First Look: Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy looks to be a faithful adaptation of the comic book
Slightly more than 10 years after its first issue, Eisner award-winning comic The Umbrella Academy is finally getting its on-screen adaptation. The amazing comic by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Bá will come to life with a 10-episode series on Netflix, debuting on Feb 15, 2019. Netflix has just released the first images from the series, together with the character posters.
The live-action series stars Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, David Castañeda, Aidan Gallagher, Cameron Britton, and Mary J. Blige. Steve Blackman (Fargo, Altered Carbon) will act as executive producer and showrunner, so with that cast and showrunner, things look pretty promising.
If you’ve not read the comics, go pick them up now! (I just picked them off my shelf for a new reading). It’s a wonderfully off-kilter tale from the mind of Gerard Way. Here’s the official synopsis from Netflix:
On the same day in 1989, forty-three infants are inexplicably born to random, unconnected women who showed no signs of pregnancy the day before. Seven are adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a billionaire industrialist, who creates The Umbrella Academy and prepares his “children” to save the world. But not everything went according to plan. In their teenage years, the family fractured and the team disbanded. Now, the six surviving thirty-something members reunite upon the news of Hargreeves’ passing. Luther, Diego, Allison, Klaus, Vanya and Number Five work together to solve a mystery surrounding their father’s death. But the estranged family once again begins to come apart due to their divergent personalities and abilities, not to mention the imminent threat of a global apocalypse.
And if you’ve read the comics, you’ll appreciate the looks of these characters. I’m pretty pleased with Aidan Gallagher as Number Five.
The Umbrella Academy premieres on Netflix February 15, 2019.
