Cinema Suicide

I don’t typically cover the whole super hero thing up in here because it’s such a mainstream machine these days, but one of the last Capes books that I read and actually liked was Umbrella Academy, out on Dark Horse written by My Chemical Romance frontman, Gerard Way. Most Marvel and DC heroes only flirt with the true dark side, they stay comfortably in the black and white confines of their world where bad guys are clearly bad guys and good guys are always good guys even when they gnash their teeth and brood.  Umbrella Academy didn’t seem to care about any of that and dove into the Alan Moore world of deeply flawed characters trying to do right while struggling with some seriously heavy character flaws.  It was surprisingly well written by a guy from a freakin’ rock band (and a background in comics) and the art was great in that kind of modern comic strip style that you see creeping into comic books everywhere.  It was genuinely good stuff.

Gerard Way was up in that Spike TV Scream 2008 awards show spilling the beans to just about anyone who would listen about Universal optioning the series for a feature film and the crew to drop the news was IESB who also reveal that Universal suggested Juno (a feature I wasn’t particularly feeling) pen, Diablo Cody and that Way is pushing for Children of Men/City of God director, Alfonso Cuaron as a possible director.  Is any of this in stone?  Are the wheels actually turning?  According to io9, the answer is no.  As a matter of fact, the option is out there but nothing is in writing.  Way just seems to be really excited about the prospect and is going crazy on the press about it.  Way has allegedly spoken with wardrobe consultant, Colleen Atwood (Sweeney Todd) about hooking up the Umbrella members with duds.

So Gerard Way sounds like he’s putting the cart before the horse on this matter, but I have high hopes that this series come to screen.  It was the perfect length and efficiently told in a way that would suit theaters well.