The Umbrella Academy

Super hero comics, as anyone can tell you, are the toughest comic books to create. The reasons behind this difficulty are obvious. The comics of the 1960’s (AKA The Silver Age that gave us Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four and the Justice League of America) are viewed as definitive of the genre, yet dated and ‘uncool.’ The grandeur of super hero comics is so ingrained in the medium that if you look too hard you’ll miss it. In short, super hero comics appear to be easily written and constructed fictions, but they are nothing of the sort. This has lead to another approach, to write intensely intelligent super hero comics for those who dislike traditional action comics. To create post-modern and referential super hero comics actually requires so much skill and ability that there are few good examples (The Doom Patrol by Grant Morrison and The Foot Soldiers by Jim Krueger chief amongst them). So what do you do?

My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba (of Casanova fame) decided to do the one thing no one ever expected, make a genuine yet modern super hero comic. It’s all there. The awkwardness of adolescence and feeling of isolation… the bleak impotence of super powers and an absolutely absurd setting for it all to take place in. It’s like a comic that I half remember from as dream and feel sadness upon waking to realize that it was all in my head… except it is real and available at my local comic shop.

The scripting by Gabriel Way is simple and astounds me in the fact that it never tries to impress the reader in the way that most early comic writers do. His characters, the orphaned super children who form the Umbrella Academy are each near cyphers upon which the readers can implant their identities yet at the same time rich in their personalities. While the boy trapped in an ape’s body known as Space Boy is so wonderful, I could tell you so little about him that he would appear to be ’simple,’ but he’s hardly that. It’s this ability to make it all look so easy that impresses me so much.

The art by Gabriel Ba and covers by James Jean create a kind of strangely twisted storybook world where children drink coffee in diners with monkeys.

The seven main characters are such a reluctant group of ‘heroes’ that they never even appear together in action once in the whole series. Numbered 001 through 007, they each have unique abilities and talents that are promptly exploited by their adoptive father, Hargreeves.

The Future (005) disappears into the time vortex only to find himself the only survivor in an apocalyptic world. How he returns is still a mystery to me, but the kid creeps me out! The Rumor (003) has actually attempted to put her superhero past behind her and start a family, with mixed results. The Seance (004) spent most of his adult life in an asylum, which he dearly misses. The monstrous Horror (006) is represented in the book almost entirely by a statue commemorating his death. 007, a talented violinist, is constantly belittled by her family to the point where she divorces herself from them. The golden child known as Space Boy (001) lives in isolation on the moon, waiting for the call to action. Oh, and his human head has been transplanted onto an ape body. The Kraken (002) seems to have embraced his action/adventure life as a kind of sodier of fortune, yet like most ‘tough guy’ types has an almost adolescent level of emotional maturity.

The awkward family is drawn back together for their father’s funeral… with disastrous results. An old villain from the past strikes at the Umbrella Academy, drawing them into an absurd fight with robots in a carnival setting not out of place in an old Justice League of America comic or Arnold Drake’s Doom Patrol. This only serves to further divide the family. Aside from The Kraken (002) and Space Boy (001), none of the Umbrella Academy are exactly suited for action. I mean, what exactly does the Rumor (003) do??

Vanya (007) is so angered by the ambivalence of her family toward her that when the evil Conductor approaches her to join his ‘The Orchestra Verdammten,’ she’s actually touched that she finally has a purpose. However, her purpose is in playing her violin to signal the end of the world, something The Future (005) is all too familiar with.

The series is full of innovation and inspired fun that has not been seen in modern original super hero comics since Astro City first appeared on the stands. At a time when super hero comics are starting to show their age, it’s great to see an original comic book series breathe new life into the genre.

Look for the collected edition of all 6 issues this Summer/Spring from Dark Horse.