Umbrella Academy - Volume 1

The Umbrella Academy, Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite by Gerard Way

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Years ago, an unrevealed number of children were spontaneously born to women who weren't pregnant. Reginald Hargreeves, aka The Monocle, gathered all of them he could find, 47 of them, and formed the Umbrella Academy. Why? To save the world!

I picked this up because people said it's a lot like Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. While I thought it was, it reminded me more of The Royal Tenenbaums. There are sequences were the academy members were youngsters but the series is mostly about them as adults and coping with their relationship with the now deceased Monocle. And they take on an old foe and deal with one of their own but that's secondary in my view.

The writing was delightfully weird and the art suited it perfectly. I enjoyed the characters even though I'm still not clear on some of their powers. Number 5 is easily my favorite though I love that Spaceboy's head is on a gorilla's body.

I recommend this to anyone that likes something different from their comics. I could see this appealing to fans of the Doom Patrol easily, as well as Madman and the early issues of Generation X. It's a quick read but very interesting.



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