WB/Amazon Consider Lord of the Rings Show

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As the decade dwindles, it’s becoming increasingly clear that WB is finding themselves more and more left by the wayside in the age of global franchising.  The hard truth of the matter is that times change and more in more having a popular series of films matters less than having a film series that can stick around as part of the pop culture atmosphere.  The peculiar alchemy of turning online interest into hype into engagement has become the order of the day and that is a game WB really doesn’t seem to know how to play.  That’s why, despite the twin success of The Conjuring film series and the Kaiju-verse, WB is still chasing a return of their older franchise stalwarts- Batman, Harry Potter, and Lord of the Rings. 

We already saw their attempts at branding a Batman for the new decade in last year’s disastrous Batman v. Superman while their attempts at a Harry Potter prequel in Fantastic Beasts were met with a resounding “meh,” which was at least a better response than the loud cry of “BOO!” the Hobbit films engendered.  Now, WB looks to the world of streaming to reverse its fortunes as they’re reportedly inching towards a deal with Amazon for a Lord of the Rings streaming series. 

Cover Story - Top 12 Tick Covers

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While The Tick may not be on everyone’s mind this week he’s certainly on my mind.  His new live action show premiered Friday on Amazon mostly to widespread apathy but it’s reignited my curiosity for the character.  Like him or not, the wild blue yonder is one of the most successful indie superheroes there is, emerging out of the bubbling stew of creativity that was 1980s underground comics to be a major media force in the 1990s. 

In his over 20 year career the Tick has been adapted to live action, animation, video games, and a whole avalanche of comics, to the point that I’d say he deserves to be counted alongside the likes of Hellboy, Spawn, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles as one of the truly iconic superheroes not to come from DC or Marvel.  Given all that, and the fact I’ve now got an excuse to re-examine some of his stuff, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 12 covers featuring The Tick. 

Static Thoughts - The Tick (2001)

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Edited by Robert Beach

As the superhero genre continues to extend its icy tendrils into all forms of media, streaming superhero content seems to be the next big frontier for the genre. After such major hits as Daredevil and Jessica Jones, we’re now starting to see more obscure heroes get their shot at the big time such as last year’s Powers and 2016’s The Tick reboot on Amazon. As evidenced by the name of this article, The Tick reboot is what brought me here today, though I don’t have any plans to review it yet. I’ll give my thoughts eventually. For now, it’s just a pilot, and I’d like to wait till we see a full series before making a definitive call. 

No, I’m here today to look backward rather than forward, back to the strange days of 2001. Those were the days before Nolan’s Batman, before the Marvel cinematic universe, even before Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man. Back then, Batman and Robin had just recently killed the superhero genre while Blade and X-Men had only recently revived while the boom of indie comics led to dozens of off-beat hero adaptations. 

This was the era of Spawn, Savage Dragon, the Maxx, Wild C.A.T.s, Witchblade, Freakazoid, and more. This was also the time superheroes came to live-action TV like never before with shows like Mutant X and Smallville. In the midst of these two major trends, an obscure Boston indie superhero found his way into a live-action adaptation that, while brief, I’d argue as one of the best installments of the genre. His name? The Tick. 

Cover Story - Top 15 Wonder Woman Covers

Hello, and welcome to Cover Story: digging as little into comic books as we can.  In case you haven’t heard there’s a Wonder Woman in the works and we just got our first picture from it.  I’ll discuss the picture in more depth later down the line but for now I’ll just that I really like it and it’s actually got me excited for a DC film for a change.  It also got me thinking about Wonder Woman, one of the most underappreciated comic book heroes of all time.  Wonder Woman has an incredibly long and storied history, both in terms of inception and the actual content that informs her comics.  Just like fellow titans Batman and Superman, Wonder Woman’s comic was one of the few superhero books that never stopped running during the decline of superhero popularity.  That means she lasted through 2 whole decades of creativity and craziness, like the fanciful and unrestricted insanity that was the ‘40s or the blend of sci-fi and horror weirdness that was the ‘50s.  With all that in mind I’ll be focusing solely on her volume 1 comics from #1-#105, the issue where her origin was revamped for a new decade.  So, let’s dive into the shallow end and get the cover story on the top 15 Wonder Woman covers.