Book Review: The Umbrella Academy Vol. 1 by G. Way et al.

The Umbrella Academy Volume 1: Apocalypse Suite story by Gerard Way, art by Gabriel Ba, and colors by Dave Stewart

A freak incident has forty-three children born at the exact same time across the world, mostly to single women who were not pregnant. Seven of those children were adopted by Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a famous and wealthy inventor. Six of those children show extraordinary powers. He helps the children develop their powers at his Umbrella Academy. Ten years later, they are a band of heroes who help to avert the end of the world. One emergency they stop is an insane Eiffel Tower, which starts tossing people off of itself. The story picks up again with the death of Hargreeves many years later. By this point, the team is broken up and scattered across the Earth (except for Spaceboy, who has been working on the moon). They come together for the funeral and are forced together to face a new threat. The one child who seemingly didn't have any powers (other than playing the violin) has been recruited by a doomsday orchestra that is ready to destroy the world with a special piece of music, the eponymous Apocalypse Suite.

The story is extremely quirky with a creative visual style. The author was clearly bursting with ideas. Unfortunately, the storytelling is very choppy and a bit hard to follow. Each child's powers are shown only through action and it is difficult to sort out who does which thing. Other than being highly original, this book is not very satisfying. I can see how its creativity made it popular and I will try the next volume, but my expectations are a lot lower.

Slightly recommended.

UPDATE: I just read the second story and it has the same "throw in everything I can think of" feeling that I found so unsatisfying in the first story. So I am not going to read volume 3. I still might try the television show.