THINK BACK TO EARLY 2019, A TIME when the Avengers were yet to face their endgame, and the words “superhero” and “fatigue” were rarely mentioned in the same sentence. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was still 100% cinematic, The Boys were yet to push the boundaries of superpowered good taste, and the Arrowverse was still the primary destination for comic book-inspired TV shows.
This was the world that first welcomed The Umbrella Academy, Netflix’s adaptation of Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s Dark Horse comic about a superpowered – but prodigiously dysfunctional – family, a clan who made the Avengers look like the Waltons. Not that showrunner Steve Blackman ever thought he was operating in the same space as Marvel and DC’s biggest hitters
“If I’m honest with you, I don’t see this as a superhero show,” he tells SFX. “‘A dysfunctional family show with a body count’ has been my logline as I write it. I love that the Hargreeves family have these abilities, but I think you could also have this show where they’re just an interesting family of siblings.
“The Royal Tenenbaums was definitely one of my main driving factors in the way I saw The Umbrella Academy,” he adds, “and to be honest, I’m a little sad that I won’t get to write this family any more after this year.”
HAPPIER FAMILIES
Why the abrupt full stop? It’s already been confirmed that the upcoming fourth season will be the show’s last, bringing the Hargreeves siblings’ dimension-hopping squabbles to an end. But first, they’re going to have to deal with a dilemma familiar to Superman, Spider-Man and several X-Men: what do you do when your superpowers desert you? The Temps Commission – known, in our dimension, as Netflix – have asked SFX not to reveal where the powered-down Hargreeves find themselves at the start of the season, but it’s safe to say they will, at some point, become super again.
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