Book Review: ‘The Umbrella Academy: Vol 3’ by Gerard Way & Gabriel Ba

Hotel Oblivion is the third volume in Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá’s popular graphic novel series: The Umbrella Academy. Like many people I came to this series through its Netflix adaption as I wanted to see what the story was like in its original format.

In the graphic novels the super-powered and dysfunctional Hargreaves siblings go on very different adventures to their adaption counterparts. I knew to expect the unexpected with Hotel Oblivion.

Volume 3 is divided into several different storylines. Luther and Deigo travel into space, Klaus helps a biker gang in exchange for drugs, Alison switches from helping Vanya’s recovery to trying to visit her daughter to aiding Five in his quest to infiltrate the Perseus Corporation. In addition to Vanya and Five’s separate stories, we also see a few villain perspectives throughout the graphic novel.

At the beginning of this book I was very confused. Whereas the second volume in this series follows neatly on from the conclusion of Volume 1, Hotel Oblivion starts in a completely unrelated place from the end of Volume 2. In this book each of the siblings are separated and split across multiple locations. Because the book jumped ahead so much it felt as though part of the story was missing. At first I thought my struggles to understand the initial set up of this book were due to it being a while since I had read the first two volumes but, after checking out other reviews for Hotel Oblivion, it seems I wasn’t the only reader having issues.

The inclusion of so many plotlines made it difficult to keep track what was happening within the story at times. Despite The Umbrella Academy telling the story of the Hargreaves siblings, approximately half of Volume 3 is spent with the newly introduced villains. This had the knock on effect of some characters, such as Five and Klaus, having a lot less to do in this book. For me, this was the most disappointing thing about Hotel Oblivion. I wanted to see more of the characters we’d spent so much time getting to know, especially Five who had some of the best plotlines in Volumes 1 and 2, rather than villain characters I wasn’t invested in.

The plotlines did get easier to follow as the book progressed and the third act of the story, where the siblings are finally reunited, was definitely the strongest part. Unfortunately by the time the book ended I was still left with a lot of unanswered questions. Hotel Oblivion was published in 2019 and (as of 2025) it’s still unclear when the fourth volume will be completed/released. Sadly the weakest instalment in the series so far despite its ambition, not even Gabriel Bá’s quirky and distinctive art style was able to save the confusing plot.

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