The Umbrella Academy

 

Ever since the success of Netflix and it's superhero series everyone is looking for the next big thing. I am happy to hear that the Umbrella Academy will be going to Netflix. It's a fresh and smart look at superheroes and the bonds of siblings who might be the most dysfunctional family of orphans in comic book history. The concept is fascinating and the execution is near perfection.

 

The Umbrella Academy is a comic book series created and written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá. The first six-issue limited series, The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite, was released by Dark Horse Comics, the first issue making its premiere on September 19, 2007. It won the 2008 Eisner Award for Best Finite Series/Limited Series. A second series, The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, followed in 2008. The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion, and a proposed fourth series, are in development. A television series was announced to be in development in July 2015.

 

 

 

 

The Umbrella Academy initially takes place in an alternate history where John F. Kennedy was never assassinated, and is primarily set in 1977 (the year of writer Way's birth), which is treated as the present. The titular team are described as a "dysfunctional family of superheroes". In the mid-20th century, at the instant of the finishing blow in a cosmic boxing match, 43 superpowered infants are inexplicably born to random, unconnected women who showed no signs of pregnancy (it is hinted by a character implied to be God that they are collectively a modern-day incarnation of the Messiah). Sir Reginald Hargreeves a.k.a. The Monocle, an extraterrestrial disguised as a famous entrepreneur, adopts the surviving seven children, and prepares them to save the world from an unspecified threat as the Umbrella Academy. In Apocalypse Suite, the team disbanded and failed to stay in contact with each other until they were reunited upon the news of Hargreeves' death, and subsequently reformed the team after one of their own number became a supervillain.