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Maniac Grade: A-
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- Issue: 1
- Authors: Gerard Way, Gabriel Ba
- Publisher: Dark Horse
- Price: $2.99
THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY #1
My Comic Book Romance By
Kurt Amacker
September 26, 2007
THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY #1
© Dark Horse
The Umbrella Academy boasts authorship by Gerard Way, singer of the band My Chemical Romance. Having no taste for his music – reread that, Maniacs – I picked up this first issue of six with some trepidation, attracted to the sort of Edward-Gorey-meets-Lemony-Snicket art by Gabriel Ba. I can happily report that The Umbrella Academy bears virtually no relation to Way’s work with My Chemical Romance, and will likely appeal to anyone that likes Hellboy, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Harry Potter, or Village of the Damned. Needless to say, the first issue wears its influences on its sleeve like a newly sewn badge purchased at Hot Topic.
After a particularly amazing elbow drop at an alien wrestling match, 43 Earth women give birth to 43 children, all of whom have extraordinary powers. Renaissance man and covert alien Sir Reginald Hargreeves searches for the children and adopts as many as he can find – only seven, unfortunately. He educates the children on the business of world-saving at his Umbrella Academy. The children receive public acclaim when they save Paris from a zombie-robot Gustave Eiffel, who wants to pilot his famous tower into space – it’s really a ship – after destroying the city with a death ray. As we jump to the future, one of the students returns from space – he’s grown up to be an astronaut – to find that a reunion of the Umbrella Academy is brewing. But something sinister is afoot, and a long-lost member of the Academy may have the answers.
The Umbrella Academy wildly embraces its dark, semi-Victorian aesthetic. It reminds me of some of the historical reflection present in Mike Mignola’s work on Hellboy, with similar art by Gabriel Ba in tandem. Gerard Way brings a dark whimsy that will appeal not just to fans of his music, but anyone that enjoys Victorian science-fiction, 1930s pulp stories, or the art of Edward Gorey and Charles Addams. Nothing in The Umbrella Academy strikes as wildly original or groundbreaking, but this seems more like a love letter to its genre roots than a bold foray into experimental fiction. As comic readers, we see tributes and deconstructions of costumed crime-fighters so much that “reflective superhero fiction” almost deserves a separate genre designation. It’s nice to see a comic that acknowledges an entirely different set of influences in the same manner. Pick this one up.
Questions? Comments? Let us know what you think at comicscape@mania.com.
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