The Streaming Wars rage on, with old-school movie and TV distributors twitching on the battlefield as Netflix, Amazon, and Hulu march on. There’s already one upside: Movies and shows that wouldn’t have been made just a few years ago—because their audiences would be too small, because their budgets would be too big, because their stories would be too weird—are getting cranked out faster than anyone can watch them. As streaming services burn money to build libraries, they’re taking chances. Which brings us to Netflix’s The Umbrella Academy.
Based on the stylish, punchy comic written by My Chemical Romance singer Gerard Way and drawn by Brazilian artist Gabriel Bá, The Umbrella Academy begins in October 1989, when 43 children are unexpectedly born—“unexpectedly” as in “their mothers weren’t pregnant until they suddenly gave birth.”
