25 Years Later, This MCU Meets ‘Seinfeld’ Sitcom Doesn’t Have a Single Bad Episode

Few genres are as tailor-made for parody than the superhero genre. Sure, we love it. It’s pure, escapist spectacle that can stir a passionate debate over the most minute of details. But let’s be honest: the concept of adults, fighting crime in tights and capes, is inherently ridiculous. Yet “tailor-made” can’t be mistaken for lazy: it’s the difference between clever superhero parodies that work, like Mystery Men or The Boys, and those that don’t, à la Superhero Movie. And well before The Boys, 25 years ago, Fox took a shot at the burgeoning genre with The Tick… and it is perfection.

‘The Tick’ Brings Together Four Eccentric Heroes In a Fight Against Injustice in “The City”

The Tick premiered in 2001, a live-action adaptation of Ben Edlund‘s comic book, following a successful animated series that also ran on Fox from 1994-1996. It centers around a dim-witted and oblivious 7-foot, 400-pound, practically invulnerable superhero called the Tick (Patrick Warburton), clad in a blue suit with perpetually-moving antennae. He protects a small-town bus station, performing such heroic acts as confronting a coffee vending machine that takes a passenger’s change (“Java devil, you are now my bitch”). He’s fooled – easily – into believing he bought a bus ticket to “The City” in order to fight crime there.

It’s there that he meets Arthur (David Burke), a meek man who leaves his job as an accountant (fired by Christopher Lloyd, no less) to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming a superhero, moth suit and all. The Tick worms his way into Arthur’s life, and the pair become a highly unconventional, but complementary, crime-fighting duo: Arthur serves as the Tick’s voice of reason, and the Tick as the muscle, the mouth, and Arthur’s cheerleader.

They are aided by Captain Liberty (Liz Vassey), a sarcastic, super-powered heroine, a hybrid of Wonder Woman and Captain America (with a hint of Power Girl) who works for the CIA; and by Batmanuel (Nestor Carbonell), a Latino Batman-type who, like the hero he’s patterned after, has no special powers, but lacks the bravery and moral code of the Dark Knight. He does have the Manuel Mobile, a gold Buick convertible, so that’s something. Together, they fight injustice and engage in spectacular battles against supervillains like Apocalypse Cow and the Gru-like Destroyo (Kurt Fuller). More accurately, they talk about it over coffee at the local diner, along with the mundane aspects of life.

‘The Tick’ Chooses Character and Coffee Over Chaos

That choice to focus more on the characters and their banal interactions as opposed to the action of superhero fare is purposeful. It’s fashioned as a “Seinfeld with superheroes,” a fitting description, especially given that Seinfeld writer Larry Charles is one of the executive producers, and it works brilliantly. Captain Liberty goes to the dry cleaner to pick up her suit, only it’s lost. Batmanuel has multiple parking infractions. Arthur doesn’t know if a former high-school crush, played by Missi Pyle, wants to go out with him only because of the suit or not. The Tick gives a rambling, nonsensical eulogy at the funeral of The Immortal (Sam McMurray), who died during a tryst with Captain Liberty.

In essence, the superhero is secondary to the character, and the pitch-perfect casting is essential to its success. Warburton, for one, has the big build of the character, but also a cadence that gives the character’s long, absurd speeches that go nowhere a deft comic touch that he excels at. Burke is a perfect straight-man. Vassey nails the indignation of a powerful woman in a field dominated by men. Carbonell does a balancing act between being lecherous and disarmingly charming, with a knowing glint in his eye that acknowledges he’s utterly harmless.

The parody in The Tick tackles not only well-worn superhero tropes (the Tick’s confusion about the Champion and his alter-ego, a transformation done with a pair of glasses, pokes fun at the Clark Kent/Superman trope), but tropes in the genre that wouldn’t be established until much later, i.e. Arthur choosing to be a superhero with no prior training foreshadows the Arrowverse, which became populated with people who become seasoned crime-fighters overnight. And in one of its best episodes, “The Tick vs. Justice,” the parody looks outside the superhero genre to The Silence of the Lambs, a hilarious setup where Destroyo, in a cell almost identical to Lecter’s, plays the same type of psychological game, but instead of unnerving Captain Liberty, she goes on to lay out all her psychological needs, causing Destroyo to rue ever having started.

Unfortunately, The Tick was cancelled after only nine episodes, with only eight of those aired, which is less a critique of the series and more a damnation of Fox, who mishandled it. Prime did release an adaptation of its own in 2016, but that version takes a significantly different approach, a darker serialized dramedy that is more in line with the nature of the comics, but lacks the character personalities that fueled the 2001 iteration. But for a parody that is as straightforward and as funny as they come, 2001’s The Tick is the way to go. As the Tick says: “Life is your chance! Grab it! Squeeze the milk of life into your dirty glass and drink it warm.” Inspiring.

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The Tick

Release Date

2001 – 2002-00-00

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Network

FOX

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Directors

Bo Welch, Barry Sonnenfeld, Boris Damast, Craig Zisk, Danny Leiner, Dean Parisot, Mel Damski

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