The Umbrella Academy has been one of Netflix’s biggest hit series. The series has the winning combination of a fun concept, a diverse cast, comic book origins, and clever writing. In a few weeks, The Umbrella Academy launches Season 2, and I’m super excited to see what the Hargreeves siblings get up to in this next chapter.
The first season of The Umbrella Academy left us with so many questions, including which member of the family is the strongest. Sir Reginald (Colm Feore) named the children based on their usefulness. Hence Vanya (Ellen Page) being named Number 7, but Sir Reginald wasn’t exactly a reliable source when it comes to anything, so we’re going to ignore his ordering system, and rank them based on our own criteria.
To me most powerful means who would have the greatest impact on the world as a whole because of their powers. I’ll be ranking the main seven based on who I believe could use their powers to destroy or revamp the world. Obviously, I’ll be discussing Umbrella Academy Season 1 spoilers, so proceed at your own risk.
7. Ben - Summons Tentacle Creatures From His Stomach Portal
Is it cool to be able to summon demons? Of course, but is it a very useful power? Kind of, but not when you’re dead. Ben (Justin H. Min) is a ghost throughout The Umbrella Academy Season 1, so most of the time we only see him use this power through flashbacks. The power to summon other dimension demons definitely comes in handy when fighting criminals, but it’s not very useful in other aspects of life.
The Umbrella Academy ended the first season by showing that through Klaus (Robert Sheehan) Ben might be able to use his powers again. It’s going to be very interesting to see if the series further explores Ben using his powers while a ghost. I still just don’t see the power being anywhere near as useful as the other six powers.
6. Diego - Knife Throwing Powers
If Ben was alive, I would probably rank him ahead of Diego (David Castaneda) because being able to have a knife curve to your will is pretty cool, but it seems like more of a skill than a power. I personally feel like many people, with enough training, could learn how to throw knives really accurately. Can they have the knives curve anyway they want? Probably not, but that is more of a question to ask a physicist and not a writer.
I’m basing this ranking on only the show’s depiction of their powers, not the comic book one, so there may be more to Diego’s powers than we’ve seen, but right now, he has the least impressive power. As a character, Diego is pretty badass but as a power, his knife throwing abilities just don’t wow me.
5. Luther - Super Strength
I know many of you are probably like “how is super strength a greater power than knife throwing and summoning demons?! Almost every superhero has that!” Very true, but it doesn’t change the fact that being really strong and durable is a good power, especially when going up against people with guns, and their own super strength. It’s almost like having the power of invincibility.
Luther (Tom Hopper) can still die but it takes a lot more to kill him than it would the average human. Him being able to take punches and shots that others can’t also makes Luther’s power good for the whole team. He can protect others by acting as a shield and weapon for them. I completely understand why Sir. Reginald had him as Number 1, but I just think four other people have more useful powers.
4. Klaus-Communicates With The Dead
I had a hard time deciding how to rank the top four because I think all of their powers could really do damage or alter the universe if used in the right way. I ranked Klaus as #4 because seeing dead people all the time would suck (ergo Klaus’s substance abuse problems), but towards the end of the first season, we saw his powers start to evolve.
Now Klaus can possibly bring people back from the dead. He only briefly allowed Ben to crossover through him, but there was also a mention of Klaus not even scratching the surface yet on his power. This means he might be able to do a lot more cool summoning of the dead stuff in the future. Also being able to communicate with the dead is useful if you need answers on something important, like where you left a sock or something. It would also be nice for those who lost someone to be able to see them when needed.
3.Allison - Mental Manipulation
I’ll admit when I first watched The Umbrella Academy Season 1, when Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman)’s power was revealed, it seemed kind of like a useless power until I realized how powerful it could be to completely influence someone just by saying “I heard a rumor that.” Allison used her powers to completely erase Vanya’s memory of her own powers, and that’s insanely powerful. There are so many morally questionable, but cool, things you could do with the power to influence other’s thoughts and perceptions.
You can basically get and do what you want. Yeah everything in your life will be a lie, and you’ll never really build character from hard work, but who wants that when you can basically blink and get anything you want?
2. Vanya-Turn Sound Into Energy And Other Things
After The Umbrella Academy revealed that Vanya had powers, she became like a Swiss Army Knife of powers. She could move objects, create massive bombs, have super hearing, alter the weather, and probably some other stuff we haven’t seen yet. She became quite powerful, and even more dangerous. Anyone who can bring the end of days is definitely a pretty powerful person.
Vanya’s powers are way more advanced than her siblings and still seem to be evolving. Whether she’ll be an agent of good or bad in the upcoming season is yet to be determined, but she’ll definitely be a powerful force.
1. Number Five
What’s more powerful than someone who seems to have unlimited power potential? Someone who can erase their whole existence. As someone who loves the idea of time travel and alternative universes, Five (Aidan Gallagher) doesn’t just have the coolest power, but the mightiest ability. Having the power to travel through time cancels out every other power, because time traveling abilities allows the person with them to manipulate events. They basically create their own universe.
Every time traveling movie expert knows that it’s hard to alter events in your favor. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, meaning you change one event and a million other events will change as well. So it’s not a perfect power, but it’s strong enough to really have great consequences on everyone's lives. The only downfall of Five having this power is that his own physical limits means he can only use it so much before he gets tired, or it kills him.
Let us know by voting below who you think has the most powerful power, and let’s all start counting down the days until The Umbrella Academy returns. The series returns to Netflix on July 31.
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