Very funny and very biting superhero parody and celebration. Ben Edlund does something very difficult in this book, he creates a great superhero comic which manages to savagely mock superheros and be a real superhero story in its own right while being very funny at the same time. Given that the stories were first published twenty years ago they retain their freshness, humour and their bite. The Tick has no back story, the appearance of a “nigh-invulnerable” seven foot lunatic in a blue costume calling himself The Tick is never explained, he just strides into the story. He is also insane, not in a humorous way, but actually insane and somewhat aware of this. Ben Edlund, in a single bound, manages to nail the central unreality of superheros, take them seriously and mock them mercilessly all at the same time. Then he proceeds to develop the ideas to further extremes and with consistently funny effect, something that most superhero parody’s cannot do, they have the concept and fail with the execution.
The stories mix superhero concepts and actual insanity with ease, the serious notes give the stories weight and depth, the flow of fantastic ideas and hopelessly absurd situations taken with utmost seriousness by all involved are wonderfully done. The savage takedown of Superman is sharp enough to draw blood. One of my favourite characters is a man-eating cow that is drawn with a truly extraordinary expressiveness. The scenes when the Tick and his sidekick, Arthur, finally find their way to New York and encounter the numerous superheros resident there form a fitting crescendo to the mayhem in the book. This is not just a book for fans of superheros or for those who hate them, it is a book for any comic fan who wants to see spiky, original talent at work.
