While Marvel tries to dominate the international theatrical box office with their superhero movies (Avengers, Spiderman, etc.) and DC tries to find its way back to box office success (Shazam, Aquaman, Wonder Woman, etc.), Amazon Prime has released a few smaller publishers’ properties. Interestingly, while both The Tick and The Boys skew the superhero conventions with a comedic bent, the properties couldn’t be more different.
The Tick is the older property, created by Ben Edlund for New England Comics in 1986 and brought to TV as an animated series (1994), and a TV series starring Patrick Warburton as the Tick (2002). While these shows are fun, this review will cover Amazon Prime’s latest incarnation (2018) starring Peter Serafinowicz as the Tick and Griffin Newman as Arthur Everest. Each incarnation genuinely reproduces the wit, charm and humor of the original comic that both parodies the Superhero genre and also celebrates it; however, the 2018 version is the one with the greatest depth and layers of humor.
Side note: Talking about the show The Tick and the character the Tick can be confusing, so I’ll keep the convention that the show will be italicized and both words “The” and “Tick” will be capitalized. The character will only have “Tick” capitalized and will not be italicized.
Each version of The Tick is primarily centered on Arthur Everest, an under-powered neurotic accountant who is blessed to find a power suit. In the 2018 version, we learn Arthur’s father was killed by the super villain known as The Terror. People think Arthur is harmless, but also that he is crazy because he is the only one who believes that The Terror is still alive. The Tick is an enormously powerful, yet dangerously simple-minded superhero who decides that with Arthur as his partner, they make a complete crime fighting duo. This classic brains and brawn dynamic is taken to extremes for comedic purposes and to explore the fundamental definition of a Hero.
The Boys was co-created and written by Garth Ennis and co-created, designed and illustrated by Darick Robertson between 2006 and 2012 for Wildstorm Comics and Dynamite Entertainment. This big-budget production for Amazon Prime just launched this August and stars Karl Urban as Billy Butcher, Erin Moriarty as Starlight, and Jack Quaid as Hughie Campbell.
The Boys is a much darker and more violent series with the superheroes of the show at the pinnacle of moral and financial corruption. The story revolves around revenge and violent retribution. We are exposed to these dark motivations as Billy Butcher recruits Hughie Campbell to join a group of angry non-super-humans who have experienced grief and loss due to the callous actions of super heroes. The motivations and dynamics become complicated when Hughie befriends and begins dating a girl who turns out to be the Superhero known as Starlight – a superhero who actually wants to do the right thing. Naturally, Billy Butcher cannot believe any goodness can ever be associated with super-powered people, so the conflicts begin to multiply within the group even as they make progress towards their goals.
I truly recommend both shows because they are both entertaining and intellectually stimulating. The key aspects of both shows are Action, Humor, and the danger of Corruption, but their dosages and results are strikingly different.
When it comes to Action, a staple of most comic book properties, The Boys exceeds The Tick in both quantity and intensity. The Boys delivers mayhem through a generous delivery of gunfire, martial arts combat, super-powered mayhem and property destruction. All of this action usually results in serious dramatic consequences as people are maimed, murdered, or sometimes even killed by callous indifference. Occasionally, the action delivers comedy, but often the comedy is very dark and also accompanied by heavy doses of gore and mature content.
The Tick flips this formula on its head and delivers a much more comedic experience with much less gore and explicit violence. This may not appeal as strongly to the fans of pure action, but The Tick’s wit delivers additional layers of enjoyment as it skewers the hero tropes often found in comics. For example, when the Tick saves a vigilante superhero known as Overkill, Overkill’s code of honor requires him to save the Tick’s life. However, the Tick is practically invulnerable. Overkill must instead grant the Tick a wish. Thus the Tick, preferring a “less murdery” approach to heroism wishes to remove the kill from Overkill- driving Overkill to the brink of madness with frustration!
When it comes to humor, The Tick delivers a much broader range and heavier dose of humor than The Boys. The characters within The Boys work in gags and one liners to lighten the mood, but overall the story is a drama set in a very dangerous world. For example, as seen in the trailer, at one point Billy Butcher seizes a super-powered baby that shoots lasers from its eyes (“Diabolical!”) and uses the kid as a weapon to dismember armed guards. While intensely funny, the scene is ultimately a dramatic one that reveals the sins of the villainous corporation Vought International – a company that creates and ‘owns’ the super heroes.
Meanwhile, The Tick is a tapestry of humor that weaves clever dialog, character traits played for laughs, slapstick humor, and situational comedy together tightly and with wit. While it also addresses some similar themes of corruption and bigotry, it does so with a lighthearted spirit that always uplifts. For example, the Terror’s top aide is a villain known as Ms. Lint. She channels static electricity, but if her special bracelets are broken, she builds up charge, and therefore, lint. Hence the name. The Terror created her special bracelets because if she was going to be evil, she had to ‘look good in black’ – and lint didn’t look good on black. They continue to milk this joke for many episodes working in sight gags, one-liners, and an unfortunate confrontation with a vacuum cleaner.
Ultimately, The Boys delivers more action and The Tick delivers more comedy. However, both shows have a similar exploration and a thoughtful take on corruption.
For the humans in The Boys fighting back against the superheroes, their motivation centers on the superhero’s fundamental lack of empathy for normal humans. However, when they start digging deeper, they find that the superheroes are manipulated and run by the corporation Vought. The ever-present human frailties of greed, lust, jealousy, fear and rage supply the backbone of the plot through the interactions of both normal and super-humans.
The Tick also sees conflicts between super-humans and humans. Similarly it also explores the corruption of the powers that be. Yet, for The Tick, it isn’t a corporation, but the super-hero licensing agency, Aegis, that shows signs of menace and corruption. And yet, in The Tick, corruption goes both ways. Super villains who do acts of heroism may find themselves enjoying the feeling and being ‘corrupted’ by goodness – much to their own disgust! The Tick cleverly plays with the typical superhero plot twists of mind control, betrayal and secrets to deliver both the expected versions and twisted versions that amplify the comedy.
So far, I have finished both seasons of The Tick and the first season of The Boys. In typical comic fashion, they leave cliff-hanger plot points to keep our interest going into the next season, but The Boys leaves more elements than The Tick. Unfortunately, The Tick has been cancelled, so we will not have a chance to find out what creator Ben Edlund was going to make us laugh at next. Fortunately, The Tick’s hanging plot points were secondary items and the two seasons work fine as a standalone story. The same can’t be said for The Boys, but fortunately, The Boys have had the next season ordered by Amazon Prime, so we should be able to see how the show develops.
Beyond the typical superhero devices of action, comedy and corruption, both shows also explore what it means to be a hero. The Boys touch on the theme in a tangential way. The protagonist Hughie begins as a person too weak to even ask for a raise or interrupt his boss, but because of grief begins to become more assertive. Partially, he is shown a path of strength by Billy Butcher, however, Billy’s ruthlessness also makes Hughie question just how much strength is required to be a hero before it becomes bullying. The superheroes in The Boys generally dwell on the bully end of the strength spectrum, except that Starlight actually has a conscience. She uses the strength of her convictions to stand up to the bullies within Vought and she and Hughie begin to drift closer to each other in point of view. However, while it plays a part in our understanding of the characters, the concept of heroism does not play a central role in the story (at least, not yet).
On the other hand, The Tick’s exploration of heroism is central to the concept, the story and the humor. One level is the obvious dichotomy of a brawny, invincible simpleton (the Tick) and the highly intelligent, neurotic and powerless Arthur. The contrast is explicitly exploited in the second season when AEGIS considers both Arthur and Tick as candidates to be licensed heroes. Arthur is measured as having absolutely no superpowers, while the Tick destroys the measuring devices. AEGIS invites Arthur to be a hero under the condition that he controls the Tick – because only together do they make a functioning hero – and in the Tick’s case, a functioning person!
Meanwhile even the side characters such as the vigilante, Overkill, and the supervillain, Ms. Lint, have character arcs that explore heroism in different directions. Overkill is a hero that wants to kill people to release his anger, so he is testing the border between heroism and villainy from the heroic side. Ms. Lint is a supervillain who pretends to be a hero to knock out her competition. However, the heroic actions begin to develop a suppressed conscience and make her explore the same boundary as Overkill from the villainous side. Naturally, The Tick amplifies the comedic value by ensuring that Ms. Lint and Overkill used to date…
Ultimately, both shows are fun rides. If you are in the mood for delightfully diabolical action, check out The Boys. If you are in the mood to laugh, definitely watch The Tick, but try to put away the phone or you might miss some of the subtle humor that provide the foundation for bigger jokes later.