In its own special way, The Umbrella Academy subverts the secret identity trope in that Sir Reginald literally raises the protagonists as their superhero identities, assigning them exclusively superhero-esque aliases from birth and stripping them of the opportunity to develop their own “civilian”/true identity. As a result of this suppression, their struggles as young “superheroes” differ from the crises of their traditional counterparts, in that they don’t struggle to hide a secret identity, but rather, they don’t have an identity outside of the one their father uses to fulfill his own agenda — or at best, their individuality is stunted and tied to an unhealthy coping mechanism and sibling dynamics. The subversion of the secret identity trope thus leads to the subversion of another trope: that of the superhero origin story. Unlike Spider-Man or Batman, the Umbrella Academy kids are not civilians that decided to become heroes due to a personal tragedy; instead, their childhood career as forced superheroes is the tragedy, causing most of them to pursue a civilian life as soon as they are able to. Only after the death of their father do they come back together, and even then, their past causes the conflict that they must solve as adults. In this essay I will
