A Fan's Playground

I got Umbrella Academy: Apocalypse Suite and Umbrella Academy: Dallas out of the library today, because Gerard Way. And so of course I read them immediately. (I read the first half of Apocalypse Suite while walking home, because I'm impatient like that. And very practiced at reading-while-walking.)

Two thoughts:

1. It is exactly the sort of thing I would expect Gerard Way to write, based on what I know about him...from...reading fanfic about him. Um.

2. It is way better than I expected.

It is really awesome, but also really weird. It is a story about dysfunctional family, and also about time travel, and also about music destroying the world. It's clever, and silly, and dark, and imaginative, and really well written. And it also made me have feelings all over the place, mostly about the dysfunctional family stuff.

There's clearly all sorts of fascinating history and backstory and complicated relationships with these characters and their family, which hasn't been explored, and it's all done in just enough detail to make it feel like a real, full life, but all of it leaving you desperately wanting to know more. Also it leaves you desperately wanting to punch Dr Hargreeves in the face a lot....

And the AO3 has fifteen whole fics about Umbrella Academy! Schweet. I hope one of them's about ( minor spoilers. )