I started watching The Umbrella Academy earlier this year and it quickly became one of my favorite shows. As a comic book reader, it’s been a blast seeing more stories being adapted into shows or films. I personally have never heard of The Umbrella Academy before watching the show. I found the first volume at a comic book store and decided to give it a shot. This is an example instance in which I think the show is much better than the source material.

The Umbrella Academy focuses on this extraordinary event where 47 children are born on the exact same day even though the women showed no previous signs of pregnancy. Reginald Hargreeves adopts seven of these children and names them “The Umbrella Academy” The children show signs of having powers with Vanya being the odd one out. Reginald harps on her that she isn’t special and has no special abilities. As the children grow up, they resent Reginald for bringing them together and they go their separate ways. The group is reunited when Reginald passes away. One of the children, codenamed Number Five, travels through time and discovers an apocalypse that will bring the world to an end. He tries to rally the other Umbrella Academy members into helping to prevent this apocalypse.

As mentioned, this is one of the few times where I feel the show is better than the source. The graphic novel in many ways feels messy. Most of the children don’t stand out from each other. Watching the show helped fill the gaps that the graphic novel had which I wasn’t expecting. I think the graphic novel focuses heavily on action and showcasing the children’s powers while the show builds on how the powers affected them individually which I think was more interesting to watch.

I will say that I do like the art and the alternate covers. I think it fits into the aesthetic that Gerard Way was going for when he wrote the story. I did like the story, but I wish it would have been longer, so each child in The Umbrella Academy had their time to shine and that didn’t happen.

I don’t have any regrets about reading The Umbrella Academy as I’m a big fan of the show. I do plan on reading the whole series just to say that I read them, however, I think the series can be skipped as the show does an excellent job summarizing the crucial plot points. I rated The Umbrella Academy five stars based on my love for the show, but I think as a standalone, I would rate The Umbrella Academy three and a half stars on Goodreads.