‘The Umbrella Academy’: Fairly tame offering

Of course they have to use umbrellas when it rains. They are members of The Umbrella Academy after all. - Photos: Netflix

There's a certain sort of oddity that feels less like imagination or creativity than its opposite – as though the maker of a given work of art were out of ideas as to how to keep us on the hook and, instead, defaulted to the most self-consciously strange option.

So it is, unfortunately, with The Umbrella Academy, Netflix’s new superhero show based on a series of comic books by rock singer Gerard Way. These aren’t regular superheroes – they’re cool superheroes, with oddball talents and edgy attitudes and a talking chimp butler!