My Chemical Romance vocalist Gerard Way has announced that he and illustrator Gabriel Bá have reunited for another go at The Umbrella Academy graphic novels, with a new spinoff edition — focused on the Sparrows — titled The Umbrella Academy: Plan B arriving through Dark Horse Comics in June.
Bá and Way co-wrote the effort, which is coloured by Dave Stewart and lettered by Nate Piekos. Issue No. 1 will arrive with cover variants by Fabio Moon, Claire Roe, Mike del Mundo, Duncan Fegredo, David Aja and Jill Thompson.
"Telling this story with Gabriel would become, as it is today, such a special part of my life," Way said in a release. "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 Apocalypse Suite."
Bá shared, "We were in the middle of making Hotel Oblivion when the whole Netflix thing started, which injected us with a new boost of energy to keep on telling our story, given the huge interest that the show brought to the original comics. We never actually stopped working on the new material, but the pandemics were a blow we were not expecting. It took us some time to get back on our feet and work on the new scripts. We really love this comic and it helped us get through this."
A synopsis 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.
Netflix's Elliot Page-starring, Ontario-shot, four-season adaption of the comics concluded last summer.