Amazon created a pilot episode and released it online. If you are sensitive to spoilers, watch the pilot before reading further but The Tick is not exactly Game of Thrones, so spoilers are not a huge issue. I'm going to spew nerdy thoughts. The Tick started as a comic. It was an affectionate parody of action super hero comics. First off the super heroes and villains alike are ridiculous. Second, there are LOTS of them to the point where they step on each other and annoy the populace. They apply just enough realism to super heroes to highlight how absurd it all is. Most of the entertainment value came from the this. This was helped with clever word play, situation comedy with a dash of risque humor and occasionally crossing the line twice. Every time you make an adaptation or remake, there is a fine line creators must walk. If you change too little, people will wonder why you remade it. If you change too much, you risk destroying what people liked. The animated series found the right balance. They made it fit for children instead of teenagers. They kept the nuance that made the show watchable for adults. They stopped crossing the line twice. That was never the strong point of the comics and it was not kids appropriate. They cut back the risque humor but kept tiny hints of it. They expanded the Tick's narrative monologues. A monologue works better in a cartoon than a comic. A cartoon can put the monologue over scenery changes or action scenes. A comic can only show a monologue as a block of text. One of the minor tweaks to adapt the series from comic books to animation. They kept the core affectionate parody setting. They kept the sit com humor and really kept the clever wordplay. It had clever writers and talented voice actors. Then came the live action Tick. The series had a short run and failed. The superstitious or snarky could say that it failed because Fox was managing the show and they had a LOT of shows end after one or two seasons. They killed Firefly for Old Ones sake. Anywho, the live action version of the Tick kept the clever dialogue. They had good actors. As a live action adult show they got license to up the innuendo. They overdid the Tick's monologues but that didn't kill the show. What killed it is a low budget. The show had so little comic book action that it was basically a sit com with costumes. Granted, the funniest moments of the animated series were generally between fightes rather than in the fights but the entire 2001 live action series was between fights. They only talked about what they did or were going to do. So how is the new remake changing the series now? The costumes are different but they kind of resemble more recent super hero movies. That's good, more affectionate parody. modified for the 21st century. the characters are the same and the core personalities are the same they were in the past interations. The tick still has random monologues that almost make sense. Most cartoons before the 1990s were in a syndicated episodic format. They had the same cast of characters but for the most part you could randomize the order the episodes are in without horribly breaking the flow. The 1990s cartoons began a gradual shift towards continuing sagas that built on each other, but the Tick's larger saga was mainly based on the moon. One episode Chairface Chippendale tried to deface the moon by writing his name on it. The Tick and friends stopped him when he got to "CHA" Later the Tick went to the moon to fix it but due to hilarious circumstances it now says "HA." Also, a character who was definitely not Galactus Destroyer of Worlds wanted to eat the Earth, Tick talked him out of it, but offered to let him take a bite of the moon. You can tell what season you are in by how much damage the moon shows. So the cartoon series had a villain called the Terror. The joke was he was the world's greatest villain. Well past his prime. His debut of villainy involved punching Teddy Roosevelt. The Terror is clearly the Big Bad of the new series and clearly the episodes are intended to build off each other. For binge watching of course. We are in the Netflix era of TV! That's not a problem. The new Tick looks like it has reasonable special effects budget so we'll see good action scenes. This is a good things. The three previous iterations of the Tick, the comic book, the cartoon, and the live action show all had a city that was oozing with superheroes. the superheroes are subpar but there are lots of them. The reboot of the Tick, the literary universe has lots of super heroes but the City has a superhero shortage. They have a lot of the comedy elements I love about the original Tick cartoon show and I don't mind a binge watchable continuing story. There is a problem. Almost every remake of a superhero goes for a touch of darker and edgier. If the Tick is to keep parodying super heroes they need to at least nod towards edgier and darker. The Tick has no backstory, to give him one is to make him not the Tick. They gave Arthur a backstory. Now the standard gritty backstory is for the hero to be to lose a parent to crime or violence, or in the case of Zac Snyder superman, a natural disaster put in for no reason. Spoiler: Here's what they did The City was protected by a team of five superheroes. Despite being a scrawny nerd with no powers. Arthur (child) idolized them. Then The Terror blinded them with weaponize syphilis, their futuristic plane fell from the sky. Arthur watched his father crushed to death before his very eyes while he is holding a toy model of the ship which crushed his father to death. Then his heroes staggered out clawing at their useless eyes and screaming in pain. The Terror's minions then butchered the four of the five heroes like sheep, but the youngest was just left blind with his hands broke. Then the Terror walked over to Arthur's cafe table and sipped his cocoa to taunt him before walking away. The PTSD caused Arthur to spend the rest of his life going in an and out of mental institutions The stuff in the spoiler box crosses the line, but it does not cross the line twice. The Tick is a comedy. I fear the new Tick will be subpar because you can't be a comedy and a horror show at the same time.
I am optimistic that even with the gruesome backstory it will stick to the original intent of the comic book/cartoon.
A friend watched about half the pilot, got bored with it, and pointed out that lots of good shows have crummy pilots and pilot episodes should often be skipped.