How comic book ‘Y’ became opportunity to highlight diversity

Brian K. Vaughan’s 2002 comic book “Y: The Last Man” presents a strident binary: man or woman, X chromosome or Y chromosome, survival or death.

Showrunner Eliza Clark knew that adapting the comic into a series would require a lot more gray.

“A big part of my pitch and my vision for the show was that I really wanted to update the gender diversity that the world actually reflects,” Clark told the Daily News.

“Y: The Last Man,” premiering Monday, on FX, sets its story in the aftermath of a biological event that killed everyone with a Y chromosome. The survivors are left to pick up the pieces, to restart the government, the power grids and society itself. Only two mammals with Y chromosomes survived: Yorick Brown (Ben Schnetzer), son of newly installed President Jennifer Brown (Diane Lane), and his monkey.

For some, though, the catastrophe posed a larger, more personal problem: questions about why they survived.

Sam, played by trans actor Elliot Fletcher (photo l.), survived. His fight, aided by his best friend Hero (Olivia Thirlby, r.), Yorick’s sister, spirals from there. He has to figure out how to get testosterone, how to blend, how to come out all over again.

“Sam finds himself the only man in the room a lot this season and part of what the show is saying is that the survival of the men in this world depends on who they’re with and the places they’re in and the communities they surround themselves with,” Clark told The News.

She and the writers spent time with GLAAD to make sure it was all accurate, not just lazy brushes of “there are more than two genders.” It mattered that it was natural.

“I think we spend a lot of time making sure that the audience understands that Yorick is not the last man and that he’s also not special because of his maleness,” Clark said.

“But he is the last cis man, the last man with a Y chromosome, which means his survival is interesting because part of what Allison Mann, the scientist character tasked with bringing the world back, is doing ... her interest is not in bringing back men, but in bringing back gender diversity.”