Vanya Hargreeves, AKA The White Violin, is one of the most fascinating members of the Umbrella Academy. She's also by far the most powerful, which has led to some pretty unfortunate events in both the comic books and the Netflix live-action series based on them. As the most iconic member of the team visually, she's a good barometer for the differences and similarities between the acclaimed show and its source material.
The first two seasons of the Umbrella Academy show have featured some pretty dramatic differences from the comics, but what about Vanya herself? How is she different, or the same?
10 Same: Powers
Vanya's core power has to do with sound. She creates enormous waves of destructive force and pressure with them, which leads to pretty cosmic consequences in both the show and the comic books. She comes to be known as the White Violin for a few reasons, but the main one is that the instrument focuses her power in the comics. It essentially serves as an amplifier of her sonic ability, which is already considerable; it would certainly rank her well above the sonic-scream of Banshee from Marvel Comics.
9 Different: The Presentation
Though her power set is the same from the comics, there are some key differences in how the show presents them. In the comic books, written by Gerard Way and illustrated by Gabriel Bá, Vanya is only able to create her sound waves through music. In the show, she can generate them through any sound at all, which makes her much more powerful and dangerous. She doesn't need the violin to focus her powers, either. Vanya herself is simply the instrument of sound, a living tuning fork that amplifies ambient sonic waves.
8 Same: Tell-All Biography
Tell-all biographies from comic book characters are rare - though not impossible (Captain Marvel wrote one!). Vanya Hargreaves wrote such a book detailing her difficult experience at The Academy with the other six children after she left. This book exists in both the comics and the television show and serves to drive another wedge between the family of superpowered siblings. Vanya resents the way she was mistreated by her family, and they resent being dragged in public. Eventually, everyone makes peace with each other (mostly).
7 Different: The Orchestra Verdammten
When The White Violin (also known as Seven) leaves The Academy, she falls under the sway of a character named The Conductor. At least in the comic books. The leader of the Orchestra Verdammten reveals her true nature and power to her, and she ends up killing him (to be fair, he wanted her to destroy the earth). In the show, this plays out differently. The Conductor is someone else, and the orchestra is different, too.
The Conductor is replaced in the show by a character named Leonard Peabody (really Harold, it's complicated). The Orchestra Verdammten becomes really just a backdrop for the dramatic scene where Vanya unleashes her power.
6 Same: Ostracized
The reason Vanya ends up falling under the sway of The Conductor and in the show Leonard is that she believes she's unwanted and unvalued by her family because she has no powers. Reginald Hargreaves, the eccentric and mysterious billionaire responsible for the formation of The Academy, convinces her she has none. This is an elaborate ruse designed to prevent her from ever accessing her considerable powers - greater than anyone else among the group - and creating great destruction, which she eventually does.
5 Different: Appearance
The comic book look of The White Violin ranks as one of the best costumes of the modern era (not counting weird ones that only exist as toys) but Vanya largely abandons it for the live-action adaptation. In the comics, Vanya slowly and literally becomes the violin, her physical form changing from a simple costume to a bizarre hybrid. In the show, her suit changes from black to white, but she doesn't actually wear a spandex costume and doesn't change into a violin (though her eyes change, which was spooky enough).
4 Same: Amnesia
As disaster unfolds in the wake of Vanya discovering her powers for the first time (it's a surprise for everybody), her siblings try to stop her from destroying the world. In the process, she's incapacitated and suffers amnesia. Number Five does in the comics, shooting her in the back of the head (ouch), but in the show, it plays out differently. In the show, Number 3 shoots to the side of her head, which distracts Vanya, and then she's also hit by a car. Not her day. Her amnesia plays a critical role in the next chapter of the story for both comics and the show.
3 Different: Sexuality
A major change for Vanya's character occurs in season two. She spends most of the Dallas arc in the comics unconscious and plays no significant role in the plot of the story. The show improves on this by bringing her along to 1963 and putting her in the company of a young woman named Sissy. The two fall in love, providing Vanya a lot more depth as a character and an opportunity for the show to grow as well.
Exploring issues of being LGBTQ in the decidedly conservative environment of Texas in 1963 gives the show a new color that the comic books never attempted.
2 Same: Goodnight, Moon
The centerpiece of the first Umbrella Academy arc in the comics and the first season of the show is Vanya's discovering her powers. The result is the same in both: the destruction of the moon. The sonic power she creates with her violin proves so tremendous it literally blows the Earth's only natural satellite out of the sky. This of course is not good and leads to going back in time to try and stop it. That doesn't go so well either, and which is either tragic or hilarious or both. It's kind of hard to tell with the show sometimes.
1 Different: The Apocalypse
The show doubles down on its apocalypse with the end of season two. Vanya causes the calamity in the comics, mostly. The orchestra played the "Apocalypse Suite" to get it started with the help of Vanya's powers. In the series, Vanya sets off the apocalypse with her powers after fighting her siblings. But she's completely off the hook for the nuclear war that occurs in the final episode of season two, which results from the machinations of a group called The Commission with no connection to the comics, either. No such war happens in the comics.