Will Ben be alive in The Umbrella Academy season 2? Inspired by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá's popular comic book series, The Umbrella Academy is the story of a group of superhumans who were brought up the harsh and abrasive Sir Reginald Hargreeves. Hargreeves was convinced these children had the potential to be heroes, but unfortunately he was a poor father-figure and left his students emotionally scarred. One of his seven adopted children, Ben, even died on a mission.
Although Ben died years ago, his presence is still felt in The Umbrella Academy season 1. His brother Klaus has the power to communicate with the dead, and it seems Ben has been haunting Klaus ever since his death. Over the course of the season, Klaus learns that he has the power to help ghosts exert a tangible presence, and as a result Ben slaughters the Commission's best agents in the season finale.
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The Umbrella Academy ends on a cliffhanger, as Five uses his time travel power to send his brothers and sisters back in time. Time travel is a risky business, as Five has already proven; one error in the calculations left Five's fifty-year-old mind trapped in the body of a thirteen-year-old. This time he hasn't even had the chance to do any calculations, instead whisking his siblings back in time in order to save them from the end of the world, and the cliffhanger ending reveals that there will be consequences. Every one of the Umbrella Academy's heroes appears to de-age, reverting to their teenage forms. This includes Ben, raising the possibility that he's been brought back to life somehow - perhaps rejuvenated to a point before his death.
Although time travel features prominently in The Umbrella Academy season 1, at this stage the "rules" that govern it are unclear. Given that this is the case, it's entirely possible that the interaction between Klaus' powers and Five's has effectively resurrected Ben. If so, this will inevitably cause a massive change to the family dynamic. Season 1 purposefully avoided revealing just how Ben died, but in the comics there have been hints that he was desperately attempting to earn the approval of both Hargreeves and Luther. If that's the case in the Netflix show as well, then there could potentially be bad blood between Ben and Luther, adding another source of conflict to the dysfunctional superhero family. Of course, that's assuming all seven retain their memories in the first place; in one flashback scene, Sir Reginald Hargreeves explained that time travel can damage the mind.
Right now, precious little is known about The Umbrella Academy season 2. Netflix hasn't even officially renewed the show yet, although its performance suggests that's only a matter of time. And since the first season pretty much exhausted the storyline of original comic books, and had a different ending, there's absolutely no precedent for the second season. In any case, Ben's entire arc was completely original; he's never been seen as a ghost in the comics, let alone potentially been resurrected. If he really is alive again, then things could get even weirder in The Umbrella Academy's second season.
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The Umbrella Academy season 1 is streaming now on Netflix.