Thought the Sparrow Academy would bring the biggest threat to The Umbrella Academy season 3? Prepare to step into the potentially apocalyptic world of Hotel Obsidian. When a tired sextet of Hargreeves siblings returned from saving the world in the final moments of The Umbrella Academy season 2, they found no time for a celebratory dance sequence. Our Umbrella kid-ults were rocked by the revelation that - following their changes to the timeline in 1963 - the "Umbrella Academy" had become "the Sparrow Academy." An entirely new set of superheroes (save Ben, who Sir Reginald never encountered in the past), these Sparrows may be superior superheroes, but they're also, as the Umbrellas kindly put it, "dickheads." You'd imagine the Sparrows wouldn't take kindly to alternates from another timeline infiltrating their mansion either.
The Umbrella Academy season 3 is, therefore, promising a battle for survival between Umbrellas and Sparrows. Nevertheless, a much more severe threat may be lingering (or, indeed, looming) in the background - and we're not talking about the kugelblitz. Umbrella Academy season 3 introduces Hotel Obsidian. This musty locale has featured prominently in posters and trailer footage, and Five's spa robe proves the Umbrella kids book a room at some point during this upcoming season. Despite having the veneer of a regular hotel, Hotel Obsidian might just be The Umbrella Academy season 3's main problem... more so than the Sparrows or even the kugelblitz.
Hotel Oblivion lies at the center of the third volume in The Umbrella Academy's comic book storyline, written by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way, and has clearly inspired the live-action Netflix series' Hotel Obsidian. Whereas Umbrella Academy season 3 trailer footage suggests Hotel Obsidian is all bellhops and breakfast, the comics' Hotel Oblivion is far worse - a dimensional prison where Sir Reginald Hargreeves locked away every supervillain his Hargreeves children defeated. You've got Dr. Terminus, Perseus XI, Murder Magician, and various other despicable miscreants. Even worse, Sir Reginald designed Hotel Oblivion and its villainous clientele to serve as an interdimensional trap for an even deadlier deadly creature. If Umbrella Academy season 3's Hotel Obsidian is anything like the hotpot of evil Hotel Oblivion represents, it'll quickly become an even bigger problem than the Sparrow Academy.
The Umbrella Academy has dropped several hints suggesting Hotel Obsidian won't be directly analogous to the comics' Hotel Oblivion. Aside from just the name change, the Obsidian is located in a regular city, whereas Sir Reginald's prison stood away from Earth altogether. Trailer footage also shows the Obsidian functioning as a very normal (if slightly outdated) hotel, and certainly doesn't give the aura of a final destination for the Sparrows' supervillains. And yet the sheer prominence of Hotel Obsidian in The Umbrella Academy season 3 proves the comic parallel to Hotel Oblivion can't be a coincidence, nor a mere Easter egg. Just like its counterpart, the Hotel Obsidian itself must give the Hargreeves siblings an apocalyptic headache in the forthcoming season.
Maybe the prison lies underneath the Hotel, and one of the inmates stages a breakout - just like Perseus X in Umbrella Academy comic lore. Or perhaps Hotel Obsidian really is just a hotel, but an authentic Hotel Oblivion exists in another timeline created by further temporal fiddling courtesy of the Hargreeves siblings. Whatever the relationship between Oblivion and Obsidian proves to be in The Umbrella Academy season 3, the threat this humble hotel poses could bring the two sets of Hargreeves kids together, united under the same... umbrella. Trailer footage includes several shots of the Umbrellas and Sparrows on friendlier terms (discussing tactics in Hargreeves mansion, dancing together, etc...) and the ominous problem at the heart of Hotel Obsidian could be driving that uneasy alliance.