‘The Umbrella Academy’ ushers in a new era of superheroes

It’s a family with skeletons in its closet. Siblings who hate each other. An unfeeling, abusive father. An oblivious mother. It could be any family drama. Except that every member of the family has a superpower.

And such serious power spread across a dysfunctional family also spells serious trouble.

That’s part of the premise of Umbrella Academy, the new superhero series airing on Netflix from Friday. It is the first major superhero series from the streaming video provider since news broke that the Marvel franchise, comprising most of the world’s most popular superhero movies and series, would disappear from Netflix.

Disney will launch its own video-on-demand service, Disney+, in September. Its most profitable entertainment franchises, Marvel and Star Wars, will be at the heart of the service – and no longer available to Netflix.

Umbrella Academy is evidence the streaming giant is not rolling over and playing dead, however. It is redefining the superhero genre, and creating a foundation for its own pantheon of heroes.

The Umbrella Academy. Picture: Netflix

It is based on a comic book series published by Dark Horse Comics, the dark alternative to the Marvel and DC universes. It was created by Gabrel Bá and Gerard Way, lead vocalist of the rock band My Chemical Romance.

Equally significantly: it was developed for Netflix by Steve Blackman, who won awards for his writing on Fargo and was executive producer of Altered Carbon, set in one of the most imaginatively realised future worlds yet seen on television.

We interviewed Blackman, along with the main star of Umbrella Academy, Ellen Page, who was acclaimed for her roles in Juno, Inception and the X-Men movies.

The key message was that this is not television as usual. And it is not superheroes as usual. The first question asked of Blackman and Page, was whether the dysfunctional family was the factor that drew them to becoming involved.

“To me, that is the show,” was Page’s instant response. Blackman echoed her: “That was the key to the show. We’re trying to avoid the tropes of the superhero world but what brought me to this, it really is about a family. It’s a show about a dysfunctional family trying to reconnect.”

Page believes many viewers will see themselves in different ways in all the characters. “When we meet all the characters, they are struggling with pretty intense issues. And I would imagine probably people in varying degrees can all relate to that. Their powers are an extension of their difficulties and I just thought all of that was really quite beautiful.”

Ellen Page in The Umbrella Academy. Picture: Netflix

She didn’t know anything about the comic book before being cast as Vanya, the one sibling who starts off with no obvious power. But she immediately fell in love with it.

“I couldn’t stop turning the pages and when it ended with those two lines, ‘the world’s gonna end, I’ll put on a pot of coffee’, fade to black, cut to black, I was just like: ‘Oh my goodness, I want to know what happens next.’ That’s a great sign. I immediately identified with Vanya, even before I talked to Steve.”

The key question we put to Page, however, was not about the role. Rather, given the impending war between Netflix and the venerable Disney studio, we wanted to know how different it is working with Netflix, compared to working with traditional big studios. It turns out that, for her, the smallest difference was the big difference.

“This might sound really small but it’s really significant and extremely important to me. And it’s clothing. I just was like, ‘I need to have Vanya dress exactly as I want and not have any conversation about it.’ This was a conversation at the very beginning and I’ve never had an experience that was that easy.

“That’s representative of so many other things. They take more risks. I find Netflix in those capacities was a really wonderful experience. It’s been really, truly, absolutely wonderful making the show – one of my favourites ever.”

For Blackman, who as showrunner has creative, as well as management, control of the series, Netflix was also a breath of fresh air.

The Umbrella Academy. Picture: Netflix

“They’re very creatively supportive. I never felt that until I worked for Netflix a company saying to me, ‘what can we do to help your vision?’ as opposed to saying, ‘how can we support advertisers?’ Netflix doesn’t operate that way, they don’t need to do that. They have a subscriber model so there’s no need to do product placement.

“In traditional studios, they ask: ‘How do we shift your vision?’. “Here, they support a vision. I wanted Ellen and all the actors to feel very comfortable and safe creatively and I felt the same way with the network. It’s a big difference.”

Even the way the soundtrack is handled is distinctly different to the typical movie or series, where music serves as background. Given Gerard Way’s involvement – he was a regular visitor to the set – it’s not surprising that music lives in the foreground of the series.

“Music is a big part of my life,” says Blackman. “It was very important to me to make it feel like a character. So we didn’t just put in little needle drops of twenty seconds of music. We really wanted to play an entire song. We really wanted to evoke emotion. So I found songs that counterpointed what was going on.”

Clearly, viewers will take many experiences from the show. Page felt it spoke to her personally. “To me, it’s talking about something important. This girl has dealt with so much pain in her life and it has manifested in thinking it’s her fault.

“She feels utterly worthless and, especially at the beginning, is numb and almost trapped in her mind. And she has to go on a journey to learn the truth about herself and that can be so painful.

The Umbrella Academy. Picture: Netflix

“I think it’s the most important thing we can do for ourselves, but it’s painful to open that stuff up. Especially not getting the support that she needs. It literally explodes in the level of anger and rage that she’s never allowed to be in touch with. I think that’s a lot of people’s experience.”

Blackman feels this applies to all the very flawed characters: “They’re all fighting to find themselves, and be true to themselves. They’ve all been stunted by a father who abused them and was not a good father and now they’re trying to overcome all that damage from that parental upbringing.”

Ultimately, however, the biggest challenge was how to hook an audience that can choose from thousands of pieces of streaming content at the click of a button. Blackman was not immune.

“There is tremendous pressure in the streaming environment to lock in an audience. To make an audience stick around. So every episode had a great ending to make you go, ‘I don’t care if it’s midnight or one in the morning, I’m going to keep watching this show’.

“So it was important, and I thought that through in the beginning, to keep people excited to come back. I do feel that I succeeded. I think you’ll want to come back for more.”

Arthur Goldstuck is founder of World Wide Worx and editor-in-chief of Gadget.co.za Follow him on Twitter and Instagram on @art2gee

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