Our new favourite …
BOXSET
What’s it called?
The Umbrella Academy
What’s it about?
Based on a series of graphic novels by Gabriel Ba and Gerard Way it follows the lives of seven children with various superpowers who are adopted by a billionaire industrialist to be shaped into a crime-fighting force. Things don’t quite turn out the way he planned – kids, eh? – but when said billionaire dies in mysterious circumstances the now adult superheroes re-convene at his palatial home, bringing their family grievances and unburied hatchets with them. Oh, and one of them who has been missing for 17 years emerges through some sort of spatial anomaly wormhole thing wearing shorts and still aged 13 and says the world’s going to end in a week.
Who’s in it?
Top billing goes to Ellen Page, who plays Kitty Pryde in X-Men: Days Of Future Past and was nominated for an Oscar for her role in Juno. However British audiences will recognise Robert Sheehan, star of Channel 4’s MisFits (which had a not dissimilar storyline to The Umbrella Academy) and if you’re a fan of R&B keep an eye out for Grammy Award-winning singer Mary J Blige. She plays an assassin called Cha-Cha.
Best bits so far?
Any scene featuring Sheehan’s cross-dressing, drug-guzzling, booze-addled rake Klaus, whose special power is his ability to communicate with the dead.
Where can I find it?
Season one began streaming on Netflix last month.
Fun fact …
Gerard Way was formerly lead singer with emo faves My Chemical Romance.
For fans of ...
MisFits, X-Men, soulful hip-hop
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