The Netflix series The Umbrella Academy is an X-Men ripoff, violent... yet hip and cute... It's adapted from a comic written by a rock musician!

In it, there is a vast underground evil organization. They accomplish their ends by sending out a pair of crack assassins who wear huge spherical cartoon animal masks and spray bullets wildly. Are you laughing yet? Maybe a smug, knowing chuckle?

What if I told you the story is told all out of order? Sounds cool, right? I mean what goes better with time-travel stories than frequent jumps backward and forward in the narrative? As a viewer, nothing earns my gratitude like a parsimonious doling-out of bits of story that were earlier withheld. Thanks, chums!)

Don't answer yet, because it's about get crazy cool: The characters mostly operate on two settings: wildly verbally abusive and talkily self-pitying! Neither setting incorporates any ability to examine one's actions other than through the emotions of the moment. Writing this kind of scene is probably where being a rock musician came in handiest.

There is a third setting for some of the characters: empathetic. In the scenes that result, the earnest dialog resembles that of a soap opera, honestly.

You know, re the Umbrella Academy, you could just save yourself the trouble and skip it. Three of the actors are very good, but bear in mind it IS the X-Men: There are a LOT of actors.