Comics After Watchmen: The Umbrella Academy

The Umbrella Academy, Volume 1
"Apocalypse Suite"
Gerard Way (Story), Gabriel Ba (Art), Dave Stewart (Colors), Nate Piekos (Letters), James Jean (Covers)

We have reached a point in fiction where there are no new stories. The bones of every tale have been cast already, with new works being almost entirely informed by the works it’s drawn from. We talk about Quentin Tarantino films almost exclusively through the movies and plots he’s expropriated to create a celluloid Frankenstein. So many new pop bands fail because they’re constantly compared to The Beatles, and most new comics are run through a subconscious litmus test against Alan Moore’s bibliography.

Which brings us to “The Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite”, by Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba. “The Umbrella Academy” has been an unqualified success, at least in the microcosm of comics criticism. Throw a stone into a room of comic fans, and you’ll find someone who thought “The Umbrella Academy” is the most important debut of the last five years, and Way is the next Grant Morrison (if only he’d stop messing with that band of his).

His future's so bright... something, something

Taken alone, “The Umbrella Academy” isn’t particularly revolutionary. It is, to damn it with faint praise, simply a mechanically perfect comic. Way’s script is tight to a ridiculous degree, without wasted space and brimming with clever foreshadowing, Gabriel Ba is as good as the hype that precedes him, like a dog barking before an earthquake. He manages to couple an inventive sense of design with rock solid storytelling, he doesn’t experiment much, but that just means he never fails. Dave Stewart is, as always, the unsung hero. So much of what makes the book work depends on a meticulously crafted mood, and Stewart deftly moves between classic comic book colors and a more realistic palate, absorbing the reader.

It is not, however, a game changer. The story has been told before – the titular academy is the basis for a dysfunctional family drama that plays out after the death of their father. All the characters are drawn from other sources – Spaceboy, the taciturn self-appointed leader. Kraken, the black sheep loner. Rumor, the eldest girl, trying to keep her family together while her life is falling apart.

They’re boring alone, but the story backs them up. Even if Spaceboy’s character is a bit boring, he’s still a human head on an ape’s body. When Kraken disrupts the funeral (which happens in every one of these stories), its because he lashes out as his “mother”… by tearing away her shall to shame her as a plastic, limbless android created by her father. If we’re all telling the same, finite, number of stories, then it’s the angels in the details that make a tale sing.

“The Umbrella Academy” works because it is a comic book, something that has been lost in the transition towards a more cinematic approach to storytelling. Every single inch of the page works in concert to not only create an effective mood, but actually move the story forward. Things like the titles of the issue are used as lines of dialogue, which turns out to be a shockingly efficient segue technique when used sparingly. The marriage of text and pictures is something that only comics has really been able to master, but it’s been de-emphasized in lieu of making comics seem more “real”.

I blame you for the Mary Jane semen-cancer, Moore.

In a lot of ways, the success of “Umbrella Academy” is in direct opposition to modern mainstream comics. This is a new style of post-“Watchmen” aesthetic in almost every way; “Watchmen” deconstructed not only superheroes but the mechanics of the genre and repaired it in such a way that almost everything printed since owes something small to Moore and Gibbons’ opus. “The Umbrella Academy” is where we’d be now if “Watchmen” hadn’t been the atomic bomb that destroyed the Silver Age of Comics.

If the Silver Age was defined by bombast and imagination, then “Umbrella Academy” is its lovechild. This is a comic and it loves every second, playing it perfectly straight. It seems to be the threshold by which we’ll reach the co-existence of “Watchmen” style realism and unapologetic Superhero Comics -- rather than dramas with superheroes in them. Read more!

A New Beginning

The Internet, like Ohio, is for lovers.

Lovers of information, piracy, videos of people falling, horse dongs, bear-suit sex. All are welcome in the loving, electronic bosom of Al Gore's World Wide Web.

Just say thank you. Maybe he'll leave.

Perhaps most prolifically (besides the porn, of course... the mountains and mountains of porn), the Internet has allowed nerds of all shapes and sizes (read: round people) to become more comfortable in their own skins, if only electronically.

Where people use to scorn scholars of pop culture, now are erected giants statues of Ron Perlman.

Imagine this, but bronzed or something.

We can be smart AND talk about Spider-Man, and if we are mocked, there are places to run (from a seated position, of course) where we are told we're still okay.

What we have here, is one of those places. After you read my stuff, feel free to leave your own opinion. Just know I will shout over you (read: type in all caps), BECAUSE I AM RIGHT.

Finally, a list of topics we'll probably talk about:

- Comic Books
- Movies
- TV Shows
- Comic Books, Movies, and TV Shows Bruce Campbell has starred in, knows someone who's starred in, or would have starred in had he auditioned for a role (I'm looking at you, "Slumdog Millionaire").
- Things the Internet currently thinks are funny. (These posts will be deleted within fifteen minutes).
- Links to affordable couches on Craigslist.
- A List of the Greatest Gymnastics Movies. The list is one film long, and that film is Stick It.
- Tokenism in genre fiction. All characters the author believes to be tokenized, shall be referred to as "Winstons", in honor of blog mascot Ernie "Rock" Hudson.

If this blog were a picture, this would be it.

Now that we've slogged through a little exposition... Good evening, dear readers.

Away. We. Go. Read more!