If You're In A Storm, You Might Need An Umbrella

I read comic books.

There I said it. Long before I found graphic novels and manga, I ponied-up the coin for the latest issues of everything from Silver Surfer to The Scarlet Witch. I would come home with stacks of them from the milk crates set out at rummage sales and flea markets.

My favorite?

The X-Men, hands down.

You better believe I watched the first film adaptation on opening night, 6 rows from front, dead-center, with a popcorn bucket the size of my head and a soda I could drown in. By myself.

Like you do.

Now, I’m not a snob or anything. I’ve been there for big screen gems like Black Panther and a little small screen home run called The Punisher, as well as a massive catalog of others. Some fantastic, others not so much.

But here’s the thing, as the sequels and remakes and new makes piled up, I started to get a little bored. Blasphemy, I know.

Maybe it’s because I was no longer the nerdy little girl hiding under a castle made of blankets voraciously reading issue after issue of Batman, always rooting for The Joker by the way, with a flashlight.

Or.

Hear me out.

Maybe it had something to do with wanting to watch the human personifications of my childhood fantasy worlds grow like I had. You know, to have flaws they sometimes couldn’t overcome? Or icky feelings that felt more human than superhuman? I don’t know really.

Or maybe it had something to do with the sometimes confusing way the characters I connected with so much on the ink laden pages of the comics seemed to be getting flatter and more one dimensional as the business of Hollywood and making money took over.

So, all of this adult-me driven X-Men angst lead me to an adaptation of a lesser known graphic novel series written by a very well known musician, My Chemical Romance frontman, Gerard Way.

It’s called . . . .[insert drum roll for dramatic effect]

The Umbrella Academy.

Somehow, this series produced for and available on Netflix, ticked all of the boxes that had been left unchecked for so many iterations of my beloved X-Men ( and others).

First, it’s dark.

Yeah, I know, comics are often dark. The X-Men can be very dark and no one can ever claim that The Dark Knight series, directed by Christopher Nolan, is light fare.

The darkness in this series is different. It’s bleak and raw and very very human.

But it also has humor and lightness, none of which the character’s superpowers have anything to do with.

It tackles very real human battles like addiction, isolation and the breakdown and dysfunction of family, all while taking on larger themes of good versus evil, abuse, war, time travel and the apocalypse.

The characters feel like people I know. They feel like who I am. From the repressed, adamant Daddy’s boy to the 68 year old smart-ass stuck in a 13 year old’s body, I feel like they could be my friends. They feel less special and more like a misfit band of siblings who have been royally screwed by their arguably abusive adopted father.

Like any one of them could lose, at any moment. And they do. They lose love and loved-ones and asteroid-sized chunks of their sanity.

Color me sold!

The tightly woven, intricate plot and gorgeous, mood setting cinematography are just cherries on top of a beautifully layered and tooth-sweet delicious cake made from relatable yet still fantastical characters.

Now, don’t you worry. I still adore all those crazy kids . . . errr, adults . . . .wait kids . . . okay, okay it depends on which film you’re watching, but I do still love all those who grace the halls of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Especially Rogue. Yes, I wanted to be Rogue.

However, I firmly believe there is enough room for both a school full of mutants and a school full of dysfunctional “super” humans.

I don’t know, maybe give it a watch. The first two seasons are available for your bingeing pleasure on Netflix and the third is in production as I write this.