The Umbrella Academy Vol. 1: Apocalypse Suite

Collects The Umbrella Suite: Apocalypse Suite #1-6 written by Gerard Way and drawn by Gabriel Bá.

This is a book that's been receiving a lot of positive buzz lately, and after reading it I feel obliged to join the parade. Coming pretty much out of nowhere, this book is a serious contender to the 'Surprise Hit of 2008' award. Books written by celebrities usually turn out with mixed results (well, that's the polite version...) but this book is not written by Way the singer, it's written by Way the comic book writer. Way's real job as a singer in a world famous rock band (My Chemical Romance) is very downplayed here, being limited to a small note on the back of the book. There is no doubt that Way wants this to be about the book and not about him, and that is fortunate, because the book certainly deserves all the attention it can get.

At it's core Umbrella Academy is a superhero story, spiced with elements from different genres. I don't like to compare books of this quality to other great books, but I can't help but think of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Hellboy when I read this. But make no mistake, Umbrella Academy is good enough to stand on it's own, and really requires no comparisons. There are multiple ways of describing this story. It is a tale of the end of the world and the heroes who have to stop it. It is a tale of madness and the personal consequences it causes. It is a tale of a dysfunctional family that has to learn to live with itself. It is a tale of love and hate and everything in between. And it is a tale of people beating each other up. Take your pick, it's all in there.

The world of the Umbrella Academy has elements of Victorian England spiced with a bit of steam punk and other science fiction stuff I don't know what to call. Lets call it The World of the Umbrella Academy. There is no specific time nor place, although parts of the story take place in known parts of the world, e.g. Paris, but there is a past, a present and a future. And the greatest accomplishment of this book is how convincingly these three elements come to life with a minimal use of pages. Because this book doesn't start at the beginning, it starts at what I presume is well over the middle. Sure, the reader is told what he needs to now about the beginning but not more. Similarly, the reader is told what he needs to know of the future but not more. All this makes the world come to life, so much so, that 43 children being simultaneously and spontaneously born with super powers as a consequence of a show wrestler delivering an atomic flying elbow to a giant space squid seems almost natural.

For a debutant, Way shows very good understanding of comic book storytelling techniques. Although the story isn't lacking in dialogue, a lot of the story is told through pictures, making it feel like a story that could only really have been told as a comic book. It's amazing that this book was written by two people who had never worked together before, most writer/artist pairs never achieve this level of affinity and those who do take years to get there. The hugely talented Gabriel Bá certainly deserves his share of the credit of this book. His layouts and characters are excellent and his darkly expressive style conveys atmosphere of the world and the grimness of the characters perfectly.

The only bad thing I have to say about this book is that it's too short. It's too short because you don't want the goodness to stop, but unfortunately it is also too short because six chapters isn't quite enough to tell the story Way wants to tell. For a story that both sees the birth of the main characters and the end of the world and a lot of other stuff, it feels a little compressed and the central story of the book gets a little lost in all the details. This is the reason it's so difficult to say exactly what this book is about, what is the story Way wants to tell? At the same time, it is my clear impression that Way wants to tell us something with this book, it certainly has it's fair share of heavy themes. Fortunately, Way and Bá are currently working on The Umbrella Academy: Dallas, so I am confident that the future will bring us a clearer picture of what the Umbrella Academy is really all about.

8/10