Why FX Canceled Y: The Last Man After One Season

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Comic writer Brian K. Vaughan has said he doesn't want his and artist Fiona Staples' acclaimed space opera series "Saga" to become a TV show or movie. Maybe that's for the best, seeing as adaptations of his comics have, thus far, had bad luck and gotten canceled prematurely.

Case in point: The Marvel TV series "Runaways" ended after three seasons, was pulled from Hulu in 2023, and shows few signs of being revived in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. "Paper Girls," based on Vaughan and Cliff Chiang's series about four '80s girls traveling through time, similarly lasted only one season at Prime Video in 2022. And even the year prior to that, the long-developing TV series adaptation of Vaughan and Pia Guerra's "Y: The Last Man" flamed out after only 10 episodes and a couple of months on air.

There are a few American comics that always get listed as deserving serious literary consideration. "Watchmen." "Maus." "The Dark Knight Returns." "Y: The Last Man" is in that pantheon, so why wasn't adapting it a slam dunk?

"Y: The Last Man" premiered on September 13, 2021, on FX on Hulu, then ended its run on November 1 that same year. Between the premiere and finale, the series was canceled, as showrunner Eliza Clark announced on October 17. Clark and co. then attempted to get the show picked up at another network or streamer, but they were unsuccessful, and Clark confirmed "Y" was dead for good in early 2022. Meanwhile, FX Networks Chairman John Landgraf informed Deadline in 2022 that although he enjoyed "Y: The Last Man," the crux of deciding whether to renew or cancel a show is viewer retention. "I will tell you, its audience decline was really, really, really steep, and ultimately, that is what made us go in that direction," he explained with regard to the series' cancellation.

However, The Hollywood Reporter claimed in 2021 that "Y" had not been canceled due to a ratings drop-off. Rather, it was because of a budget increase caused by the COVID-19 pandemic delaying production until October 2020. This meant FX had to pay to keep actors locked in for longer than expected; retaining their options extended for a second season would've cost $3 million. The pandemic might have doomed "Y" in a more indirect way as well. It's hard to know for sure, but it's easy to assume that maybe people weren't in the mood to watch a show about a deadly sickness killing half the world during a real pandemic.

Regardless of what really led to the "Y: The Last Man" TV show ending prematurely, the comic told its full story across 60 issues between 2002 to 2008, published by DC's Vertigo publishing imprint. It's Vaughan's most important comic, because it's the one that first showed the world what he could do with a story all his own.

The subtitle of "The Last Man" is no exaggeration. One day, every mammal on the planet with a Y-chromosome dies except two: escape artist Yorick Brown (played by Ben Schnetzer in the TV show) and his pet capuchin monkey, Ampersand. Yorick's father was an English professor, hence his name (as in "Alas, poor Yorick" from "Hamlet") and his sister's, "Hero" (played by Olivia Thirlby). Yorick studied English too, which led to him naming his monkey after a grammar symbol.

It's a woman's world now, but old and new conflicts still ensue. The loss of half the population also means critical infrastructure, such as electricity, communications, and travel, fall. It's not completely post-apocalyptic but it's close, especially since the human race could die out within a generation.

Yorick is the key to ensuring that doesn't happen. With Secret Service Agent 355 (Ashley Romans in the show), he first heads to Boston to find geneticist Dr. Allison Mann (Diana Bang), who is running experiments in human cloning — the very thing that may have triggered Mother Nature to decide those with Y-chromosomes weren't necessary for humankind's future.

When Mann's research samples are destroyed, the trio set out across the country to her backup site in California and, eventually, across the whole world. Yorick's goal on this odyssey is finding his girlfriend Beth, who was visiting Australia when the "gendercide" happened, just like Odysseus braving monsters to make it back to his wife Penelope.

"Y" is a story about finding a reason to live; the very first page of the comic features a woman holding a gun to her head when she realizes the world she knew is over. Yorick was passively suicidal even before the world changed. The irony is that, yes, the one man spared from death wasn't even sure if he wanted to keep living. Can this escape artist free himself of those self-destructive feelings?  

During its original run, "Y" attracted heaps of praise (it received a "Best Continuing Series" award at the comic industry's 2008 Eisner Awards) and not just from typical comics media, either. The series continues to be reprinted in new collected editions, most recently as part of DC's "compact" comic line. With how popular the "Y" comic was, it's no surprise that Hollywood took an interest. Then the adaptation spent over a decade cast down in development hell, long past the height of the "Y" boom.

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New Line Cinema initially attempted to adapt "Y: The Last Man" as a movie; in 2007, the studio hired filmmaker D.J. Caruso as director and Carl Ellsworth as writer. Caruso, who directed Shia LaBeouf in "Disturbia" (written by Ellsworth) and "Eagle Eye," had wanted to cast LaBeouf as Yorick. However, LaBeouf said in 2009 he wasn't interested.

Caruso saw "Y" as a trilogy, whereas New Line reportedly preferred a single movie. These creative differences eventually led to Caruso leaving the project. Dan Trachtenberg was later lined up to direct the film, but he confirmed in 2014 that the "Y" movie was dead and that the rights had reverted back to Vaughan and Guerra.

In 2015, FX announced it was adapting "Y" as a TV series with Vaughan involved; Michael Green was confirmed as showrunner in 2016. Really, there should've been a "Y" TV series airing on NBC, ABC, or HBO by 2008 at the absolute latest. "Y" is not far from classic "Wandering the Earth" shows like "The Fugitive," "The A-Team," etc. The comic is filled with two to five issue-long story arcs involving Yorick, 355, and Dr. Mann coming across new communities as they continue on their quest.

The "Y" TV show's cast was confirmed in 2018, with Barry Keoghan as Yorick, Lashana Lynch as 355, Imogen Poots as Hero, and Diane Lane as Yorick and Hero's mother, Congresswoman Jennifer Brown. Only one of them (Lane) ultimately made it onto the show that aired. Green and his co-showrunner Aïda Mashaka Croal left in April 2019, claiming "FX has decided not to move forward with our series in its current form." Clark was hired to replace them weeks later, followed by the February 2020 announcement that Keoghan was leaving the "Y" series. Then after Schnetzer was cast, the COVID-19 production delays happened.

With all these hurdles culminating in a swift cancellation, the fault was in Yorick's stars (to invoke the Bard like "Y" itself does). One of those faults is that "Y" is a story of the early 2000s. There's casual homophobia, characters often use ableist terms as flippant insults, and there are no major trans characters. Clark made an intentional effort to address that last part, acknowledging that Yorick isn't really "the last man," in the TV series. But even needing to make that change shows that maybe "Y" didn't need an adaptation anymore, because the world has moved past its story.

"Y: The Last Man" #54 features dramatists Cayce and Henrietta trying to revive the film industry. After they can't keep their production together, they realize that comics can tell their stories just as well as movies can. The "Y" comic itself, and the failure to bring it to the screen, is proof of that too.