The Tick (on Amazon Prime)

[Werthead]

Season 2 of this dropped yesterday. I've watched the first eight episodes so far and it's superb, an improvement even on the excellent first season (which took 2-3 episodes to get up into gear before it took off).

Really enjoyed the new villains, especially Kylo Ren-aping Edgelord ("BECAUSE SOCIAL MEDIA!!!"), and John Hodgman as the AEGIS ("Think of us as a...'SHIELD', if you will") scientist is great-if-obvious casting. Superian having a total nervous breakdown and basically turning into Douchebag Superman is also highly entertaining.

The dialogue is fantastic as well. Season 1 has one of my favourite lines of all time:

Quote

 

"I'm just a simple plain-talking German Shepherd who can start fires with his mind, but it humbles me to know that so many good people, like yourself, find meaning in my secular journey."

 

but Season 2 has so far hit us with:

Quote

 

Aren't we all ships passing in the night, occasionally boarding one another as the waves roll on by?"

"I have been trained to lock my problems in a mental glacier under a thousand tons of solid mind-ice."

 

How Ben Edlund has made this same story with the same core cast work so incredibly well in multiple different media across 30 years, whilst he himself has been working on dozens of other projects simultaneously, is nothing short of amazing.

Hopefully there'll be a third season, although Amazon haven't gone out of their way to publicise this one.

[GrimTuesday]

Yeah, season two was way better than season 1.  I enjoyed both, but The Terror honestly started grating on me. The way this season was set up was great, the twists fun and actually somewhat unexpected at time. 

 

That said, I find myself impatiently waiting forfor everyone's favorite, The Evil Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight

[Werthead]

Apparently they have some rights issues going on. So anything from the original comic is fine, but anything created for the 1990s animated series is not, which is why they had to have a second talking dog rather than using the original one. I believe this is why Sewer Urchin hasn't shown up either.

I'm not sure what category the Evil Midnight Bomber falls into though.

[red snow]

I agree that the Tick is a perfect (possibly unique?) Counter argument to any discussion of "why remake/translate to different media". Maybe the key factor is the involvement of the original creator who i guess never needs to be beholden to previous incarnations in the way other successor creators are. I think it also helps that it's primarily a comedy too. 

[Werthead]

What makes it work is that Ben Edlund has worked on a lot of other properties. He's rare in that he's someone as happy working in someone else's playground, which he already does respectfully, as he is in his own. So The Tick is his baby but he's also worked on Firefly (penning Jaynestown), Angel (including the mighty Smile Time), Supernatural (penning about 30 episodes) and Venture Bros., among others.

So I think Edlund goes off, works in these other fields, and then brings that experience to the table when it becomes time to introduce The Tick to a new audience or medium.

It strikes me that he really should have been tapped to do something for Marvel by now.

[Luzifer's right hand]

I'm enjoying season 2 a lot. Superian reminds me quite a bit of the Plutonian although I doubt things will go that far.