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Have you watched The Umbrella Academy on Netflix? If not, save this article for later and go watch it. It’s only ten 1-hour long episodes, so it shouldn’t take you too long. Now, this article may get into some spoiler territory with Umbrella Academy Season 1, and may have a few potential spoilers for future seasons due to some information from the comics. But with that out of the way, let’s get started!
So in episode one, a flashback shows us that on October 1st, 1989, 43 children were born simultaneously across the world to woman who were not pregnant when they woke up in the morning. The women all conceived, carried, and birthed the children in a matter of minutes. Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a very affluent man, seeks these children out in order to adopt them and raise them, thinking they’re special. He is able to find seven of them, and these seven become The Umbrella Academy, a team of superheroes trained and raised by Hargreeves, his monkey butler, Pogo, and the kids’ robot nanny or “mom”, Grace.
And with this setup, we get to the topic of our article. What happened to the other 36 children? For clues, I looked to the comics. In them, I discovered that not all of these children survived. Some died in childbirth, while others were abandoned by their mothers and died from neglect. But this couldn’t have happened to all the children, now could it?
This question is never answered in the show, and as of yet, it remains unanswered in the comics as well.
So what do I think happened to the others? Well I’m not sure, entirely. I believe that they all ended up with superpowers. But if that’s the case, why don’t we hear of other heroes or villains then? I mean, we do hear of a few villains, but none really coming around with superpowers that appear to be the same age as the Academy.
Wild speculation on my part leads me to believe that another chunk of the children, without the guidance of Hargreeves to control their powers, might have gotten themselves killed due to their powers. With powers out there like Vanya’s, which is easily exploited by Leonard to hurt people, it wouldn’t be a surprise if some of these children got themselves killed.
Then others, like Klaus, may have had powers that were extremely troubling to them, which could easily lead them to drugs, which seem to dampen powers if Vanya and Klaus are anything to go off of. Even worse, these individuals could have ended up resorting to suicide as a solution to their troubles.
Finally others were probably institutionalized, as claiming to have superpowers tends to lead people to believe that you’re mentally unstable.
Regardless of what happened to these other kids, I’m sure in the following seasons of the show and issues of the comic, more will come to light on these superpowered individuals. We may even see some! And for that, I’m very excited.
Do you have any theories about the remaining 36 (or however many are left) in The Umbrella Academy? Maybe theories about the show in general? Let us know here at The Cinema Spot and follow us on Twitter and Instagram!
Lief Brandgard
