"Spooooooon!"

A kooky send-up of superheroes and comic books was exactly what the world needed and Ben Edlund was only too happy to deliver (thank you, Ben!). Choosing the most unlikely of animals as inspiration, Edlund created the affable, brainless, huge and entirely surreal Tick. From comics to animated series (and then to live action series), the bizarre antics of the Tick were a breath of fresh air in the often brooding world of tortured crime fighters.

The Tick was a a 400-pound man with the mind of a particularly slow child, always clad in a bright blue, tight-fitting suit with tiny little antennae on top of his head. The Tick's gung-ho attitude and eagerness to fight crime often caused vast amounts of collateral damages and he was shunned by the superhero community. He decided to move to the City (just...City) and open shop there, despite the fact that the City was teeming with superheroes. Soon after his arrival, the Tick encountered Arthur, a modest accountant with superhero dreams of his own; Arthur's hero persona is a moth, though his white suit, complete with antennae and wings, makes him look more like a bunny (according to the Tick and everyone else).

Arthur could fly, or more aptly glide, and the Tick's superpowers consisted of "nigh-invulnerability" which basically meant that he could bludgeon and be bludgeon until the cows came home. There was fierce competition in the City for any piece of crime fighting action though, as the pair of heroes had to measure up against other professionals like Die Fledermouse (a bat-like hero), American Maid (a brawny Wonder Woman spoof), the Caped Chameleon (alas, he couldn't do plaid) and Sewer Urchin. There was an equal multitude of bad guys in the City and the Tick routinely battled Chairface Chippendale (he got a chair for a head, seriously), Brain Child, The Breadmaster (used baked goods as weapons), and El Seed, who was an anthropomorphic sunflower, evil as only sunflowers can be.

The Tick may have started as an insider joke and cult phenomenon but with two TV series to its name, the franchise got the attention it deserved. Only in the Tick universe were we able to see a superhero sitting at home in his superhero costume watching infomercials on TV. Batman never let us glimpse that side of him, moody jerk.