The Umbrella Academy
Our Review
The dysFUNctional family superhero drama — X-Men if Professor X were an emotionally abusive billionaire who adopted seven special children, numbered them, and never loved them. Gerard Way’s comic adaptation follows the surviving siblings reuniting at Dad’s funeral: a time traveler stuck in a 58-year-old body, a knife-throwing vigilante, a movie star who can float, a heroin-addicted séance, a dead brother possessing a mannequin, a gorilla-bodied astronaut, and Vanya, the “ordinary” one whose power was hidden from her.
Season 1 is superb: the sibling venom feels lived-in, the soundtrack needle-drops are the best music supervision on TV, and the apocalypse mystery pays off with Vanya’s devastating turn. Season 2 (Dallas, 1963) is the fan favorite. Seasons 3 and 4 get wobblier, but Elliot Page’s real-life transition being written into the show with grace, Robert Sheehan’s Klaus as the show’s chaotic heart, and Aidan Gallagher’s razor-sharp Number Five — a 58-year-old assassin in a 13-year-old body — keep it worth finishing.
Verdict: Watch it. The family drama under the superheroics is the real superpower.