The Umbrella Academy: How is Hotel Oblivion different in the comics

Oh Academy TV show Always a very loose adaptation, but the core premise of the first two seasons – preventing Viktor from ending the world and trying to prevent the assassination of JFK – correlates directly with the first two episodes of the comics. . But in season 3 of the Netflix drama, host Steve Blackman staged one of the biggest deviations from Comics Oh Academy but by giving us a whole new spin on the third episode’s Hotel Oblivion.

[Ed. note: The following contains spoilers for both The Umbrella Academy show and comic books.]

What is Hotel Oblivion in the comics?

Image: Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá / Dark Horse

The comic book Hotel Oblivion is not a hotel at all. It was the prison for the most notorious villains Umbrella Academy had ever defeated. It’s a twisty place where every sentence is a life sentence, a single cockroach is served as dinner, and inmates often go insane. Ever since Hargreeves built the Oblivion Hotel on a distant planet in one dimension, the prisoners have (almost) been unable to escape.

The only way to get in and out of Oblivion is to fly through an unexplored part of the universe known as space after the universe or use a transponder, a teleportation device for which Hargreeves invented the spectrum. in the world of comics. However, in order to get safely from the hotel to the telegraph, you must avoid the announcement of the Science Man, which is clear about The guardDoctor Manhattan, who oversees the prison from space. The man of science also appears to be one of Oblivion’s prisoners, but seems to have received special privileges in exchange for the role of warden. And judging by the bones of the giant creatures that are chipping away at the surface of the planet, if the Man of Science caught you outside the hotel, he would do more than kindly ask you to return to his room. me.

The comics are also quick to reveal that the hotel is not just a prison, but also a cosmic trap for an elderly creature with tentacles. This revelation is unexplored beyond what we’ve just summarized, so we don’t really have any other context to share on the subject other than to say it’s rad.

What happens in Oblivion Hotel comic?

Image: Gerard Way, Gabriel Bá / Dark Horse

The main plot of Umbrella Academy volume three begins with the escapes of two prisoners: Murder Magician, a talent-hunting hypnotherapist who sawed off Allison’s doppelgänger in half, and Obscura, a jewel thief who has a penchant for stealing. photographic memory and camera are attached to his head.

The Murder Magician is desperate to get rid of Hotel Oblivion, but not just because he wants his own freedom (though we’re sure it won’t hurt). He is determined to take his newborn baby far, far away from its literal monstrous mother, Clarissa. On the other hand, Obscura just wants to get back to his criminal life. The duo manage to get to the transmitter only to reach the other side at a secret lab run by the Perseus Corporation. In the laboratory gunfight that ensued, Obscura was captured by Perseus agents, but an injured Murder Mage escaped with the baby.

Allison manages to track down the murderous Mage at his old lair, but so does the enraged Clarissa. The Murder Magician then reveals to Allison that Clarissa is not an actual monster, but only cursed by the Magic 8 Ball. Instead of attacking Clarissa, Allison told her she had “heard a rumor” that the cursed toy did not identify her. Clarissa is thus transformed back into her human form, allowing the dysfunctional family to repair their rift. In another sweet moment, Murder Magician apologizes to Allison for sawing off half of her version. She graciously accepted his apology and took the reformed villain to the hospital for treatment. That’s what we call emotion and physical healing!

Meanwhile, CEO John Perseus X forces the captured Obscura to show him the way to Oblivion, from where the eccentric businessman begins to free his father. In a flashback, we learn that John Perseus IX was a moral villain who attempted to use the powers of a mechanical Medusa head to impose his control over the city. to improve society. It seems that since then, John Perseus X has been trying to find a way to free his father.

However, when Perseus arrived at Hotel Oblivion, he discovered that his father had died by suicide. However, the head of Medusa is alive and hungry for revenge for being imprisoned. On his way back to his universe, a grieving Perseus is persuaded by Medusa to free the other captive villains, who then show their gratitude by ravaging the city. Perseus, demonstrating an opportunistic attitude capable of supporting his growth in the corporate world, seized this golden opportunity to follow in his father’s footsteps. Harnessing the power of the head of Medusa, Perseus begins his own quest to become the city’s self-righteous “savior” (never mind that he caused this problem right away). from the beginning).

Umbrella Academy went down to the scene to actually save the city. They quickly realize that of all the newly freed villains, the biggest threat is Dr. Terminal. Defeated by the Academy when they were children, Dr. Terminal suffers from an illness he can only prevent through a machine he created that converts the matter he consumes into energy. number of lives saved. After years of being locked up, Dr. Terminal turns his insatiable appetite over the entire city, consuming everything in sight.

Medusa fully lives for all this chaos and destruction, but eventually seeing the magnitude of what he has unleashed, Perseus realizes he doesn’t want to be associated with her hatred and frees himself. freed from the head. Then Luther grasped it and – for the first time in his life – came up with a good plan. Knowing that Medusa’s head had a nuclear reactor inside, Luther threw it to Dr. Terminal, who consumed it and was presumably defeated. We say maybe because before we can see the consequences of Dr. Terminal eating a nuclear reactor, Sparrow Academy launched their comics as they entered the war and raised all sorts of questions about who they were and what was going on.

So the show version of Hotel Oblivion has nothing to do with the comic version?

Image: Netflix

Yes and no. The show’s Oblivion isn’t a prison, nor is it a trap for some sort of long-running horror. However, it remains one of Hargreeves’ darling projects. After discovering a portal to another dimension in 1918, Hargreeves built a hotel around it, called Hotel Obsidian. But the hotel is really just a front for the multidimensional Oblivion Hotel, not really a hotel. As Hargreeves reveals, Hotel Oblivion is a giant backup safety machine that allows one to reset and rewrite reality. This reflects the comic’s Hotel Oblivion located in a pocket space where reality is constantly renewing itself – although we don’t see any sort of actual renovation happening in the comics.

There’s also an echo of the comic in smaller ways. The show’s Oblivion is still watched over by ruthless guardians – now four samurai, not The Scientific Man. And instead of cockroaches being dinner, they were the brains and bodies that powered these samurai, which somehow made even more stomach upset. The end of season 3, which reveals this version of Hargreeves as a corporate giant, also reminds of his corporate relationship. Oblivion HotelThe plot of Perseus. It’s possible that this ending could even be a Perseus arrangement – or plots inspired by Perseus – which will be introduced in season 4.

While all of this is good and fun, the show’s Oblivion isn’t what we hoped it would be: a prison filled with super-criminals who were later released. That’s all we wanted, really. Just a late-season melee where Umbrellas and Sparrows face an army of eccentric villains on the streets. It’s an action-packed, bigger-than-life plot that demands to be brought to the screen and becomes one of the show’s infamous needle drops. And we were sadly denied this sight.

Even so, we will never give up hope of getting our superhero takedown. With a new timeline each season brings new opportunities for prison break. Or at least that’s what we’ll tell ourselves.