Amazon revival of ‘The Tick’ to be ‘darker, more grounded,’ says comics creator Ben Edlund

Amazon thrilled comic book fans recently when it announced it was moving forward with its revival of “The Tick,” a new live-action series based on the comics by Ben Edlund that have already spawned an animated series, a short-lived live-action series (both on Fox) and a video game.

Rumors have swirled for several years, and the streaming content provider announced March 10 that it had ordered a pilot for a new take on the comics, featuring an all new cast. Stepping into the considerable footsteps of Patrick Warburton, who served as the voice of the animated Tick and embodied the live-action version of the character, is British actor Peter Serafinowicz (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Shaun of the Dead.”)

In news that may leave fans questioning the direction of the latest reboot of “The Tick,” creator Ben Edlund says the new series would have a slightly different tone than expected.

Speaking to Entertainment Weekly, Edlund remarked, “We’ve got this show about superheroes [where] we get to have fun with the idea of superheroes,” before going on to say that the series would be, “darker and more grounded.”

As easy as it might be to panic over Edlund’s comment and imagine a version of “The Tick” in the style of Christopher Nolan, it seems likely that Edlund was thinking of the fact that creating a show at Amazon allows for the series to grow beyond the very episodic nature it previously inhabited.

Later in his interview, Edlund said, “I love continuity and playing a seriality that is very close to what comics always have been, which is when something happens it gets fed into the ongoing canon and that becomes part of the fabric of the reality that that universe holds. To me, that’s something [that] is still super valuable, even in the humor universe.”

Despite not knowing what this version of “The Tick” will look like, it’s clear that Amazon is excited at the prospect of having the series join its stable of content. In the same interview, Joe Lewis, Amazon’s head of half-hour series, “It feels like on one hand you can say the superhero landscape is crowded but I think over the last two decades of it there’s nothing else like “The Tick.”

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