 |
This Article Contains Spoilers -
WARNING: This article contains major spoilers. If you do not wish to know vital information on plot / character elements in a story, you may not wish to read beyond this warning: We hold no responsibility for any negative effects these facts may have on your enjoyment of said media should you continue. That is all. |
Sir Reginald Hargreeves is the main antagonist of the superhero television series The Umbrella Academy, an adaptation of the comic series of the same name.
An extraterrestrial posing as an eccentric human billionaire and explorer, Hargreeves adopted seven super powered children born through sudden and simultaneous pregnancies that he adopted and trained to be the superhero team known as the Umbrella Academy (or, in an altered timeline, the Sparrow Academy). He was physically and psychologically abusive to the children and utilized them to further his own mysterious goals.
He is portrayed by Colm Feore, who also portrayed André Linoge in Stephen King's Storm of the Century, Giuliano della Rovere in The Borgias, Zhylaw in The Chronicles of Riddick, Frank McDuff in National Security, the Dollmaker on Gotham, Laufey in Thor, Randall Flynn in Revolution, and Donald Menken in The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Personality[]
Hargreeves was an extraordinarily complex person. He was cold, aloof, and emotionally abusive toward his "children," whom he treated more like experimental subjects than actual people. Instead of giving them proper names, he assigned them numbers based on how valuable he deemed them to be. He openly showed favoritism, labeled Viktor as worthless, and confined Klaus in a mausoleum to test his abilities.
His harsh treatment of the Umbrella Academy led to their dysfunctional relationships, numerous psychological issues, and self-destructive tendencies.
Yet, despite his harsh demeanor, there were moments when he demonstrated genuine concern for his children. He gave Viktor his violin, a keepsake of great significance to Reginald. He also expressed sincere remorse and worry for Luther’s well-being during a conversation with Klaus in the afterlife.
Biography[]
Backstory[]
Sir Reginald Hargreeves is an alien from another planet that was devastated by nuclear war. Reginald was married to another alien named Abigail whom he loved more than anything else in the universe, but around the time their planet was devastated by nuclear war and survivors began to evacuate the planet, Abigail became sick and died from her illness. Reginald loved Abigail so much that he was unable to accept life without her and sought to do everything in his power to resurrect her, and he knew just how to do it.
Having grown up with stories about a machine created by the creator of the universe that was intended to serve as a failsafe to reset the universe in the event it was destroyed, Reginald planned to find the machine and use it to remake the universe in his image. The machine resided in another dimension, and Reginald discovered the portal to said dimension resided on the planet Earth. Before he left his home planet with the other survivors, Reginald opened a jar of glowing particles that was essential to his master plan. After arriving on Earth, Reginald travelled to the United States in 1928 and bought the D.S. Umbrella Manufacturing Company from J. King which is how he made his fortune.
When Reginald found the portal to the other dimension floating high above a field of crops, he built Hotel Obsidian to reach the portal. He dubbed the other dimension "Hotel Oblivion", and he knew that before he could activate the machine within it, he needed to get past the deadly guardians placed there by the universe's creator to protect the machine. The portal to Hotel Oblivion resided in Reginald's White Buffalo Suite, and on the day Hotel Obsidian was finally completed and opened, he hired a group of soldiers to enter the portal and eliminate the guardians for him. They failed miserably since their weapons were no match for the supernatural guardians. Although furious that the soldiers failed to get rid of the guardians, Reginald anticipated possible failure and knew he had to wait for the opportunity to initiate his backup plan.
Years later, Reginald became involved in a program for the Space Race. The purpose of the program was to send a chimpanzee into space as practice for sending humans into space. Reginald named the chimpanzee test subject Pogo, and both he and his co-worker and love interest Grace became close to him, viewing him as a son. When Pogo was sent into space, his ship malfunctioned and suffered a horrible crash. To save his life, Reginald injected him with a serum of his own creation. It saved Pogo's life, but it also slowly turned him into an anthropomorphic chimpanzee with the ability to speak English. After Pogo's disastrous mission, Reginald became a member of the Majestic 12, a secret organization dedicated to investigating the existence of aliens. Reginald supplied the Majestic 12 with rocket technology to help America beat Russia to the moon, and in return, the Majestic 12 promised to ensure his interests on the dark side of the moon were unaffected.
Said interests were a cryogenic chamber containing the corpse of Reginald's wife Abigail which he placed on the moon before arriving on Earth. When Reginald learned that the Majestic 12 had orchestrated the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, he attempted to cut ties with them. When the Majestic 12 foolishly tried to blackmail Reginald into continuing to give them his technology, he revealed his true status as an alien to them and killed them all.
Original Timeline[]
1989[]
On October 1st, 1989 at noon, the glowing particles that Reginald released from his jar entered the wombs of forty-three women and caused them to instantly become pregnant and give birth to forty-three children. All of these children were born with superpowers, and those superpowers came from the particles that created them. Reginald created these children so he could use their superpowers to defeat the guardians in Hotel Oblivion, and his plan once the guardians were defeated was to sacrifice the children to activate the universe-resetting machine since the particles inside their bodies were the only things able to fuel the machine.
Seven superpowered individuals were needed to fuel the machine, so Reginald only adopted seven children. As they grew up, Reginald raised them to be a superhero team and always told them they were destined to "save the world" (in that context, he meant helping him reset the universe so he could revive his wife). As Reginald and Pogo took care of the children, they created an android replica of Grace to serve as a caretaker for the children, and while Reginald referred to the children by numbers which ranked their usefulness, Grace gave almost all of them names. Number One was Luther who possessed superhuman strength, Number Two was Diego who could curve the trajectory of anything he threw, Number Three was Allison who could brainwash people with the phrase "I heard a rumor", Number Four was Klaus who could communicate with the spirits of the dead, Number Five could teleport himself, Number Six was Ben who could unleash tentacles from his chest and Number Seven was Viktor (originally named Vanya) who seemingly possessed no powers.
In actuality, Viktor had the power to convert sound waves into physical force, but while Reginald trained his children to control their powers, Reginald feared Viktor's powers to be too dangerous and tricked Allison into erasing his memory of his powers. As the children grew up, Reginald was abusive towards them since he always hated children and was planning to kill them himself once he got what he wanted. This is why the children viewed Pogo as more of a father figure than Reginald. Because Reginald erased Viktor's memories of his powers, he isolated Viktor from the rest of his siblings which caused him to develop strained relationships with them. When Reginald felt he trained his children enough, he referred to them as "The Umbrella Academy" and began sending them on missions to stop crime which caused Reginald and the children to become famous.
One child named Harold Jenkins who was born on the same day as the forty-three children (but only by coincidence) was a huge fan of the Umbrella Academy and sought to join the team to escape his abusive father who despised him due to his wife dying in childbirth. Because he was born on the same day as Reginald's children, he hoped he had superpowers as well, but when he approached Reginald as he and the Umbrella Academy were returning from a successful mission, Reginald cruelly rejected and humiliated the boy in front of the Umbrella Academy's adoring fans. This destroyed Harold's admiration for his idols and caused them to develop a vengeful hatred for them.
Afterwards, Number Five realized his powers of teleportation gave him the potential to travel through time, and despite warnings from Reginald, Five began recklessly using his powers to travel through time and ended up getting trapped in a post-apocalyptic future for several decades. In 2006, Ben died on a mission the Umbrella Academy went on, and during his funeral, Reginald angrily blamed the children for what transpired since the loss of both Five and Ben left him with not enough children to accomplish his master plan with. When the children became adults, they all went their separate ways except for Luther who still went on missions for Reginald. One mission went horribly wrong and left Luther injured, so to save his life, Reginald injected him with a serum similar to the one he injected Pogo with. Although it saved his life, it also transformed his body into that of an ape.
After Luther recovered from his injuries, Reginald sent him to the moon under the false pretense of doing research for him. In actuality, he sent Luther to the moon to unknowingly guard his wife's tomb (something Luther would not find out due to Reginald placing a shield around Abigail's tomb to prevent Luther from discovering it). In 2019, Reginald committed suicide to bring all his children together so they could "save the world", leading to the events of the first season where a vengeful Harold Jenkins, now going by the alias Leonard Peabody, awakened Viktor's dormant powers and tried to manipulate him into killing his siblings which led to a series of events that led to the moon blowing up and destroying Earth. Since Reginald's real reason for coming to Earth was to activate the universe-resetting machine, it is implied the real reason he committed suicide to bring his children together was so they would inadvertently end up travelling back in time to before they were born, which is what happened at the end of the first season. When they did travel back in time and told Reginald of what happened in the future, he realized where his plan went wrong and adopted a different set of children in 1989, leading to the creation of the Sparrow timeline.
Sparrow Timeline[]
1963[]
November[]
In late November 1963, Reginald was being pursued by the time-displaced members of the Umbrella Academy who sought his help in preventing the apocalypse in 2019 as well as the new apocalypse their presence in 1963 would cause in a few days. He seemed unimpressed and unable to help their situation, but thanks to some guidance he gave Five, the latter was able to unlock a new feature of his powers and stop the Handler from killing his siblings. Reginald's encounter with the time-displaced Umbrella Academy caused him to realize his plan to activate the universe-resetting machine was doomed to fail unless he adopted children who were not the Umbrella Academy.
1989 Again[]
In 1989 in this new timeline, only sixteen children were created by the particles Reginald released from his jar. This is because Viktor inadvertently transferred some of his powers to Harlan Cooper, a boy he befriended in 1963 who was unable to control them and ended up inadvertently killing the mothers of the Umbrella Academy (with the exception of Ben's mother) and the 21 other mothers of other superpowered children while grieving the death of his own mother Sissy. Because he did not meet Ben when he encountered the Umbrella Academy in 1963, Reginald adopted him like he did in the original timeline and adopted six other children which consisted of Marcus who had superhuman strength, Fei who could create flocks of crows to spy on and attack other people with, Alphonso who could reflect any physical harm inflicted on him back to his enemies, Sloane who could manipulate gravity, Jayme who could spit hallucinogenic venom and Christopher, a floating cube who possessed telekinetic abilities.
While training the Sparrow Academy to control their powers, Reginald was more strict and harsh towards them than he was with the Umbrella Academy in order to prevent losing more of his children like he did with Five and Ben in the original timeline. Pogo eventually discovered that Reginald was planning to sacrifice the Sparrows once he sent them into Hotel Oblivion and was fired for refusing to aid Reginald in his plan. As he was leaving the academy, Pogo gave the children drugs to sedate Reginald with to protect them from their murderous father. By sedating Reginald with the drugs, the Sparrows began running the house themselves and made Reginald their servant and the android Grace their maid.
When the Umbrella Academy time-travelled back to 2019, they met the Sparrows who were immediately unimpressed with them and drove them out of their house. However, because of the grandfather paradox that Harlan created, a Kugelblitz was created by the presence of the Umbrella Academy which threatened to destroy all of space and time. As the Umbrellas tried to figure out who murdered their mothers and created the Kugelblitz, Klaus confronted Reginald who pretended to feel remorse for mistreating his children so he could trick Klaus into helping him get off the drugs the Sparrows sedated him with. Once he got off the drugs, he regained his abrasive personality and continued luring Klaus to his side by helping him master his powers over immortality and facing his fear of the dead.
Marcus, Alphonso and Jayme were killed while trying to deal with the Kugelblitz and the Umbrellas, and the remaining Sparrows decided to join forces with the Umbrellas and their ally Lila Pitts to stop the Kugelblitz after Allison killed Harlan as revenge for her daughter Claire being erased from existence. When the plan to contain the Kugelblitz failed and killed Fei and Christopher, the survivors met up in Hotel Obsidian where Reginald told his children from both timelines of his plan to save the universe by resetting it. After Luther and Sloane got married, Reginald convinced Allison to betray her siblings and help him with his plan by promising to reunite her with her daughter and husband from the 60s if she helped him. When the children took a vote on whether they should reset the universe or just accept the end of the world, the majority voted to await the end.
Refusing to accept this, Reginald again feigned remorse for mistreating his children to lure Luther into a false sense of security and kill him. After he killed Luther, he pinned the blame on the guardians in Hotel Oblivion to motivate the children into going through with his plan. As Reginald and the children entered the portal leading to Hotel Oblivion, Reginald locked Klaus out of the portal and left him to be consumed by the Kugelblitz, having no further use for him. After the children entered Hotel Oblivion and began searching for the universe-resetting machine, Reginald summoned the machine's guardians so the Umbrellas and Sparrows could get rid of them.
By committing suicide just before getting consumed by the Kugelblitz, Klaus is able to resurrect himself in Hotel Oblivion and inform the others of Reginald's treachery and murder of Luther. By this time, the children had killed all but one of the guardians, and after Reginald tricked the children (excluding Allison) into revealing the control panel for the machine and killing the last guardian, he began extracting the particles in their bodies to power the machine and activate it. Realizing the process was killing them, Allison killed Reginald with the last guardian's weapon, but Reginald was still successful in remaking the universe in his image due to Allison pressing the button to activate the machine to see her daughter and husband again.
In the new, reset universe, the city is now under the control of Reginald and a revived Abigail, Allison is reunited with Claire and her husband Ray, Luther no longer has the body of an ape, Sloane is missing, and everyone has lost their powers. As Reginald and Abigail watch over the city, the Umbrellas and Sparrows go their separate ways.
Powers and Abilities[]
Powers[]
- Longevity: The exact age of Sir Reginald is uncertain, but he possesses a lifespan far exceeding that of a typical human, having lived in New York for over 90 years since his arrival in 1928. Given that his human appearance is merely a prosthetic disguise, it's likely that his aging is artificially controlled to prevent drawing attention.
Abilities[]
- Master Combatant: Sir Reginald is highly skilled in physical combat and martial arts, demonstrating his prowess as an athlete and fighter. He was able to hold his own against Diego, even gaining the upper hand at the start of their encounter.
- Master Acrobat: Sir Reginald is an exceptional acrobat, capable of executing jumps and maneuvers that allowed him to evade several of Diego's attacks during their fight, including dodging a knife thrown by him.
- Master Assassin: Sir Reginald is a proficient assassin, coming close to killing Diego during their confrontation and mercilessly eliminating all members of the Majestic 12 after revealing his true identity.
- Genius-Level Intellect: Sir Reginald possesses a genius-level intellect across various scientific disciplines. He developed the serum that saved Pogo from a life-threatening accident and enhanced his intelligence to the point where Pogo could speak. Additionally, Reginald provided advanced technology to the Majestic 12 in exchange for their agreement not to conduct operations on the dark side of the moon.
- Expert Tactician: Sir Reginald is a brilliant tactician, having devised The Umbrella Academy's action plans for their missions. He also orchestrated their meeting in the past to confront his pursuers and, after discovering Diego's intentions to interfere with his plans involving President Kennedy, he devised a strategy to deceive him, despite not foreseeing the Majestic 12's assassination of the president.
Trivia[]
- Reginald's full alien form is never directly seen in the series, only shown partially or from behind. It is unknown why this was done, as his alien form is shown multiple times in the comic series.
[]
 Villains
| ||
|
Umbrella Academy Temps Commission Other | ||