The Umbrella Academy is the story of seven adopted superhuman misfits and their super-rich father, Sir Reginald Hargreeves (aka the Monocle). If you’ve seen the television adaptation, which is currently entering its final season, you’re already a fan of its mix of conspiracy, US ephemera and choreographed ultra-violence, as well as the more domestic aspects of a long-form drama.
Written by Gerard Way (yes, of My Chemical Romance) and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, the comics work a little differently and are a mix of literary influences. They are a reimagining of the Children of the Atom stories by Wilmar Shiras (1953), which follow a group of children with superhuman intelligence, seen through the lens of DC’s Doom Patrol comics (1963-2023), about a group of superpowered misfits who were experiments and accidents, and classic Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
The comics are visually arresting, with strong, often calligraphic lines and a sarcastic wit. They contain rare instances of extreme brutality rather than the slick action of television, along with media-savvy wit to skewer contemporary society.
The final season of the Netflix adaptation is here and while fans of the comic eagerly await Volume 4: Sparrow Academy, here are five recommendations that fans of this strange world will probably love too:
1. Monstress (2018, Image Comics) by Marjorie Liu and Sana Takeda
Picture Comics
Maika Half-Wolf is a young woman determined to avenge her mother and her people in a world where humans use their own kind to fuel their magic. The world building in this comic series is amazing. The first book reveals stranger and more interesting aspects of this world with each page, exploring dark and strange elements of its lore.
An eclectic mix of steam, clockwork, atomic, and magic technologies is well done in Monstress by Sana Takeda. In contrast, The Umbrella Academy’s world of steam and atom punk is beautifully captured in Bá’s illustrations, but visually understated in the TV series. In Monstress, these themes are thoroughly expanded upon in a series with political intrigue and complex characterization that is beautifully drawn and narratively complex.
2. Saga (2012, Image Comics) by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples
Picture Comics
Saga is the story of Hazel, a child whose parents have left opposing sides of a bitter intergalactic war that is devastating every planet. The new family’s small act of love and resistance in the middle of a war zone has enormous consequences that affect both warring empires.
This is an epic story by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples that manages to make the harsh lives of some refugees from a colossal intergalactic war familiar and relevant. It’s a sprawling space opera with frequently fantastic action sequences and spectacular battles, but also interpersonal intrigue, family drama, and a sequel story that’s refreshingly engaging and satisfying. It also managed to survive and overcome calls for a ban because of its sex scenes and LGBTQ+ themes. Consequently, it remains one of the most interesting and expansive stories on this list.
Boom Comics
This comic strikes an interesting balance between horror and slow-paced thriller. In a small, gray town in Wisconsin, children are disappearing. Most never return, but those who do tell gruesome stories about terrifying creatures.
Unable to prevent the grisly deaths and unable to understand the bizarre occurrences that plague them, the townspeople reluctantly turn to a young woman named Erica, who has strange eyes and likes cheap chainsaws that “just keep going” even when they hit bones. The story follows Erica as she hunts down and defends the paranoid townspeople who don’t see themselves as prey to unspeakable things.
Often disturbing and with a main cast that you really root for, Something is Killing the Children is a fascinating contemporary take on American Gothic literature, featuring unfolding conspiracies, haunted pasts, and eerie, dark and deep woods.
4. Transmetropolitan (1997, Dark Horse Books) by Warren Ellis and Darick Robinson
Dark Horse Books
Spider Jerusalem is a tattooed, misanthropic political correspondent – a man who would rather not be part of society, but is the only person who sees it as it is.
He returns to the city from self-imposed exile to write again for The Word, a newspaper that pays him enough to have full insurance as a journalist (a license to do whatever he wants in the name of truth), unlimited television and computer reception (so he can use all media without a break), and a constant supply of intelligence-enhancing drugs.
Transmetropolitan was outrageous, satirical, angry ’90s punk, and many aspects have aged poorly (the gender and body politics can make you cringe). But in some aspects it’s also horribly prescient, foreshadowing the rise of political populism and corporate and media saturation. It remains visually loud, searingly funny, and often depressingly truthful.
5. The Filth (2004, Vertigo) by Grant Morrison and Chris Weston
dizziness
Scottish comic book writer Grant Morrison is known for some of the most exciting revivals and stories in mainstream comics over the past few decades, including DC’s Doom Patrol, which Umbrella Academy writer Gerard Way cites as an influence and which he ultimately worked on.
Morrison and Weston’s The Filth is a bizarre book about Ned Slade: super-agent, psychotropic toupee wearer, and maybe porn addict named Greg Feely in a parallel life. Slade, as lead agent of a group of top-secret police officers known as the Hand, hunts down a renegade agent who threatens to push reality out of its “Status Q.”
Like The Umbrella Academy, it’s a consciously postmodern comic full of world-shattering conspiracies, bizarre villains, and offbeat science fiction. But it’s also an uninhibited exploration of psychological dysfunction and a corrupt body politic.
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