The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion

Gerard Way & Gabriel Bá
The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion (2019)
Some time has passed since the first two instalments of the story, so I hope to God there'll be more to follow - as I seem to recall being the promise - and that this isn't the end of the saga, called back into publication by the popularity of its own television adaptation; and I hope to God specifically because it's wonderful, and also because it ends on a truly peculiar note which only raises further questions.

The first series of the television adaptation was sort of decent - albeit as a haphazard mash up of the first two books leaving the second series without much to do, hence the application of creative license, but the creative license of corporate telly imagineers which left the thing looking a bit of a dog's dinner and another one for the Tim Burton skip of mannered eccentricity. Picking up this volume and reminding oneself of what the source material does really brings home what a poor second the television adaptation was, even during its better moments. Its true - as has been said - that Gerard Way tends to expect his audience to pay attention, so we don't get anything spelled out and the reader is required to either remember who everyone is, or at least skip back to remind themselves every once in a while; but the effort we put in is rewarded. As with - off the top of my head - Pat Mills' Marshall Law, this isn't quite a superhero book in the traditional sense because the caped types are mostly extras, part of the landscape more than anything - something weird half-seen around a corner rather than pinned out in the glare of yet another headachey origin story; and it works because, aside from anything, the artwork is fucking gorgeous - sort of like Jack Kirby if he'd been born in France or summink.

Hotel Oblivion is grade one Surrealism in the truest sense - as distinct from what usually passes for the same these days - and feels very much like a graphic equivalent to Cocteau's Orphée and its type what with half of its narrative spent somewhere which feels very much like a modern take on some underworld from classical mythology; and it has themes, mostly pertaining to abandonment, shitty parenting and so on. There's a lot to get your teeth into if you're prepared to put in the work. I just hope this isn't the end of it.