“The Umbrella Academy”: Learn More About the Comic Books by Gerard Way That Inspired the Netflix Show

The My Chemical Romance frontman wrote the comic book series for Black Horse Publishing in 2007

It’s a bittersweet time for fans of the Netflix hit The Umbrella Academy — the Hargreeves family is finally saying goodbye in the show’s final season.

Season four of the superhero TV show arrived on Netflix on Aug. 8. Following a group of adopted siblings with superhuman abilities, the series has earned a devoted following since it first launched in 2019. It stars Elliot Page as Viktor/the White Violin, Tom Hopper as Luther/Spaceboy, Emmy Raver-Lampman as Allison/the Rumor, Justin H. Min as Ben/the Horror, Robert Sheehan as Klaus/the Séance, Aidan Gallagher as Five/the Boy and David Castañeda as Diego/the Kraken.

Together, the Hargreeves siblings have traveled multiple decades, staved off apocalypses and survived too many near-death experiences to count. And it all started as a comic book series of the same name, by My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way.

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Way created the comic books, illustrated by Gabriel Bá, in 2007. Initially a six-issue limited series, The Umbrella Academy was eventually expanded into multiple series for Dark Horse Comics (and conveniently collected into multiple volumes too.) The Umbrella Academy has also inspired the spinoff series Tales from the Umbrella Academy, as well as short stories within the same universe.

“In comics, I didn’t see anything like The Umbrella Academy,” Way told Rolling Stone of the comic books in 2019. “I saw a lot of things that were beholden to continuity that had been going on for 50 years and stories that have continued that long, but I didn’t see anything that threw the reader in the deep end and just got them into the good stuff right away.”

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If you’ve ever been curious about the show’s source material — or are a longtime reader wanting to revisit it — read on for more details about the Umbrella Academy comic books.

The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite

The first six volumes of The Umbrella Academy relays the origin stories of the Hargreeves siblings. When 47 children around the world are born to women who previously showed no signs of pregnancy, billionaire Reginald Hargreeves adopts seven of the children, who he soon discovers have extraordinary abilities. Over the years, he trains them to master their talents, and they become known to the world as The Umbrella Academy, a team of elite superheroes.

The siblings had a fraught relationship with their father, however, and when Reginald dies, the Academy reluctantly returns home as adults — just in time to save the world once more.

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The Umbrella Academy: Dallas

In the wake of the apocalypse, the Hargreeves family must reckon with the consequences of the end of the world, as well as the death of their beloved mentor. Each sibling is struggling in their own way — the Rumor has lost her powers, the White Violin is bedridden after a serious injury and Spaceboy is near-catatonic. It’s revealed that the Boy, however, might have the answers to a string of mysterious massacres, throughout the comic's next six issues, collected in this volume.

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The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion

Years after Reginald’s death, the Umbrella Academy is scattered across the world — the Rumor is dealing with the fallout of her marriage, the Kraken is on a mission, the Spaceboy is adrift in Tokyo and the Boy is now a hired assassin. The siblings’ troubled past finally catches up to them in the series’ final collection of comics.

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