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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.
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.
