Y: The Last Man TV series casts its last man

This April, after years in development as both a movie franchise and a television series, Bryan K. Vaughn’s acclaimed comic book Y: The Last Man finally earned the greenlight for an episodic adaptation from FX, the network that brought us Legion, Fargo and American Horror Story. Now the show finally has a face for its apocalyptic title.

Barry Keoghan, best known for his work in Dunkirk and The Killing of a Sacred Deer, will star in the series as “Yorick Brown,” the lone survivor of an half-extinction-level event that wipes out most of mankind. Emphasis on man.

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Along his 60-issue journey, Yorick meets a number of women who open his eyes to what the world really is and what the world really will be as this version of the future continues to unfold. Headlining the series will be Academy Award-nominated actress Diane Lane (Unfaithful, Man of Steel), who will join Keoghan as Senator Jennifer Brown, Yorick’s mother and a major political force before and after the plague.

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Along with Lane, Y: The Last Man will costar Imogen Poots (Green Room) as Yorick’s sister Hero, an EMT who in the comic falls in with a violent group of “Amazons” after the plague; Lashana Lynch (upcoming Captain Marvel) as Agent 355, a Secret Service agent eventually tasked with protecting Yorick; Juliana Canfield (HBO’s Succession) as Beth, Yorick’s girlfriend who, in the comics, finds herself stranded in the Outback after the outbreak; and Marin Ireland (Hell or High Water) as Nora, the President’s senior assistant and right hand described in FX’s announcement as someone who “effortlessly balances family life with a job navigating the corridors of power.”

Michael Green (American Gods, Blade Runner 2049, Logan) and Aïda Mashaka Croal (Luke Cage, Turn) serve as showrunners on Y: The Last Man. Vaughan, along with Nina Jacobson and Brad Simpson (American Crime Story, Pose, The Hunger Games) are Executive Producers. Melina Matsoukas, who has directed episodes of Insecure and Master of None, along with Beyonce’s Formation video, will helm the pilot episode.

Little is known about how Green and Croal intend to adapt the sprawling story, though FX’s synopsis sounds faithful to the book: “Y traverses the gpost-apocalyptic world in which a cataclysmic event has decimated every male mammal save for one lone human. The new world order of women will explore gender, race, class and survival.