The Umbrella Academy

The Umbrella Academy is a reminder caped crusader adaptations can be delightful and insightful along with punch-drunk and deafening. It’s as bonkers as anything – but a brolly good show to boot.

The story here unfurls slowly, so the steady pace of “The Umbrella Academy” may challenge viewers who are looking for immediate villain-avenging action. But for those who don’t already know the story, there are gratifying payoffs down the line.

It has flaws and excesses, but the series, whose first season is available on Friday, nonetheless lands in the sweet spot between comedy and drama, and between a plot-and-action-driven narrative and character exploration. ... By the time Mary J. Blige and Cameron Britton (he was serial killer Edmund Kemper on “Mindhunter”) show up as time-traveling assassins named Cha-Cha and Hazel, respectively, I was fully onboard, at least for this one season.

The show is every bit as good, as delightfully odd, and as touching as the comic.

Umbrella looks, feels and sounds different [from other comic book TV adaptations]--music does much of the heavy lifting, and effectively so. It's a gorgeous-looking production that evokes another world, with both feet still firmly planted in this one.

The Umbrella Academy isn’t so much a puzzle that needs to be solved as a long wait for a series of explanations. At least it’s an entertaining wait. Blackman’s approach is less surreal than Way’s writing, but the density of the world-building isn’t lost. The isolated moments are often brilliant.

The story is a little too Dark Phoenix, and the series’ pacing can be maddening. But you have to love an action-packed finale that rips from a kid’s birthday party at a bowling alley (little Kenny is never getting over that one) to a concert hall on the cusp of the apocalypse. The climax is an ending and a beginning. Umbrella Academy is just getting started.