Games - The Tick

	Games - The Tick

The Tick is a comedic superhero, created by Ben Edlund in 1986.

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Character profile and history

A square-jawed, muscular man in a bright blue bodysuit, with antennae sticking up from his head, the Tick is an absurdist parody of superheroes. The Tick is high-spirited, frequently obtuse, and is prone to making odd, dim remarks and "inspirational" speeches filled with confusing, bizarre metaphors. His superpowers are nigh-invulnerability, which allows him to crash and bang about without injury, super strength, and something referred to as "drama power", or basically a tendency for the Tick's powers to increase as the situation becomes more dramatic. Oddly, his battle cry is "Spoooooon!"

Like many superheroes, The Tick has a sidekick: an accountant named Arthur, who wears a moth suit that allows him to fly, although he is often mistaken for a rabbit due to the long ear-like antennae of his costume and the fact that his wings are often folded up inside a backpack. The Tick is impulsive, and Arthur serves as a sort of conscience; the hero often irks his sidekick. Arthur's "battle cry" is "Not in the face! Not in the face!"

Originally featured in an independent comic book series, The Tick and Arthur were made popular by an animated television series (1994–96) and a live action television series (2001–02). Both series aired on the Fox Network.

In all of his incarnations, The Tick is surrounded by a cast of equally absurd superheroes and villains, many of them parodies of popular comic book characters and character types. The Tick lives in a city called "The City". In the animated series, this is the place all of the "reject" superheroes (and presumably the supervillains) are sent after their trial (a prospective superhero/villain needs to present themselves to a special council and exhibit their powers and nature. The council then decides whether the inductee is worthy of joining their ranks. Successful inductees are assigned to a specific territory, failures are sent to The City where they can't cause any harm or get in any real hero/villain's way).

In the original comic books, the Tick is apparently legally insane, an escapee from a mental institution (possibly for super-powered individuals) located not too far from The City.

Franchise history

In 1986, 17-year-old Ben Edlund created The Tick as a mascot for the newsletter of New England Comics in Boston, where he was a customer on occasion. The character, which bore an uncanny resemblance in costume and personality to The Cockroach from Cerebus the Aardvark, became popular and the store financed a few black and white comic books, written and illustrated by Edlund and featuring the character. In 1989, The Tick #4 introduced Arthur.

The Tick became extensively popular in the underground comics scene. Soon New England Comics published a regular series in color which featured the character. Spinoffs followed which featured characters such as Paul The Samurai, Man-Eating Cow, and Chainsaw Vigilante. Edlund continued to write and illustrate these projects through his years as an undergraduate film student at Massachusetts College of Art.

In 1994, the Fox Network licensed The Tick as a Saturday morning cartoon show, which Edlund wrote and co-produced. The Tick was voiced by Townsend Coleman, and his sidekick Arthur by Micky Dolenz in season one, with Rob Paulsen taking over the Arthur role in seasons two and three. The series also featured Die Fledermaus, a shallow, self-absorbed Batman parody; Sewer Urchin, a Rain Man-like version of Aquaman; and American Maid, a more noble superheroine featuring aspects of Wonder Woman and Captain America. Reruns on Comedy Central helped make the series a cult hit with adults and it lasted three seasons. The 1997 book The Tick: Mighty Blue Justice! by Greg Hyland was published as a tie-in with the animated series.

In 1995, Fox Interactive published a scrolling fighter video game based on the animated series for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis. They were criticized for having very long stages with a ridiculous amount of generic enemies to combat.

In 2001, Fox introduced a live-action TV series (Produced by Columbia-TriStar Television), written and executive produced by Edlund. The series starred Patrick Warburton as The Tick, David Burke as Arthur, Nestor Carbonell as Batmanuel (a version of Die Fledermaus) and Liz Vassey as Captain Liberty (a version of American Maid). These changes were due to copyright issues—characters created specifically for the cartoon series could not be reused, but ones from the comic were allowed. Once again, the series found a cult audience, but this incarnation failed to find a larger audience.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for The Tick ]

Games - The Tick

Character profile and history

Franchise history

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