“The Umbrella Academy” is coming back this June with a new story told in its original comic-book medium from creators Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá and Dark Horse Comics.
Per the description for “The Umbrella Academy: Plan B,” “After the mass release of The City’s greatest foes and the chaos that followed in Hotel Oblivion, the Umbrella Academy faces their most fearsome challenge to date–their other brothers and sisters. Known only as The Sparrows, they share a different connection to Sir Reginald Hargreeves and Mom. No one knows how to hurt each other more than family, and this powerful, ruthless brood will spare no brutality in favor of their sole objective—control and the obedient glare that comes with it.”
The new comic is co-written by Way and Bá (who also illustrates), colored by Dave Stewart and lettered by Nate Piekos.
It will be released June 11 and is currently available for preorder for $4.99.
Dark Horse says Issue #1 will feature six variant covers illustrated by artists including Fabio Moon, Claire Roe, Mike del Mundo, Duncan Fegredo, David Aja and Jill Thompson.
“Telling this story with Gabriel would become, as it is today, such a special part of my life,” Way told Variety about continuing “The Umbrella Academy” comics. “This is not only because we would evolve as artists— but because we had the opportunity to grow up over a pretty crazy adventure together. Each chapter of this story seems to form and coalesce into its own organism— sometimes it’s a screaming baby on a subway car, other times a great big metal bird falling from the sky — and because of this, I am just as excited for ‘Plan B’ as I was when we went on this trip together with ‘Apocalypse Suite.’”
Netflix’s TV series adaptation of Way and Bá’s “The Umbrella Academy” comics ended its four season run last August. During that time, the comics weren’t regularly coming out with new issues.
“Comics are our passion and it’s where we have complete freedom to tell the story the best way we can,” Bá told Variety. “We were in the middle of making ‘Hotel Oblivion’ when the whole Netflix thing started, which injected us with a new boost of energy to keep on telling our story, given the huge interest that the show brought to the original comics. We never actually stopped working on the new material, but the pandemics were a blow we were not expecting. It took us some time to get back on our feet and work on the new scripts. We really love this comic and it helped us get through this.”
In regards to how storylines from the Netflix adaptation could come into play in the “Plan B” comic, which focuses on The Sparrows, which were featured in the TV series, Bá said: “Just as it happened with every season of the show, they took elements from our original story and worked it out into telling it their way. They used ideas we haven’t done yet, but differently than we originally intended for the comics. And that’s the fun of the show, in my opinion. It began very similar, but it grew to become a completely different thing, even though it has some elements that are the same. So we might see things in the comics that have appeared on the show, like the Sparrows, but the reader will soon be reminded what makes our comics so unique and why we love this medium so much.”
See first-look photos of the new “Umbrella Academy” comic’s variant covers below.
