The penultimate volume in the Y: The Last Man series is great fun, with significant revelations hiding behind the turn of each page. The back story of Allison Mann is prominently featured this time around, and it proves to be much more interesting than what we have learned about Yorick Brown and Agent 355 in earlier volumes. Various characters from earlier in the series make return appearances, and the evolving almost-all-female globe begins take on more interesting and convincing shapes. Overall, volume 9 is a great beginning to the inevitable wind-down coming in the tenth and final volume in a uniquely entertaining series. ( )

All the loose ends in the Y: The Last Man series finally start to get tied up. There are still a few more twists and turns left, but it's nice to have some of the storylines finally resolved. ( )

http://benjohnskinner.blogspot.com/20... ( )

I was amused to read on the cover of Y9 (Motherland) that Time.com had compared the series to "Lost" as a "smart, consistently entertaining work of popular art". For my money, I'll have Y over Lost any day (which is why I get my Lost fix from BitTorrent, while I regularly fork out a tenner for a volume of Y).

There is something significant about the fact that I took three sessions to get through Gloom Cookie 5, and only a single one-hour reading to get through the much more engaging and thought-provoking material in Y9. Motherland continues the well-established pattern of revealing the plot slowly and tantalisingly, with our characters finding a few new key bits of information (and, I strongly suspect, a few new red herrings, too). The characters are portrayed, as always, compassionately and convincingly. This is one of the strengths of the series: while with the concept it works on it would be really easy to make this an "idea story" as opposed to a "people story", the series is actually strongly character-driven, and that consistently works to its advantage. I particularly enjoyed the two stand-alone pieces at the end of Motherland, as thought-provoking snapshots of ordinary life in Y's post-apocalyptic setting.

Finally, quite why Y has never even been shortlisted for a Tiptree Award is beyond me. ( )

One aspect of this series is its constant self referral. Brian Vaughn shows a remarkable memory for what has gone before in this story, even minor characters from long ago.
The main story continues on its path, with some mysteries revealed and others yet unsolved. ( )