Aliens.
Sir Reginald Hargreeves is one of the most fascinating characters in comic book history. Little is known about the man who goes by the moniker the Monacle, but throughout this video, we’re gonna be breaking down everything we’ve managed to gather about the mysterious figure.
This includes his origins, history and our theories on where things could be going in the future.
There will be Heavy Spoilers here so if you haven’t had a chance to check out the second season yet then I highly recommend that you turn off now.
Sir Reginald Hargreeves Origin
Ok so on the surface Hargreeves seemed like an eccentric billionaire that specialised in several things.
The character was a famous scientist, inventor, and Nobel Prize-winning, Olympic gold medalist that specialised in the advancement of chimpanzees.
Hargreeves amassed a fortune by purchasing a business that specialised in producing Umbrellas all the way back in 1928 and this funded his endeavours over the years.
Reginald was a philanthropist that wished to save the world and he did this by adopting seven children all bless with superpowers. The character trained them at his home eventually forming The Umbrella Academy and together they stopped several supervillains around the planet.
Hargreeves’ Adopted Children
Hargreeves was incredibly cruel to the children and instead of names he gave them numbers. These were assigned to them in order of how useful he saw them as, however as time went on it’s become more and more clear that this was actually their level of obedience to him. If anything the order was the opposite with 1 aka Luther being the least powerful and number 7 aka Vanya being the most.
They were met with worldwide acclaim however, over the years, they slowly started to turn against him due to the cruelty that he carried when caring for them and because of this he seemingly died alone.
Not From Around Here
However, things go far deeper with the character and throughout the show and comic book series we learn that Hargreeves is actually an alien.
Now very little is told to us in the show about where the character came from or what drove him to our planet.
In the comics, the information is just as ambiguous however we do know that his home was devastated by Nuclear war. In the tenth episode of Season One, we catch a brief glimpse of the character in his home world as he says farewell to his dying lover. It’s clear that he wants to stay but she realises that the world needs him and thus he departs taking her white violin with him.
This is a gift that he would later give to Vanya and though there is little told to us at this moment I think it carries a lot of weight with it.
Hargreeves was clearly shocked to the core by the war that had torn apart his homeworld and I believe that he vowed to not allow this fate to befall another planet. Thus he travelled to ours and began to mould history in a way that would avert the apocalypse and save us from ourselves.
Hargreeves travelled across the vastness of space with his bodyguard Abhijat onboard his private vessel The Minerva.
Now the name of this actually comes from the Roman Goddess Minerva who was known for her wisdom and sponsoring of the Arts. This is, of course, something that Hargreeves himself would take up and thus him coming across space in this symbolises the character bringing wisdom and advancements to our own planet.
Hargreeves’ Business
As mentioned earlier, Hargreeves purchased an Umbrella business in 1928 and from here he built his fortune. We learn in the 1950s and 60s that the character began to contribute to our space divisions and his advancements led to humanity developing several new technologies.
With a scientist known as Grace, he started to experiment on a monkey called Pogo and this advanced the simian far beyond the usual capabilities of a chimpanzee. Hargreeves started a relationship with Grace and she began to care for him and Pogo greatly.
Though unintentional, together their work started the space race to the moon between America and Russia and this eventually led to the cold war.
It seemed that no matter what, once a civilisation became advanced enough it would inevitably descend into war and thus he started to work with shadowy organisations to control things from behind the scenes. Reginald wished to gain access to the Dark Side of the moon and thus he needed those that could help him.
The Majestic 12
It was during this time that he joined the Majestic 12.
Grace discovered this and broke off their relationship and Hargreeves would later build an android in her image to take care of him and his family. We will talk about this in just a bit but first I want to focus on The Majestic 12.
In case you don’t know, The Majestic 12 is a group that is rumoured to exist in our own world and for decades now there have been conspiracy theories surrounding the mysterious members that make it up. The Majestic 12 is rumoured to be a committee of high-ranking scientists, military leaders and government officials that control world events and also hide the existence of UFOs.
The group was apparently formed all the way back in 1947 under the orders of President Truman and after recovering an alien spacecraft they began to cover up the truth from humanity.
With them, he started to work on certain technological advancements however he cut ties with them after realising that they were complicit in the assassination of JFK.
The group threatened to reveal his identity unless he kept giving them tech and thus he was forced to kill them. After this point, the group faded into myth and legend and was not heard from again.
Adopting the Seven
Hargreeves kept his head down living with Pogo and the Roboto Grace until 1989. It’s at this point he emerged once more after learning that 43 women had mysteriously given birth to children after showing no signs of pregnancy.
Though Hargreeves tried to adopt all of them he was only able to procure seven and these became known as the Umbrella Academy.
Now though this is never confirmed, it is possible that Hargreeves was actually the cause behind the pregnancies and that due to his experiments on Simians he was able to manufacture children with great gifts.
This has never been confirmed but it’s just a theory I’ve had since we found out that he was an alien in the comic books. Obviously, let me know below if you agree or disagree.
Anyway, Hargreeves wished to use the group to avert the apocalypse but due to his treatment of them, they left the academy all except for Luther who carried out a mission to the moon, though this initially turned out to be pointless.
Hargreeves committed suicide, hoping that the children would reunite to stop armageddon but they ended up causing it and in a last-ditch attempt to right their wrongs, they travelled back to the sixties.
We see that in this alternate timeline that the group track him down and he actually manages to go head to head with Diego.
Hargreeves’ Powers
It’s at this point that I wanna talk about his powers and how they operate.
So as you can guess, a guy that’s alive from 1928 and seemingly doesn’t age must be using either the best anti-wrinkle cream in the world or he’s immortal. He might be a penchant for some Oil Of Olay, Reginald is actually the latter. He does not age or at least appears to. This may be because of time in our world working differently from his but in the span of a century, he barely ages at all.
He is also a master at combat and due to his abilities in athletics, he is a skilled acrobat. Reginald also possesses a genius-level IQ and because of this, he has created a wealth of technology and serums that improve animals and humanity when applied.
Hargreeves is a master assassin and possesses expertise in long-range weapons as well as hand-to-hand ones. This makes him deadly in every scenario but he only ever kills if he believes it to be for the good of mankind.
So yeah, the guy’s basically an alien Einstein mixed with Batman…Batman from the movies, you know the one, the one that doesn’t mind killing people.
Alternate Timeline
Now in the alternate timeline, he met with the Umbrella Academy but due to thinking that they were all screw-ups he decided not to adopt them in the future. This caused The Sparrow Academy to be formed. As Reginald had not met Ben he still adopted him and in this timeline, the character did not kill himself due to the new academy never leaving him.
Now it’s clear that he has taken a step back and that Ben is now the leader, whether intentional or not this could signal that he has changed. In the original timeline, he treated all of the members terribly except for probably Luther who he only saw as useful because he obeyed him so much. Hargreeves mentally tortured Vanya, making them believe that were worthless because he feared their power. In the case of Ben, he found his abilities disgusting but it appears here that Ben has used this to take over.
We don’t know for definite yet but will likely find out more in Season 3.
The Moon
Now as for the Dark Side of the Moon and what’s up there.
It is possible that there is an interdimensional portal and this does tie in with the comics.
The third volume titled Hotel Oblivian centres around an interdimensional prison that Reggie uses to trap Supervillains in. It is possible that he is attempting to get to the moon to learn of this and I think that in the third season that it will be revealed he has already achieved his goal and the prison is currently set up there.
When it comes to the character you never really know what you’re gonna get but that’s pretty much the basis of who he is and his history. He will likely forever remain a mystery but that’s what keeps him so fascinating. I think the Academy themselves probably know as much as we do about the mysterious figure and who knows if we will ever find out the full truth about him or where he comes from.
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