What Only Comics Fans Know About The Umbrella Academy's Hotel Obsidian

It's been two years since audiences saw "The Umbrella Academy" in the gang's 1960s-set adventure in Season 2, but the third outing picks up when they have returned to the present day. Unfortunately, this isn't the world they left behind at the end of Season 1 — instead the Umbrellas are faced with the Sparrow Academy. This is a timeline where the nefarious Sir Reginald Hargreeves (Colm Feore) never adopted the Umbrellas, and chose different children instead.

Unfortunately, they're a well-oiled team of heroes who are vicious in a fight, and they're more than a match for the likes of Diego (David Casteñada), Luther (Tom Hopper), Allison (Emmy Raver-Lampman), Five (Aiden Gallagher), and Viktor (Elliot Page). The team also has to deal with the fact that Ben Hargreeves (Justin H. Min) is still alive in this timeline — although he's hardly the friendly brother they knew and loved, and he quickly butts heads with the Umbrellas.

So it's fair to say that the Umbrellas aren't welcome to stay in the Sparrow mansion while they get a grip on this new reality — and they wind up staying in the Hotel Obsidian. It's a mysterious, sprawling location that ultimately becomes a key piece of the Season 3 story. But some fans already know the Hotel has a much more sinister purpose in the comics.

Towards the end of Season 3, the Hotel Obsidian's true purpose is finally revealed — as Reginald built it around a portal leading into a pocket dimension. Diego and Lila (Ritu Arya) briefly take a look around this alternate reality, which contains a completely different version of the Hotel Obsidian, called the Hotel Oblivion. Unfortunately, before they can figure out why there's another hotel, they're pursued by a samurai guardian who lops off some of Diego's fingers as he chases them back into their own dimension. And it's not until the final two episodes that Reginald reveals the truth about Oblivion, that it was built by the creator of the universe itself as a way of resetting the universe.

But comic readers will know this is vastly different to Oblivion in the comics, and it's much more focused on Reginald. 

In the comic book "The Umbrella Academy: Hotel Oblivion," the gang have to grapple with the reemergence of their biggest foes from their early days. It's revealed that Reginald had imprisoned all the supervillains in a prison called the Hotel Oblivion which exists on an unknown planet — and he also uses it to trap a terrifying cosmic entity that threatens the safety of reality itself.

Ultimately, they wind up breaking out of their bizarre prison and returning to Earth via Televator at the Perseus Corporation. It takes the full might of the Umbrella Academy and the mysterious new Sparrow Academy to bring them all down — yes, the Hotel Obsidian is ultimately responsible for the Sparrows' introduction into the comics. Unfortunately, we don't see all these supervillains in live-action, but the world of the Netflix series is much more grounded than the source material, so that makes sense.