What Is A Kugelblitz? Umbrella Academy Season 3 Trailer Threat Explained

The Umbrella Academy season 3 trailer reveals the Hargreaves siblings' latest threat - a kugelblitz. What on Earth is a kugelblitz anyway?

What Is A Kugelblitz? Umbrella Academy Season 3 Trailer Threat Explained

The Umbrella Academy pits both sets of Hargreeves siblings against the dreaded kugelblitz – here’s what a kugelblitz actually is in The Umbrella Academy season 3 trailer. After Viktor Hargreeves’ violent violin recital triggered an apocalypse in The Umbrella Academy season 1, he and his siblings spent season 2 desperately trying to avoid that future outcome by changing the 1960s, and their mission was a success… kinda. Upon returning to 2019, Luther, Diego, Klaus, Allison, Five and Viktor discover an alternate timeline has been created, where blimps fly through the sky, and the “Umbrella Academy” is now the “Sparrow Academy” – a completely different team of superheroes led by mysteriously-deceased ex-Umbrella, Ben.

The Umbrella Academy‘s season 3 trailer elaborates on this curious phenomenon. Five (who else?) deduces that travelling back to the future created a time paradox, which is now “swallowing” parts of reality. He believes the Umbrellas’ meddling with time summoned forth a “kugelblitz” but when Viktor asks the obvious question of what that word means in plain English, his brother merely replies, “Essentially, we’re screwed.” The time-hopper doesn’t elaborate on what kugelblitz actually means, but here’s what we know.

A kugelblitz is a genuine phenomenon in the world of theoretical physics. In simple terms, “kugelblitz” refers to a black hole created when an incredible mass of energy is trapped within itself, warping time and space. Mankind doesn’t yet possess the technology required to test whether a kugelblitz could actually be created, and these immensely powerful black holes don’t just materialize out of nowhere. Then again, our reality doesn’t have six super-powered siblings trampling through history leaping from one apocalypse to another…

Based on details given in The Umbrella Academy season 3’s trailer, the Hargreeves siblings messed up history through their 1960s antics, then returned to the altered timeline. As Five points out, however, the new version of themselves – the ones not adopted by Sir Reginald in this rewritten world – still exist. The Umbrella Academy‘s 2019 now contains two iterations each of Luther, Diego, Allison, Five, Klaus and Viktor, and this is the “paradox” mentioned in the trailer. Such an unnatural occurrence is probably what gave rise to the kugelblitz, and so long as the Umbrella Academy remains in the Sparrow timeline, it’ll keep destroying reality. The Umbrella Academy season 3 trailer even offers a glimpse of the kugelblitz – a glowing orange sphere that appears to have popped up in the Hargreeves mansion’s basement.

While the exact science of The Umbrella Academy‘s kugelblitz remains hazy, the black hole’s narrative purpose isn’t – this is our traditional Hargreeves apocalypse. In The Umbrella Academy season 1, it was Viktor’s violin playing; in season 2, it was Viktor being tortured by agents who believed he was a spy. Finally, the blame doesn’t rest upon Number 7 alone. The Umbrella Academy‘s new apocalypse, the kugelblitz, is a joint effort created by all six siblings arriving in a timeline that isn’t theirs, ripping apart the fabric of spacetime. Five reckons they have under a week before the event horizon chews through everything. Can the Hargreeves siblings stop it in time? And, more importantly, can they stop the kugelblitz without setting up The Umbrella Academy‘s next apocalypse?