What is The Umbrella Academy?

What is it?

The Umbrella Academy is a comic book series from Dark Horse Comics written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá. The series centers around a group of superpowered orphans who eventually become a team of heroes due to the intervention of an eccentric millionaire. Their adventures as adults are juxtaposed against their adventures as children and show how this atypical group was able to save the world on many separate occasions.

What is it about?

The story in The Umbrella Academy starts thirty years before the comic’s present, when 43 children were simultaneously born to women who previously showed absolutely no sign of pregnancy. Seven of these children were adopted by eccentric millionaire, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, who immediately began cultivating the super-powers that these mysterious children were born with. Ten years later, these children became “The Umbrella Academy”, a team of superheroes.

Twenty years after that, the team has parted ways and most consider their days of costumed crime-fighting to be over. However, they are brought together once more when Hargreeves unexpectedly dies. From this point on, they are forced to defend the world from a variety of bizarre threats.

Who is it for?

The Umbrella Academy excels with atypical storytelling and unique narratives. The entire series starts out with a wrestling match between a human and a space-squid and somehow only manages to get more creative from there. The adventures detailed here involve familiar comic book elements, such as supervillains, time-travel, and vigilante justice, but each element is skewed in a way that makes it feel different. This makes the comic weird but in a way that works out incredibly well.

However, the series can also easily appeal to those simply interested in straightforward comic book action. At its core, this is a series about a dysfunctional family of superheroes, not incredibly unlike the X-Men or various iterations of the Justice League or Avengers. It simply approaches the concept in a nontraditional manner. In this way, Umbrella Academy can appeal to a somewhat wide range of comic fans.

This comic is rated 14+ and is intended for readers above this age. It contains violence and some graphic imagery so those uncomfortable with this should not pick up this series.

Want more?

Those interested in reading The Umbrella Academy should check out ComicBookWire’s reviews of the series to find out if this comic is for them.