Amazon has released the official trailer for the debut season of The Tick, their upcoming superhero comedy series. Based on the character created by writer/artist Ben Edlund, The Tick was one of the earliest and most enduring superhero parodies, featuring the titular, muscle bound insect crusader and his trusty sidekick, the mopey Arthur.
After a well received entry into Amazon’s streaming pilot season last year, The Tick is finally gearing up for its full debut season. A newly-released trailer features The Tick (Peter Serafinowicz) and Arthur (Griffin Newman) taking on dangerous enemies, including Jackie Earle Hayley’s The Terror, who was revealed to have had a major impact on young Arthur’s childhood in the pilot. Amazon is clearly betting big on their first foray into superheroics, as the streaming titan will be showcasing the series prominently at San Diego Comic-Con later this month.
This is the third major adaptation of The Tick. The character came to national prominence during the mid-’90s with a successful animated series that ran for three seasons on Fox that deftly blended the stock tropes of comic book cartoons with Edlund’s decidedly-offbeat sense of humor. The character’s first venture into live-action was decidedly less well-received. The 2001 live-action series starred Seinfeld and Venture Bros. luminary Patrick Warburton as the overblown vigilante. The show was quickly cancelled, but has become something of a cult sensation over the years.
![The Tick Official Trailer: The Hero You’ve Been Waiting For](https://static1.srcdn.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/The-Tick-Peter-Serafinowicz-.jpg)
Amazon appears to have made the third time the charm. A veteran of projects as varied as Guardians of the Galaxy and the acclaimed, extremely British comedy series Look Around You, Serafinowicz has mastered the Tick’s mix of earnest do-gooder charm with the sense that, deep down, he might be a deeply unwell man. Newman’s version of sidekick Arthur has gotten a new backstory, now a troubled young man trying to work through a trauma inflicted on him by The Terror in his youth with the assistance of his sister Dot, played by Valorie Curry.
Behind the camera, the series is in good hands as well. Edlund is scripting every entry of the 10-episode first season. Every episode is slated to be directed by Wally Pfister, best known as Christopher Nolan’s longtime cinematographer. The Tick may not have a tremendous amount of thematic crossover with Nolan’s Dark Knight Trilogy, but it’s good to know there are some seasoned superpowered hands helming the show.
Even in the current boom of superhero TV shows and movies, parodies and spoofs have not found much of a niche yet. If any character can break that trend, it’s The Tick.
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The Tick’s first season debuts on Amazon on August 25th, 2017.