There are straight-up ways that Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba could have created The Umbrella Academy. Actually, if they had been more “serious,” The Umbrella Academy could easily be an X-Men or Teen Titans story featuring a group of kid superheroes now grown up and having to look to the past to save the future. How many different comic books have Chris Claremont or Geoff Johns already gotten out of that same concept? Even the James Jean cover mimics some twisted generic cover, featuring both the past and the future mirrored against each other.
The book begins with a wresting match where “Tusslin’ Tom” Gurney took on a space squid. But the story begins with an atomic flying elbow. With that wrestling move, 43 extraordinary children were born. Not all survived. Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a scientist, entrepeneur, inventory, Olympian and Nobel Prize winner, tried to find as many of the children as he could He found seven. Those seven, each with extraordinary powers, we cared for by Hargreeves until they were ready to save the world as The Umbrella Academy. Sounds a bit familiar, doesn’t it?
The book is divided into three parts; a prologue showing the origin of the kids, a section showing them as kids fighting a zombified robotic Gustave Eiffel, and a third showing one of the kids, Spaceboy, now grown up learning about the death of Hargreeves. That basic plot (well, maybe most of it except for the zombie robot) could be taken from any number of comics. Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba take the idea and bring a different sensibility to it. They’ve mixed in a bit of whimsy and an alternative spin on the story. The X-Men were originally teens but how often did they really act like it? Here Way has kids taking on possessed Eiffel Towers and zombified creators of that tower.
Gabriel Ba is quickly becoming one of my favorite artists. I was slightly disappointed when Casanova returned without him but his brother is doing a great job on that series and Ba’s expressive cartoony style makes The Umbrella Academy a fantastic read.
The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite #1
“The Day the Eiffel Tower Went Berserk”
Written by: Gerard Way
Drawn by: Gabriel Ba
Colored by: Dave Stewart
Lettered by: Blambot’s Nate Piekos