Fandom in Context: Umbrella Academy’s Fandom Protect Each Other From The Rain

In many ways, The Umbrella Academy isn’t that different from the half-century of X-Men stories we know and love. It follows an angsty young superhero team dealing with society’s ills and interpersonal relationships while trying to save the world from imminent destruction. But look past the superficiality of superhero stories. You’ll find a young fandom clinging to The Umbrella Academy‘s themes of alienation, trauma and dysfunctional families in a way that feels fresh and honest. Much like their heroes, this fan base finds comfort in each other, building a welcoming space from the ground up.

For the uninitiated, The Umbrella Academy is a superhero franchise created by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way and artist Gabriel Bá. Released as a comic book in 2007, Way and Bá introduced readers to the young protégés of eccentric billionaire Sir Reginald Hargreeves. Each of the Hargreeves’ adopted children was born simultaneously to different women around the world, and none of those women were pregnant at the time of labor. You read that correctly: None of the women that gave birth to the Umbrella Academy were pregnant before giving birth. But to say Hargreeves raised these seven kids would be giving him too much credit. His cruel tutelage helped develop their superpowers, but that came at a heavy psychological toll. His adopted children were nothing more than tools to him. He called them by numerical names (Number One, Number Two, Number Five), which further dehumanized them, and kept them in his massive compound, forcing them to risk their lives in the world’s service. The experience left the team emotionally damaged and antagonistic with each other. The Netflix series, which premiered in 2019, begins with Hargreeves’ death, showing how his students process the loss of their abusive father figure before even digging into the superhero stuff.

The Umbrella Academy‘s popularity isn’t hard to understand. The Netflix series leans on the “not-your-daddy’s” X-Men vibe. Never aiming for the socio-political heights of HBO’s Watchmen nor the teen melodrama of CW’s Riverdale, Umbrella Academy plants its flag as the preeminent misfit superhero show. Umbrella Academy has several distinctive personalities for fans to latch on to, colorful costumes to cosplay and an anarchic tone to keep things light even when the subject matter is dark. The show is perfect for Tumblr, Discord and TikTok, where the show’s fans congregate to geek out over their new favorite series.

The Netflix series accepted more fans to the Academy than ever before. “I first heard about The Umbrella Academy from a close friend of mine,” says Ashley, an 18-year-old graphic design student, who launched an Umbrella Academy Discord server in March 2019. “She would gush about the storyline, the twists and spoilers that were probably hard to conceal at that time, and, of course, how attractive some of the actors are.” After taking a “which character are you” quiz, and finding out that she was the talking chimp Pogo (forgot to mention, there’s a talking chimp named Pogo on the show), she decided to drop everything and watch. “That very weekend, I got hooked and binged it fast, eventually watching it a second time with family members.”

But the show is more than its quirky characters, says Ashley. “I feel that with some other media you watch, it is something that you enjoy while it is in front of you, but it eventually fades from memory, but with The Umbrella Academy, there are so, so many layers to unpack from the whirlwind of the first season. Elements like time travel, romance side plots, sibling bantering, action scenes, dark comedy, and mysteries to unravel that all lie under this umbrella (ha, pun) of an impending apocalypse is something that constantly keeps myself and other fans hooked and busy.”

Those layers pay off dividends as fans go online and discover a slew of activities to dive into. From cosplay to roleplay, Umbrella Academy_’s fan base are active participants in the story that keep their fandom lively. “I have been involved in other fandoms, mainly video games like Overwatch and “_Darkest Dungeon“:/memes/subcultures/darkest-dungeon/,” says cosplayer and roleplayer Odd.rolls, who we spoke to on “7 Emotionally Stunted Manbabies”, an Umbrella Academy Discord server. “The thing with a TV series is that it doesn’t get constantly updated like a game does, so I think that TV show fandoms are full of creatives due to the content ‘dry phase’ TV shows have.” According to Odd.rolls, the show’s themes allow fans to discuss real-life issues, helping it stand out from the rest. “I do think that since the TV show sort of normalizes the concept of ‘it’s okay to be who you are, even if you’ve been through bad things; you’ll come out stronger,’ the TUA fandom is super open to discussing real life […] Some fandoms I’ve been in only want to focus on the fandom and the fandom only.” Using their discussion of the show, fans learn the language for talking about their own issues, allowing them to form real connections with each other.

The “dry phases” that TV shows experience encourage creativity within the TUA community. Roleplaying servers on Discord have taken to TUA like Number Two to a throwing knife. Since there are only 20 episodes of the series and 24 issues of the comic, fans roleplay new scenarios, writing a type of collaborative fan fiction on the servers. “Most servers either let you claim a canon character,” explains Odd.rolls. “After you claim or make a character, you get a fancy role that lets you access the roleplay channels.”

“Roleplaying is basically collaborative storytelling. Each of us in a scene writes from the point of view of one character, and we react to each other char’s actions. Sometimes, each scene is part of an overarching plot, and other times we’re doing scenes just for ‘What would happen if we put [x character] and [y character] in a room? Let’s write it out!'”

Like the show, the fandom isn’t all sunshine and roses. Orion, a mod on an Umbrella Academy Discord server, says the same problems that plague all fandoms find their way into TUA. “Fandoms inherently are going to have some super bad takes, and the TUA fandom is no different,” they explain. “There are incest shippers, pedophilia shippers, homophobic people, people who hate/bash a character for immature reasons, etc., but there are people who take the show at face value, and those are the people that I like to surround myself with. TUA is flawed, it has some really bad takes and it represents some things very poorly, but I still love it.”

The ragtag team of superheroes, despite their many differences, find unity in their shared history and trauma. The show foregrounds the superhero drama with the team’s history and experiences, structuring storylines about their personalities first and their superpowers second. To TUA fans, this distinguishes itself from the Iron Men and Wonder Women of the world. “TUA is about superheroes, but at its core it is not a superhero story,” writes Salem, an animator from California. If DC Comics is about the grittiness of superheroes, and Marvel’s about the witty banter between characters, then Umbrella Academy is about being a human. And that’s something everyone in the Umbrella Academy has in common (well, except for Pogo, the talking chimp). “The focus of TUA is not all the crazy world-ending plot points, but the humanity of the characters and the reality of growing up in an abusive and dysfunctional household. It’s this raw humanity that sets it apart.”

That humanity binds the fans together. Talking about the characters’ emotional challenges allows fans to do the same. It’s not only about the flashy costumes and feats of strength but also the toll those things take. Fans of the show relate to The Umbrella Academy‘s focus on the internal struggle because they can see themselves in the characters, each one distinct in how they process their past. “It’s easy to see Superman as Superman, and you know his weakness is Kryptonite,” says Odd.rolls, “but TUA explores ‘inner kryptonite’ and inner weakness. Each character deals with their own trauma in different ways.”