The year is 1994 and you are a huge superhero fan.
You sit down to watch your favorite cartoon show, a thrilling battle of good versus evil.
The cheesy voice-acting and choppy animation doesnt disrupt the experience.
The Tick vs. and the most extreme antihero, the Chainsaw Vigilante.
The Tick vs. Superheroes
Wheres the jerk who calls himself the Tick?
demands an orange-clad buffoon with a shield in his hand and a long pointy nose.
I am that jerk!
shouts the resolute Tick, ready to take on the challenge.
This exchange from season ones The Tick vs.
The orange jerk-seeker who calls out the Tick is himself the Tick.
Even those who got their recommended amount of capes and tights through cartoons recognized the trope.
And all of these things made way for fantastic jokes onThe Tick.
OnX-Men, Magneto and other villains proclaim their superiority with absurd plans.
The X-Men get help from a range of heroes, who assemble in exciting montages.
The X-Men save the entire world, while the Tick goes to Belgium in season threes Tick vs. Europe.
While all of these riffs deal with the ridiculous parts of superhero stories, they never condescend to them.
The Tick vs. Cal Dodd growls his every line as Wolverine, just like he did three decades ago.
Professor X and Magneto deliver bombastic monologues that have long gone out of style.
The good guys and the bad guys solve their problems by punching one another out.
All of this is great.
But all of this is really serious.
And the only superhero parody around isThe Boys, which is extremely cynical, despite its necessary political satire.
The Tick doesnt preclude the deeper and weightier stuff inX-Men 97and other forms of superhero media.
The Tick is available to stream on Hulu in the U.S.
