Netflix's Umbrella Academy Is Your New X-Men—Ugh
Superhero TV follows a Betty Crocker recipe. Throw some unlikely ingredients into a stylish receptacle. Add a binder. Beat on high until everything doubles in size. Stir in some supporting flavors. Finally, bake in villainous fires until goodness rises. Delicious!
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People simply keep eating. The reliable satisfactions of superhero stories continue to attract an audience that proceeds to gobble them up, licking their plates clean even as they complain that it's all just so familiar. This season, the menu's no exception: Deadly Class, Watchmen, and today, Netflix's dessert special, The Umbrella Academy.
Well, it tastes like off-brand X-Men. An eccentric elderly billionaire named Sir Reginald Hargreeves goes about adopting mysterious children—they were all born on the same day to mothers who were not pregnant when the day began—and then schools them in superheroism in his mansion. Even the show's own cast makes the comparison: Robert Sheehan, who plays one of the not-quite-mutant adoptees, describes Hargreeves as "a really mean Professor X whose legs work."
Being derivative isn't enough to damn a superhero show, of course—most of the them are adaptations, The Umbrella Academy included. Even well-received shows like Luke Cage or Jessica Jones often play familiar beats to the point of cliche, which reviewers will inevitably point out and then mostly forgive. (That said, if one more woman drinks whiskey to demonstrate her toughness, I'm leaving.) Our benchmark for superhero success has become the degree to which the stories are able to subvert established tropes while still cleaving close enough to the comic-book ethos we've come to expect. We celebrate Luke Cage and Jessica Jones for elevating people of color and women; we applaud Deadpool and Thor: Ragnarok for their knowing absurdity. Conversely, we sneer at Iron Fist for missing the point and Batman v Superman for not doing enough with its source material.
The Umbrella Academy falls somewhere in the middle. The show's most enjoyable moments are the offbeat ones. Starting a superhero show with a concert violinist playing "Phantom of the Opera" and setting department store shoot-outs to Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now"? Sure. Satirizing the shallowness of superhero mom-figures by making one a literal 1950s robot? That's fun. So is the talking chimpanzee, Pogo, and the fact that Netflix shelled out enough money to convince Weta to handle the special effects. The show even manages to transcend the schlocky familiarity of its premise by setting the action long after our heroes have left the titular academy. (We meet them floundering in early adulthood.) At its core, The Umbrella Academy is a dysfunctional family drama with some superpowers layered on top—and it's not a bad one.
When it's bad-tropey, though—oh, is it ever. The team is led by a blond strongman with a soft heart. The others include a hothead with super-accurate murdering skills, an adult trapped in a kid's body, and a mouthy addict with death-related powers played by Robert Sheehan, who had the same role in Misfits. The fact that the only woman with obvious superpowers is a sexy starlet who excels at manipulation and spreading rumors is unforgivable. That Ellen Page—Ellen Page!—mopes about for much of the season being the family's superpowerless ugly duckling is instantly annoying. It's barely a spoiler to tell you that, in the end, she has powers after all.
Even after all this time, superhero TV shows still haven't found a way to Hulk-smash the mold. Not that audiences are demanding it: People love blatant rip-offs, everything from Eragon to Masters of the Universe. They might love The Umbrella Academy too. It's enjoyable in the moment—and, like cookies from a box, leaves you hungry for more of the same.