The Umbrella Academy’s 43 Children: What Happened to the Other 36 Kids?

Netflix

In The Umbrella Academy on Netflix, we learn in the first episode that on October 1, 1989, 43 women went into labor and gave birth — but none of them were pregnant before. We never find out what caused the pregnancies or who the “father” is, only what happened. But in the series, we only meet seven of these children. Where are the other 36?

In the series, we learned that Reginald Hargreeves was able to adopt seven of the 43 children who were born unexpectedly. We see him paying for a girl who was born to a Russian mother, and it’s likely this baby is Vanya.

As for the other 43, the TV series never explains what happens to them. In fact, they’re never brought up again. It’s unclear if the seven who were adopted by Reginald even know about the other 36 children’s existence. They never mention them or talk about them. They never wonder where the other children are. When Leonard talks about how he was born on the same day as them, Reginald never even guesses that he might be one of those other children. (That was the strangest part to me. Why didn’t Reginald even consider that as a possibility?)

So, it’s entirely possible that Reginald, maybe Pogo, and the narrator are the only ones who know that 43 children were all unexpectedly born on the same day. It’s likely that there were some stories in local newspapers or TV news, but since the Internet wasn’t around in 1989, it would have been much harder for anyone to put all those pieces together.

It’s likely that those children all have superpowers too. But if so, why aren’t they in the news? Why don’t we hear about them?

TV Guide asked Steve Blackman, the showrunner, and Gerard Way, the comics author, about those other children. They simply said this was a good question that they couldn’t answer.

It’s also unclear what caused the pregnancies. Klaus met “God” in a vision, who seemed to hint that “God” caused the pregnancies. But that was a really confusing scene and as we’ve learned on this show, things are not always what they appear to be.

In the comics, we’re not told much more about the other children. The comic says: “The children were either abandoned or put up for adoption…the ones who survived.” The comic panel shows a baby who died during birth, indicating that some didn’t even make it past their birth. In the next panel, the comic reads: “Enter, Sir Reginald Hargreeves, aka The Monocole… Using methods undisclosed, he sought to track down and adopt as many of the children as he could. He only found seven of them.”

This shows that in the comics, not all of the children who were born under those strange circumstances actually survived to adulthood. But some did, and Reginald did not find all of them. So if the TV series follows the comic’s lead, then there may be additional children, but not 36 additional children.

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