Y: The Last Man, Vol. 4 Safeword

There are two principle story arcs in this volume. The first, Safeword, deals with the issue of Yorick's survivor's guilt over being the only survivor of the plague. He does this only after Agent 355 drops him off with another Culper Ring agent, who breaks him down psychologically in order to have him face his issues. It's not the type of psychology that would work in the real world, but desperate times and all that.
The second story deals with an encounter with a militia group, and really highlights a theme that Vaughn has been working with throughout the series: that a lot of the differences between males and females are the result of cultural and social factors, rather than inherent sexual differences. Of course, he tends to do this by showing that women are capable of being just as pig-headed, violent, and selfish as men are, but there are moments in here where he does so by placing them in more noble circumstances as well.

Story
I liked the first half of this volume more than the second half. Once again I was surprised at the direction it took. I continue to be surprised at the way story has unfolded. At this point I'm really interested to see where it goes next, but first I'll need to see if I can get a copy of the next 2 volumes as my library doesn't have them.

Artwork
The artwork continues to be fine, but not mind-blowing. So far I feel like this could easily be a novel instead of a comic.

As with other volumes, I could sum this up by saying it was a LOT. But whether it's exposure to the previous books in the series, or a recent read of a Sandman book, it didn't seem as violent or depressing as previous entries, but was absolutely stuffed with plot and action. Considering the next book of the deluxe collected editions is the last one, I guess that makes sense. I have no idea how Vaughan and crew are going to tie up all the loose ends in a satisfactory manner, and yet at the same time, it feels like if the protagonists accomplish a fairly simple set of goals they've had since the beginning, without running into yet more obstacles, it could actually wrap up pretty easily? Not sure what that says about the series as a whole...I'll hold off on final judgement ‘til the finale. ⚠️mention of miscarriage