Netflix‘s The Umbrella Academy has come to an end after four seasons. Because it’s an adaptation of Gerard Way (of My Chemical Romance fame) and Gabriel Bá’s graphic novels, fans are debating how the show’s ending compared to that of the comics—and what this means for the IP going forward.
Related: Here are The Umbrella Academy’s powers, ranked
Series creator Steve Blackman confirmed that the fourth season would be its last. “When I started this thing, I sort of knew four seasons of the show,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “I have nothing passed that in my brain, but I’ve sort of kept to a trajectory. So, I have a really good sense of what season four would be, and it should be just as bonkers as the other seasons—what a challenge these superheroes, this family has being powerless.”
The biggest difference between the TV show and the comics is the simple fact that the story of the Hargreeves siblings—Viktor (Elliot Page), Luther (Tom Hopper), Diego (David Castañeda), Alison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Klaus (Robert Sheehan), Ben (Justin H. Min), and Five (Aidan Gallagher)—has come to its natural conclusion in an apocalyptic finale.
The twist was that despite their best efforts to save the world, the Hargreeves were the reason the world kept ending. Their powers were never meant to exist in the first place, and Five understood that the only way to save the universe was to let the cleanse consume them and their marigolds, not just killing them but erasing them from history.
Hopper told Comic Book TV that fans would be satisfied with the “complete” ending the show provided. “I don’t think fans will be disappointed with how it ends. Whether they’ll be a little bit sad and broken, I don’t know, because it was certainly emotional for us as actors doing it,” he said.
In contrast to the comics, the story of The Umbrella Academy is far from over. In fact, Way has alluded to the comics being eight or nine volumes, and so far, four have been released. Interestingly, the way the TV show deviated from the novels has informed its future in print.
“Well, for starters, there’s no graphic novel for what we would call season four and while our series is coming to a close, Gerard Way and Gabriel Ba are actually working on their next volume, and they have a pretty good roadmap of where the story is going for many years to come,” showrunner Blackman told The Mirror UK.
“That said, we have deviated from their version and, in a wonderful way, they’re making changes based on what we’re doing in the TV series. So, we’re symbiotic in some ways. But there are major elements—like The Cleanse and The Jennifer Incident—that are entirely from Gerard and Gabriel.”
With regard to how the show deviated, he explained that Way has “been so kind throughout this process and was very gracious about the different paths we took,” Blackman said. “He said, ‘Look, I love it. Do what you want to do. Go where you want to go.’”
