Despite appearing in multiple comic series, a cartoon, and a live-action series, we’ve never gotten an origin story for the big blue hero who yells “Spoon!” But that’ll change in Amazon’s live-action series, The Tick.
Speaking to CinemaBlend, The Tick creator Ben Edlund talked about the biggest differences between the Amazon series and previous versions, chief among them being that we’ll delve into the Tick’s origin in the new show.
We’re going to explore something about how the Tick is, sort of, where he comes from, in the course of this five year journey, or whatever sort of number of years it turns into being. . . . Before, it was about, ‘Oh, he has power if he doesn’t have an origin. He’s sort of every kind of superhero, we don’t need to get specifically into his origin.’ That was great, and I think this is the story of what the Tick is, it’s the first time we’re trying to tell that story. The same way that we’ve shifted the focus to Arthur as a main character.
Bits and pieces of the Tick’s backstory have been hinted at in the past. In the comics, The Tick, already in his superhero outfit, is interned in an insane asylum but eventually breaks out when he gets bored. The cartoon saw him audition for his city assignment. And the live-action series had him protecting the people at a bus stop before being tricked into leaving, later becoming the hero of the city where he ended up.
So, where could the Tick have come from? The pilot episode hints that The Tick has an interesting connection to Arthur’s childhood, but it’s unclear if that’s where the character began.
Whatever his origin ends up being, though, it’ll be interesting to see what drew Edlund to sacrificing the “power” of his character being “every kind of superhero.”
The pilot for The Tick came out on Amazon on August 18, 2016. The rest of the season will be released on August 25.
