Gerard Way

I wasn't going to read this, after watching a bunch, but not all, of the show and enjoying it enough, but not being blown away. I am very glad it was sin my local library network because it's unbelievably different in form and tone to the show and I absolutely loved it!

This takes aesthetics and the veneer of the sensibilities of much older superhero comics and huge, weird premises, just go with it stylings, and updates the actual tone and writing to a very modern, fresh, and self aware look show more at superheroes, particularly child prodigy superheroes and how that effects their adult lives.

The DNA of the show is all there with some major changes, especially the portrayal of Vanya. The show fleshes out and deepens a lot of the characters and their relationships at the expense of the utterly ridiculous, rip-roaringnsess of the comic. There's just so much fun and herded-cat effective silliness and scale that just doesn't translate, and it's glorious to see in its original form, and to have both!

The art is great. The writing is really cool. This is just an absolute corker of a comic that wasn't in the least but spoiled by my already knowing the general beats of the story from the show. I will absolutely be checking out further volumes and kinda want to actually catch up on the show now too.

This was absolutely the cover to cover happy times, single-sitting read that I needed after BRZRKR was such a disappointment. show less

A bunch of babies are inexplicably born - odd given baby births are fairly explicable - and a gentleman adventurer adopts seven of them to save the world. It turns out they have freaky powers and they fight monsters and villains as The Umbrella Academy, then they grow up, split up and generally fall apart. Reunited at the death of their adoptive father, about whom they had mixed feelings at best, they have to deal with an impending apocalypse brought about by one of their own.

This is a mad, show more sharp, acerbic, inventive, pulpish, modernist, surreal superhero tale that owes much in tone to Grant Morrison's Doom Patrol. Gabriel Ba's visuals are astonishing. show less

I'm one of those late-to-the-party losers who knew of Umbrella Academy, but never got around to reading it until just now, long after I'd watched season one of the Netflix show.

So, bear in mind, my thoughts are going to be filtered through having experienced the excellent, but wildly different show.

Having said all that, I know the graphic novel is always a different animal to the live-action adaptation. Just look at something like [b:Wanted|160848|Wanted|Mark show more Millar|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1355855954l/160848._SY75_.jpg|1475550], or even [b:Civil War: A Marvel Comics Event|91714|Civil War A Marvel Comics Event|Mark Millar|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1345813608l/91714._SY75_.jpg|577888]. This one's no different. Much more irreverent, much less backstory and character development, but just a whole lot of fun, with some serious bizarreness thrown in along the way.

Once again, the art is very cartoonish, and, while it mostly suits this storyline, it'll never be a favourite of mine. But it gets the job done.

Definitely looking forward to the next two volumes. Now I only have to hope Full Daffy, that arbiter of intelligence, doesn't think I'm too stupid to read this series too. show less

I used to say, "I like to take college classes to be around young people, it keeps you young." So reading this brought me kind of the same conclusion. It was a suggestion from my 12-year-old daughter and thanks to her and her youthiness I am no much cooler than I was before I read this. Having kids definitely makes you less cool by making you more domesticated, but if you pay attention and hang out with them enough, you might have a chance at being cool again.

I imagine that after writing show more this while touring on the Black Parade tour, Gerard Way just withered and wrinkled a way into a desiccated husk. The expenditure of so much epic creativity in such a short period of time should be illegal. How does one manage to write the Bohemian Rhapsody of Generation Y and Z (which is the Black Parade in case you were wondering) AND... I said AND also write one of the most kick ass comics in the past 10 years? (that's a very arbitrary number, I probably could have said 20 but I think 10 is enough for you to get the point).

Umbrella Academy is original, it's compelling, the art is fantastic, and maybe best of all it's comprehensible while still being complex. The characters were deep, in fact they were so deep that at the end I felt I had missed the first 50 issues of the comic. I wanted more, I wanted it to be a novel (with illustrations).

Anyway, there's still another graphic novel to go and because I'm a masochist I'll wait a couple weeks to read it and I'll read it one comic a day, absorbing its awesomeness slowly, hoping that it's catchy. show less