Anna Daniels
One of the chief concerns producers have when deciding to adapt a story into a serialized narrative is whether or not there’s enough story to tell over multiple TV seasons or movies. That’s especially true of translating a comic book to the screen, as the stories themselves tend to be serialized from the start. When it comes to Marvel and DC properties, though, the boundless spoil of characters and stories possessed by each makes adapting those comics easier.
In the case of The Umbrella Academy, the opposite is mostly true. Part of the problem is that it’s a relatively new series (it debuted with Dark Horse in fall 2007), but the larger issue is that The Umbrella Academy was and remains more so a limited series event collection. The initial six-issue run of The Umbrella Academy, The Apocalypse Suite, was touted as just that. Had that run failed, it’s likely we wouldn’t have seen much more of The Umbrella Academy‘s Klaus, Number Five, or the rest of the gifted gang on later episodes of the Netflix series’ first season.
Thankfully, The Umbrella Academy became an Eisner-winning success, prompting a pair of additional storylines. The first, subtitled Dallas, was released in 2008. The second, Hotel Oblivion, didn’t arrive until a decade later. So, as it stands, there are but three volumes of The Umbrella Academy tales in print. Season 1 of the Netflix series has already used one of them up. The second season will presumably cover another, and if Netflix orders a third season, the series will certainly catch up to Gerard Way’s existing The Umbrella Academy narratives. As history (read: Game of Thrones) has shown us, some bad things can happen when there’s no more source material to adapt.
Written by: Looper
