e stands in silence, stoic, godlike. The mysterious blue avenger who has become legend to the simple folk of this bus station. But while glory will not distract him from his "vigil," the tyranny of the bus station coffee machine just might. After doing battle with the coffee machine, the Tick (Warburton) realizes his destiny lies elsewhere and that "destiny honks the horn of gotta go."
And go he does, to a city known as The City, where crime fights back. There, on the roof of a building, he waits, a hero ready to fight wicked men and their evil deeds. However, he doesn't have to wait long. He hears the scream of a damsel in distress, who actually turns out to be Arthur (Burke), a superhero wannabe who ran into some bad guys.
Evil Russians are about to release The Red Scare, a killer robot from the 1970s whose mission was to kill then-President Jimmy Carter. They have plans to reprogram the robot, but before they can, the Tick comes to the rescue and takes out the bad guys. Of course, he accidentally manages to release the killer robot without knowing it.
Arthur, who is dressed in a white moth costume that looks a whole lot like a bunny suit, follows the Tick to the nearest rooftop. There they meet Captain Liberty (Vassey) and Batmanuel (Carbonell), superheroes who can't seem to fight their attraction to each other. None of them will listen to Arthur about the killer robot, so he heads home disillusioned. However, the Tick isn't far behind, and before Arthur knows it, they're off to try and save the ex-president.
In "The Funeral," when a rendezvous with Captain Liberty leads to an unexpected death for a superhero named the Immortal, the gang try to help her get his body back where it belongs, while the Tick learns about death. In "Couples," Arthur isn't at all sure he likes the idea of being a sidekick, and he visits a sidekick support group.
Daring, ingenious and silly
It's a crime that Fox put this hysterically funny comedy on the shelf for over a year while it waited for an airdate. And now that it's finally on the schedule, it's stuck on Thursdays opposite Survivor and NBC's block of comedies. It may be the type of crime that even a powerful superhero like the Tick won't be able to fight.
This unique series deserves better. Based on Ben Edlund's cult comic book and the animated series, The Tick is fun and goofy in a way that not many shows are these days. The moment you see Warburton in his big blue Tick suit on the roof of the bus station, there's no doubt this superhero sitcom will have a style and humor all its own.
Men In Black's Barry Sonnenfeld directs and brings to life Edlund's characters and their strange world. A first-rate cast takes on the challenge of making the characters work. Considering the costumes they wear, that's an amazing feat. Warburton manages to pull off the big blue suit and still be confident, innocent and dim-witted as the Tick. He puts so much energy and joy into the role, it's easy to get caught up in the Tick's odd turn on life. His dialogue would make a lesser actor cringe, but Warburton embraces it. Backing him up in more ways than one, Burke strikes just the right balance as sidekick Arthur. Their chemistry is wonderful and the characters fit together perfectly.
The Tick is extremely well written and produced, with enough special effects to make one a believer in this odd world of superheroes. But can a series that's daring, ingenious, silly and fearless actually make it on network television? We can only hope.
