My husband and I started watching the new Netflix series, The Umbrella Academy. It promises to be an intriguing show, so I looked up the series on Amazon and downloaded two free graphic novel teasers. The Umbrella Academy #0 was originally titled …But the Past Ain’t Through With You and was issued on Free Comic Book Day 2007. The title is a lyric in the song “Kill All Your Friends” by My Chemical Romance, Gerard Way’s band. The premise of this graphic novel series is that on the same day, forty-three women who were not previously pregnant gave birth to children at the same time. Sir Reginald Hargreeves, a wealthy scientist and entrepreneur, adopted seven of the children. With the six children who had supernatural abilities, Hargreeves formed The Umbrella Academy to teach them to fight crime.

In this short graphic novel, Séance, Rumor, and Spaceboy are perplexed to find Rumor’s dead body. Meanwhile, on TV, the Murder Magician claims to have killed Rumor and introduces his Murderbot to the audience. The Umbrella Academy shows up at the studio to deal with the Murder Magician and find that Monocle (Hargreeves) is there as well and may somehow be involved in the mystery.

More of a sneak peek than a prequel to the series, I found …But the Past Ain’t Through With You interesting, but incomplete. I suppose this is what I should expect for something this short. ( )