Stranger Things Meets X-Men In Netflix's 4-Part Fantasy Series

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Published Sep 4, 2026, 5:09 PM EDT

Tom is a Senior Staff Writer at Screen Rant, with expertise covering everything from hilarious sitcoms to jaw-dropping sci-fi epics.

Initially he was an Updates writer, though before long he found his way to the TV and movies team. He now spends his days keeping Screen Rant readers informed about the TV shows of yesteryear, whether it's recommending hidden gems that may have been missed by genre fans or deep diving into ways your favorite shows have (or haven't) stood the test of time.

Tom is based in the UK and when he's not writing about TV shows, he's watching them. He's also an avid horror fiction writer, gamer, and has a Dungeons and Dragons habit that he tries (and fails) to keep in check.

When Netflix’s Stranger Things arrived in 2016, it didn’t just give the streamer its biggest original show success story so far. It ignited subscriber appetites for shows that blend spectacle-heavy sci-fi with mystery box plots centered on groups of teens who find themselves caught up in a fight against a world-ending threat. Its combination of supernatural sci-fi horror and character-driven coming-of-age storytelling became enormously influential, and imitators quickly felt inevitable.

Several shows with a similar formula, both on Netflix and elsewhere, followed. However, few were as initially successful as a 2019 series that combined the dynamic and tone of Stranger Things with a superhero setup that felt ripped right out of the pages of an X-Men comic. While it may have swapped secret worlds for superpowers, The Umbrella Academy delivered the winning formula of Stranger Things with a distinctly comic-book twist, building its story around a dysfunctional family of young adults with extraordinary powers.

Adapting the comic book series written by My Chemical Romance frontman Gerard Way, The Umbrella Academy follows seven adopted superpowered siblings raised by the eccentric Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore). While it never managed to re-reach the heights of its acclaimed first and second seasons, The Umbrella Academy is a wild, twist-filled ride from start to finish. Fans of Stranger Things who also enjoy a solid superhero story will feel right at home, especially if they’re on the hunt for another series whose mysteries make the “next episode” button impossible to resist.

The Umbrella Academy Turns X-Men’s Premise Into A Stranger Things-Level Weird Mystery Box

The Umbrella Academy as young children standing in a row.

The basic setup of The Umbrella Academy will be familiar to anyone even vaguely aware of The X-Men. An eccentric genius gathers and trains a group of young people with extraordinary abilities, hoping to turn them into heroes. Sir Reginald Hargreeves fills the mentor role of Charles Xavier (but with much more sinister undertones), while his adopted children form a dysfunctional team whose powers and personalities frequently clash.

However, The Umbrella Academy takes this familiar superhero premise somewhere considerably stranger. The Hargreeves siblings may have abilities like mind control, space and time manipulation, or turning sound into physical force, but their powers and adopted family dynamic are where the similarities to The X-Men end. Rather than simply following a team of heroes battling increasingly dangerous villains, the series uses its comic-book setup to construct an elaborate mystery box.

Time travel, apocalyptic predictions, alternate timelines, secret organizations, and increasingly bizarre revelations transform The Umbrella Academy into something far less conventional than any X-Men-like story. Sir Reginald may have been training his adopted children to protect the world on the surface, but his true motives (and the risks of the very existence of the Hargreeves’ themselves) are soon revealed to be much more complex.

That is where the Stranger Things similarities become fully apparent. The Umbrella Academy begins with a recognizable group dynamic before pulling viewers deeper into an increasingly complicated mythology. Its mysteries keep expanding, and the characters are constantly discovering that the strange circumstances surrounding their lives are part of something much bigger. It’s exactly the kind of trajectory that made Stranger Things so satisfying, and fans of Eleven and the Upside Down are bound to find the Hargreeves’ siblings of The Umbrella Academy equally thrilling to follow.

Despite Faltering, The Umbrella Academy Is Worth Watching

The Umbrella Academy season 1 Five talking to Viktor Allison Klaus Luther Diego

As delightful as its merging of Stranger Things' tone and an X-Men-style character dynamic can be, The Umbrella Academy also has a reputation for unevenness. The popular perception is that the series rapidly declined after season 2, with its final two chapters attracting considerably more criticism than the acclaimed opening run.

There is some truth to that perception. The first two seasons of The Umbrella Academy are inarguably the show's strongest, combining its eccentric humor and emotional family drama with mysteries that feel carefully structured. Later seasons become messier, and the increasingly complicated mythology does not always produce the same satisfying results as the early storylines.

Still, that does not mean The Umbrella Academy isn't worth watching. Even when it falters, it remains remarkably entertaining. Its cast has strong chemistry, its central family dynamic makes for some truly great drama, and its willingness to embrace absurd ideas gives it an identity few superhero shows possess. The later seasons may be less consistent, but they are rarely boring.

As more time passes from the outspokenly emotional responses to the latter two seasons, the complete four-part story feels more able to be enjoyed for what it is rather than its reputation. The Umbrella Academy isn’t flawless, but it’s a consistently imaginative and unpredictable sci-fi series with enough mystery, spectacle, and dysfunctional superhero drama to satisfy Stranger Things and X-Men fans alike.