On July 31 2020, Netflix released the long awaited second season of The Umbrella Academy. Along with it, Netflix released a podcast series on Spotify that will release weekly episodes every Wednesday starting from July 29 until August 26, featuring spoiler filled discussions with the creators of the graphic novel, Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, along with series creator Steve Blackman and many other cast and crew members. With the first episode of the podcast out, let's look over what was discussed, including the origins of the comic and show.

Luther's Origins

Luther in The Umbrella Academy Season 2

In 1953, 25 year old director Phil Tucker released a low budget sci-fi film about a monster who terrorizes a town called Robot Monster. Due to the low budget, Tucker had the "monster" in a gorilla suit with a TV set for a head. The film was wildly panned as one of the worst films of all time. In the early 2000s, a young Gerard Way saw a picture of the monster and was inspired to create a superhero based on the gorilla-bodied-tv-headed creature, thus giving life to Luther aka Space Boy.

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Gerard Way's Origins

Gerard Way from My Chemical Romance

While Way is most famous for his revolutionary voice as the lead singer of My Chemical Romance, he attended art school as an Illustration Cartooning major with a dream to be a comic book artist. He interned at DC and pitched a cartoon to Cartoon Network before finding a job as a toy creator in Hoboken, NJ. Shortly after that, his side hustle, My Chemical Romance, took off into mega stardom, halting his comic dream for a while.

Umbrella Academy Origins

When Way decided to finally make a comic series, he started off by making a list of everything that interested him. From that list he chose some of his favorites and created characters based off them. In order, he created Luther, Klaus, Allison, Diego, Number 5, Ben and Vanya. While on the road with MCR, he saw his band become a dysfunctional family which helped him with the development of his characters, making them a dysfunctional family that almost paralleled his band. Way mentioned Allison as the easiest character to write as he saw a lot of himself in her; meanwhile Klaus held some of Way's interests in the supernatural and his history with addiction. Way also stated that Klaus was his own version of Doctor Strange.

Related: The Umbrella Academy Creator Steve Blackman Talks All Things Season 2

Vanya's Origins

Way was sitting in Sidewalk Cafe in Manhattan, and he saw a white violin on a wall as decoration and thought it would be a cool name for a superhero. Thus the character Vanya was created, who was always going to start off ordinary before transforming into a threat later in the series.

Gabriel Bá

Brazilian comic book artist Gabriel Bá along with his twin brother Fábio Moon decided in the mid 90s to stop doing superhero comics and start working on more grounded stories that tackled day to day relationships; however, that was until Way approached them with the idea for The Umbrella Academy. Bá appreciated that The Umbrella Academy was a superhero comic with a day to day relationship aspect, so he signed on to help bring Way's vision to life. Way loved Bá's realistic art style that went against the American, super muscular style of heroes. The Umbrella Academy also became the first paid job that Bá and Moon would do in America after spending a decade working for royalties.

Related: How The Umbrella Academy Sets Up Season 3

Critical Response

The press was not too fond of Way, a rock star, trying his hand at comic books despite his major in school or his 15 years of experience with comics. However, once the comic was released, the press were over the moon with the work, and The Umbrella Academy even won an Eisner Award. Way was approached to turn his comic into a film but spent too long working on the development of it. Eventually, Netflix approached him to turn The Umbrella Academy into a series, which Way agreed to, but he did not want to be the showrunner since he wanted to spend his time working on the comic, which is is when Steve Blackman came in.

Steve Blackman

Blackman is an expert in TV adaptation, working on Fargo, Legion and Altered Carbon. Blackman had to prove to Way and Bá that he was the right man for the job and that he would respect the work put into The Umbrella Academy. Way knew Blackman had a different vision for the show but loved it, allowing Blackman to run with his ideas. Blackman also told Way early on that he wanted to subvert expectations as there was an influx of superhero shows coming in, so he wanted The Umbrella Academy to be something vastly different from anything else. Way loved everything Blackman was introducing, especially introducing Ben as a ghost attached to Klaus.

The Umbrella Academy stars Ellen Page, Tom Hopper, David Castañeda, Emmy Raver-Lampman, Robert Sheehan, Aidan Gallagher and Justin H. Min, with Ritu Arya, Yusuf Gatewood, Marin Ireland, Jordan Claire Robbins, Kate Walsh and Colm Feore. Season 2 is now streaming on Netflix.

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