Synopsis
The New York Times bestselling comics series that was the inspiration for The Umbrella Academy on Netflix, now on Season 3!
Gerard Way (My Chemical Romance, Doom Patrol) and Gabriel Bá (Two Brothers, Casanova) have earned awards and accolades on their separate projects, and finally return to their breakout 2007 hit, for the latest chapter in the bizarre lives of their former teen superhero team.
Features an introduction by Eisner Award-winning creator Jeff Lemire!
Faced with an increasing number of lunatics with superpowers eager to fight his own wunderkind brood, Sir Reginald Hargreeves developed the ultimate solution…
Now, just a few years after Hargreeves’s death, his Umbrella Academy is scattered. Number Five is a hired gun, Kraken is stalking big game, Rumor is dealing with the wreckage of her marriage, an out-of-shape Spaceboy runs around the streets of Tokyo, Vanya continues her physical therapy after being shot in the head—and no one wants to even talk about what Séance is up to …
The award-winning and best-selling superhero series returns, stranger than ever—and their past is coming back to hunt them.
Review
I’m so glad that I made time to roll right on through these after my rewatch of the show (you can read my series review here). And be sure to check out my reviews for TUA 0, Apocalypse Suite & Dallas!
Volume 3 to me feels the most like an actual superhero comic book, still very much so the Umbrellas, but with a more fleshed-out world. It is also somehow the most out there of them all. Completely insane.
The ragtag group that we can’t get enough of is back…and better than ever? As with all heroes, once they emerge, it seems as if there are villains appearing out of the woodwork. Why is it so perfectly timed that when someone has the strength to step up, magically, there is someone there to try to bring them down? Well, the same goes for the Umbrellas. Over the years, as more villains appeared, Sir Reginald sought a way to contain them so that they would stop coming back—presumably in the revolving door style we so often see in comics. The thing is, his plan worked, but for how long?
While I did enjoy the third season of the show, it differed from volume three much more than the other two, and not just by making Hotel Oblivion into Obsidian. It also makes the hotel much more of a real-world location than a “pocket universe,” and it meshed in the Sparrow academy too, which in 2026 is still a releasing volume…so not sure why they did that. I enjoyed the season, but I think I enjoy this volume way more.
Luther is magically fit again, and he and Diego head to space—and then an alternate plane of existence—with a character that looks kind of like a caricature of Hayao Miyazaki of Studio Ghibli. Allison has a team up with Five, who is in a full-on Agents of Shield-esque costume. Klaus is captured and put into seance work by a biker gang, much like in season 3 of the show. And Vanya is still recovering, but robot Mom is being awfully weird.
Hotel Oblivion is just that: Oblivion. A hotel filled with cockroach dinners and The Umbrella Academy’s very own rogues gallery. Until now, once you arrived at the hotel, you were as good as gone, but some people just don’t know how to give it up. And believe it or not, you might see some familiar faces too! This whole volume felt to me like more of a natural superhero story than the first two. Not only does the hotel’s existence (and loaded up capacity) show the Umbrella’s legitimacy, but it also allows for the most climactic ending yet: a full-on battle…with, of course, a Sparrow cliffhanger.
I am happy to see that Volume 4: Plan B is up for preorder. I don’t believe it was announced when I first ordered the 1-3 box set. I think this one would have worked well as an epic send off, not that there weren’t loose ends or anything obviously, and of course I am glad to have more. I hope it’s awesome.
Another solid entry! Onto You Look Like Death.
Sadly no Lila though…
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