The Umbrella Academy, the comic-book series created by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá, is coming back with a new story this summer.
READ MORE: Why is The Umbrella Academy ending?
As reported in Variety, the new story will be titled The Umbrella Academy: Plan B and will focus on The Sparrows – a group of seven children born on the same day who are counterparts to those in the Umbrella Academy.
The official description reads: “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 favour of their sole objective—control and the obedient glare that comes with it.”
Plan B is co-written by My Chemical Romance frontman Way and Bá, who also illustrates. Issue #1 will be released on June 11 via Dark Horse Comics, and will feature six variant covers illustrated by different artists.
Speaking to Variety about continuing The Umbrella Academy comics, Way said: “Telling this story with Gabriel would become, as it is today, such a special part of my life. 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 [first comic-book in the series] Apocalypse Suite.”
Netflix adapted the original The Umbrella Academy comics into a TV series starring Elliot Page, Robert Sheehan, Tom Hopper and more, which ran for four seasons from 2019 to 2024. The Sparrows popped up in season three, played by Justin Cornwell, Britne Oldford, Genesis Rodriguez, Cazzie David and Jake Epstein.
The final season earned a four-star review from NME, with Ali Shutler writing: “The writers make the most of this opportunity by bringing everything to a satisfying conclusion which answers long-standing questions that span the show’s entire lifetime. The Umbrella Academy, we’re pleased to say, goes out with a weird, wonderful bang.”
With regard to how storylines from the Netflix show could tie in to the new Plan B comic, Bá told Variety: “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.”
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