If memory serves, the most recent volume of Y: The Last Man ended on a bit of a cliffhanger, in which… well, okay, I guess I can assume you may not have read Kimono Dragons and therefore not spoil you. But you really, really should. (I mean, and the others ones first, right?) This is noteworthy because of how Motherland starts out offset by about an hour earlier in time, or possibly with a little bit of a ret-con. I spent the first dozen pages wondering if I had misremembered things entirely, but they eventually got back on track.

And then… answers. Answers about the ninja.[1] Answers about humanity’s future. Possibly answers about the ultimate cause behind the now four year old mass male die-off , though I’m not sure whether I trust them, nor whether I like them if they’re true. But don’t worry, because all those answers are revealed with the series’ standard mix of action, drama, and panache. This is by no means an infodump devoid of any plot or character development. Plus, there are a couple more framing stories about how characters in the series’ past are getting along now.[2]

You really can tell that the series is drawing to a close, because at least one storyline has ended here. (Two, if the answers behind the extinction were factual.) The only thing left now is for Yorick to resolve his long-running emotional turmoil for a girl who, notably, he has never been on the same continent with since the series began. Well, okay, and there are a few other odds and ends as well, but the thing with Beth is the heart of the primary dangling plot, and anyway, the other stuff probably all falls under the spoilers heading again. In any event, I’ll be reading it quite soon, so that’s good news.

[1] Have I mentioned how much I love that there’s a ninja?
[2] Well, they were both at the end, but since their release order would put the very final issue at the beginning of the book, I’m calling them framing stories regardless. I’m torn, because putting that story first would have worked a lot better literarily: both because of the framing thing and because the last couple pages of the previous issue / closing frame would work so well as the end of the book, if they’d been there. But on the other hand, there’s a spoiler in the “opening” framing story (due to it being out of the chronological sequence they ultimately decided upon instead) that would have removed some tension from the primary arc of the book.