Has traces of this in the final issue when speaking with his young clone and not busy with being an Empty Shell.
• Death Seeker: He grows out of it, though, thanks to an intervention.

• Empty Shell: Still being alive over sixty years after the gendercide along with the deaths of 355, Dr. Mann and Ampersand has left Yorick a bitter shell of his former self.
• Escape Artist: Pretty much his schtick when he isn't trying to get himself killed.
• Feigning Intelligence: At least from Hero's point of view.
• Gas Mask, Longcoat: How the last man on Earth gets by on a world full of women that either wanted to kill him or screw him. The mask becomes something of a Chekhov's Gun in the final volume.
• Grammar Nazi: "You split more infinitives than Gene Roddenberry."
• Growing Up Sucks: His Character Arc in a nutshell.
• The Immune: The event that wiped out every other man missed him.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Yorick can be a real dick, but generally means well and cares for others.
• Last of His Kind: At least, so it would seem.
• Manchild: Make no mistake, Yorick is a trooper who travels the world, faces all kinds of danger and is clearly more mature by the end of the series. However, for most of the series, the more you get to know Yorick the more you begin to realize, well.....he's kind of a dweeb.

• Meaningful Name: This was intentional. His parents were English majors and fans of 'the Bard'.
• Misery Builds Character: He urges one of his clones to get his heart broken as soon and completely as he can.
• Nightmare Dreams: Boy, does he have them.

• Paper-Thin Disguise: He doesn't try particularly hard to make himself look more feminine. At one point, he even lets himself grow a goatee.

• Rape as Backstory: Was sexually assaulted by another boy when he was young, he received therapy and for the most part seems to have recovered from the trauma.

• Stepford Smiler: It takes a brutal intervention for him to admit that he's suicidal.
• Suicide by Cop: Because he can't do it himself, he gets himself into situations where somebody could do it for him. Though it doesn't last.
• Survivor Guilt: As he is the last man on Earth, he feels guilty for some reason.
• The One Guy: The last guy.
• Teeny Weenie: The reaction shots of the few women who end up in this situation are Cringe Comedy. We eventually see for ourselves and it is indeed quite unimpressive.

• Unwanted Harem: Savagely deconstructed.

Agent 355

• All of the Other Reindeer: Nobody ever has fond memories of living in an orphanage.

• Broken Bird: As a teenager.
• Code Name: 355 isn't her actual name. We never get to learn it, though she whispers it in Yorick's ear.

• It Gets Easier: "Too easy."
• Inseries Nickname: "355" is the designation for the Culper Ring's top female agent.
• Meaningful Rename: To signify her induction into the Culper Ring.
• No Name Given: Averted by Word of God, the hint was in the panel where Yorick carves her name on a tree. It was "Peace".
• Orphan's Ordeal: Her parents and sisters were killed in a car accident.
• Overt Operative: Having a number for a name doesn't help you blend in anywhere. Especially when you introduce yourself to everyone as such.
• Popcultural Osmosis Failure: She doesn't watch TV and hardly ever gets Yorick's constant pop culture references.

• Telescoping Staff: Her weapon of choice is an extendable baton.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: Knits as a stress reducing activity.
• Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Possibly, the moment the plague struck, Agent 355 removed the sacred Amulet of Helene from the nation of Jordan. The amulet carried a warning that if it was ever taken from its homeland, it would create a tragedy greater than the Trojan War. It is also suggested that the wedding ring Yorick bought for Beth may have protected him from the effect of this curse.
• You Are Number 6: She's called 355.

Dr. Allison Mann

• All Asians Know Martial Arts: Discussed and averted.
  • Later played with when she wields a Jian as an improvised rapier. She demonstrates decent skill but is outclassed by a professional
• Asian and Nerdy: She's Asian and a doctor.
• Broken Bird: Her college girlfriend left her rather jaded about love, to the point she denies it exists.

• Gay Romantic Phase: Dated another woman in college, until it turned out that the other woman was not gay and was basically going through this. Said other woman thought that lesbians weren't real and the only reason women would date other women was to piss of their parents. Allison obviously disagreed.
• Love Hurts: Saying she had a pretty crappy love life may be an understatement but her opinion on love changes when she eventually meets Rose.
  Rose: I like you. I think I...
  (Allison gives her a "Shut Up" Kiss and hugs her, smiling warmly and clearly happier than she had ever been)
  Mann: Just quit while you're ahead, okay?
  • Then it starts to hurt all over again when it's revealed that Rose was spying on them for the Royal Australian Navy. She forgives her, though.
• Meaningful Rename: Her original name is Ayuko Matsumori, but gave herself a new name based on, of all things, Mann's Chinese Theatre. She did it to piss off her dad: in her own words, "I wanted something kitschy and faux-Asian to insult my father."
• The Medic: She's a geneticist, but she's the closest they have to a medical doctor so she takes this role.
• Shock Value Relationship: Her father interpreted her newfound sexuality as "lesbian until graduation".
  • Also her college girlfriend.
  Mercedes: Look, I am sorry, but we graduate in three weeks. It's time we at least start pretending that we are adults. I hate my old man just as much as you hate yours. But there are less juvenile ways to get revenge. Date a black guy or something.
  Mann: This isn't a game for me! I liked girls since I was four!
• Straight Gay: So straight gay that Yorick didn't figure it out until after a year of traveling together, and only then after she gave him a hint that she was into girls.
• Truly Single Parent: Gave birth to her own clone at the moment of the gendercide, and believed it was the cause of it.
• When She Smiles: She only ever smiles, like, twice in the entire series but when she does...wow.
• Your Days Are Numbered: An unforeseen side-effect of trying to clone herself was the development of several tumors in her womb. The womb was removed however, saving her life. She eventually dies anyway. It is suggested in the final story arc set several years from the previous one that she was sick.

Secondary Characters

Beth Deville

• Betty and Veronica: The Betty to 355's Veronica

• Pair the Spares: Ultimately ends up with Yorick's sister Hero because, sure why not?

Hero Brown

• The Atoner: After being deprogrammed, Hero feels intense guilt and regret for what she did as an Amazon.
• Action Girl: In contrast to her brother.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: How she joined up with the Amazons in the first place.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: Joined the Daughters of the Amazons for a time.
• Broken Bird: Which made her more easily controlled by Victoria. She was molested as a child, engaged in sex while still underaged and jumps from one affair to another as an adult, finally ending up with a man she likes only to see him die in front of her during the Gendercide.
• Broken Pedestal: Yorick is horrified of her after she murders Sonia.
• Cool Big Sis: From Yorick's perspective; she believed she was The Unfavorite.
• Dark Action Girl: During her time with the Amazons.
• I Just Want to Be Loved: Her Character Arc is her learning to love herself.
• Ironic Name: Hero the Murderous Misandrist Cultist.
• Living Emotional Crutch: Her pre-gendercide boyfriend was this. His death sent her straight to the Daughters.
• Love Makes You Uncreative: She gave up writing to be a paramedic with her current boyfriend.
• Pair the Spares: It's nice that Hero found redemption and happiness, but ending up with Yorick's Beth really came out of nowhere.
• Rape as Backstory: She was molested by her grandfather.
• Tomboyish Name: Hero instead of heroine.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Or in this case: Hero

Rose Copen

• Action Girl: Shares the role of Yorick's protector with 355 after joining him and the rest of the group. As it turns out, however, Rose was also spying of them on behalf of the Royal Australian Navy.
• Butch Lesbian: Hooks up with Dr. Mann shortly after meeting her. Eventually becomes her widow.
• Crusading Widow: It's never outright stated that she and Allison get married in the future but they were still very much together, and after Allison passes away Rose takes up her torch, as it were, and works with "Dr. Men" in finding a cure to the gendercide.
• Easily Forgiven: By Yorick anyway, after she accidentally reveals to Allison that she was spying on them. 355 comes around soon after, however, but Allison understandably took it the hardest. She does eventually forgive her, though.
• Eyepatch of Power: She lost her eye in a firefight sometime before she is introduced.
• Fire-Forged Friends: Literally.
• Heel–Face Turn: After falling in love with Allison.
• The Mole: She was a spy for the Royal Australian Navy while working on a pirate ship. Then, when she joins up with Yorick and the gang, she is still spying for the Navy. It doesn't last long after she falls in love with Allison, however.
• Survivor Guilt: Not her, but her real crewmates expected her to die and can't even look her in the eye after she returns to them.

Natalya Zamyatin

• Cassandra Truth: The Amazons dismiss her as yet another lunatic when she explains there are men in space. Turns out it was a case of But What About the Astronauts?
• Eloquent in My Native Tongue: Her English skills can most charitably be described as "trying". She herself knows it; when she finds someone who speaks Russian, she admits she sounds like an absolute idiot in English (using a less politically-correct word).

• Named Weapon: Her rifle "Rodya", named after her husband.
• Shout-Out: Her surname, "Zamyatin", is one to Yevgeny Zamyatin, author of We, the novel which directly inspired both Huxley to write Brave New World (although he denied it), and for Orwell to write 1984 (in a review of WE, Orwell called Huxley out for it)

Antagonists

Victoria

A self-proclaimed chess master and cult leader, she started the Daughters of the Amazon. While she claims to be helping women who were victimized by men, in reality she's just taking advantage of emotionally devastated women to exploit them. She dies early on, but the damage she has done, especially to Hero, lingers long afterwards.

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• Big Bad: Subverted. She's built up as a recurring villain, and with her minor army of Amazons, she looks to be a real threat. Then an ex meth-addict puts an ax into her head.
• The Corrupter: She sure does a number on Hero during the first year post-gendercide.
• Does Not Like Men: Let's start with the fact that she blames men for not being able to compete in a public chess tournament...
• Dropped a Bridge on Her: Is killed soon after she's introduced in a painful, but well-deserved, manner.

• Informed Attribute: Insists that she's a genius chess prodigy who beat the legendary Bobby Fischer in a handful of moves. We never see her play chess at any point in the comic, and it's implied that she made the whole thing up to better manipulate her brainwashed minions.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Towards men in general, but is only able to make it a "you" instead of "they" when Yorick's around.
• Starter Villain: She's the first threat that Yorick must contend with. She get's 86'd five issues after her introduction.

• Straw Hypocrite: Depending on whether you believe her stories about her being able to defeat world-renowned chess champions at 13 but having been banned from public competition because she was a woman or not, she may be this. But she definitely plays it straight by applauding the death of the male gender for the way they oppressed women and twisted feminine virtues against them when she does exactly the same thing. It gets worse when you consider how she runs the Daughters like a cult and the horrific emotional manipulation she employs on many of the women who were victims of abuse or rape, making her no different than the men that hurt them.

Alter Tse'elon (Yedida)

• As Long as It Sounds Foreign: The depiction of this Jewish tradition/superstition is correct, except that "Alter" is the male form of "the old one", the female form would be "Alte".
  • This is shown to be a subversion later, when, in a flashback, her commanding officer comments on her family's choice to name her old man. She insists it's what her father felt she looked like upon birth.
• Badass Israeli: The insane variation.
• Big Bad: Arguably the biggest bad, at least as far as the comic series goes.

• Death Seeker: For all of the tragedy and heartbreak she has endured throughout her life, Alter seeks to die at the hands of the last man on earth.
  Alter: This isn't suicide. This is war. After everything I've been through? Everything I've sacrificed? I deserve to die in battle!
• Female Misogynist: She wants to die a soldier's death, but believes it would be dishonorable to do so at the hands of a woman.

• Hero Killer: Almost literally. Whenever she appears expect a sympathetic character to die.
• Honorable Warrior's Death: Seeking this turns out to be her main motivation; she wants to die in combat and at the hands of a man.
• It Runs in the Family: Being a soldier runs in the blood for her family. Her grandmother operated behind enemy lines in the Israeli War of Independence, and her grand-mother was a member of a all-female Battalion of Death during the Russian Revolution.
  • Averted with her older sister who was a pacifist and died in an accident while protesting the war. Alter lies she was killed by Palestinians.
• No Name Given: Her parents kept her name secret, so that Death could not find her. Her true name is Yedida ("friend" in Hebrew).
• Suicide by Cop: She tries, but it turns out she underestimated Yorick.
• Villainous Breakdown: When Yorick refuses to kill her.
  Alter: It has to be you godammit! Fucking fight me! Why won't you act like what you are? [...] My name is not Alter, it's Yedida, sister of Rachel. And I am finished...finished running from the Angel of Death!

Toyota

• Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: A killer and a Jerkass.

Dr. Matsumori

• Big Bad: Subverted. Again. Doctor M is indeed the closest thing the series has to a true Big Bad but is defeated before the story's actual climax.

• Morally Ambiguous Doctorate: He's a doctor and a bad guy.

The Setauket Ring

• Evil Counterpart: To the Culper Ring.
• Hiding in a Hijab: Their 'uniform,' as it were. Not that any of them are Muslim.

The Sons of Arizona

• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: They believe that the federal government was the one that caused the Gendercide, so they have decided to rebel violently.

Minor Characters

Beth II

• One-Steve Limit: Averted, as she shares a name with Yorick's girlfriend. And then she names her daughter Beth Jr.
• Replacement Goldfish: Deconstructed with her relationship with Yorick.

The Hartle Twins

• Informed Judaism: On two occasions they mention that they are Jewish. In both cases it was to avoid being mistreated by the Israeli troops of Alter Tse'elon. It does not work.

Agent 711

• Earn Your Happy Ending: Her final words to Yorick: "Happy endings have to be earned."
• Heartbroken Badass: Is an agent with the Culper Ring and misses her late husband.
• Hypocrite: Not that she was looking but after curing Yorick of his suicidal tendencies the last thing she did before dying was to thank the Setauket Ring for killing her, implying that she wanted somebody to kill her.
• Suicide by Cop: Implied.
• Torture Technician: How she manages to stop Yorick from trying to get himself killed, to the point of mind raping him by forcing him to dredge up some extremely harsh memories.
  • She even threatens to rape him at one point, was close to doing it and then afterward admits to him that she would have done it, too.

"Dr. Men"

• Asian and Nerdy: All of them, even the really punky one.
• Not as You Know Them: They are all as smart as their progenitor was but the original Yorick later comments that without Allison's "asshole dad" pushing them, they will never have her mind.

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