The Tick: Prime Video's Underrated Superhero Series That Predates The Boys

5 days ago 13

Published May 3, 2026, 11:57 AM EDT

Cher Thompson is a Senior Staff Writer at Screen Rant, where she covers everything from explosive reality TV moments to cast interviews about the twists and turns of scripted dramas. With a background in creative writing, marketing, and teaching, Cher knows how to spot both the storytelling genius and the guilty pleasures in pop culture. Her work blends wit with insight, making readers feel like they’re chatting with a friend who just happens to know way too much about TV.

The success of Prime Video's original series The Boys has reshaped expectations for the superhero genre, but the platform's long-lost sci-fi series was pushing the envelope long before Eric Kripke's merry band of vigilantes. While The Boys has been able to tap into a different audience, proving that audiences respond to stories that question who holds power rather than ones about celebrating them, the alternative superhero genre hardly began with the fairly new franchise.

TV in the 2000s and 2010s experimented with alt-heroes, moving beyond the traditional origin story and finding something a bit more morally ambiguous to chew on. Shows like Heroes examined the human consequences of having superpowers, while other shows embraced a similar idea of genre bending. Rather than leaning into the traditional superhero story, shows were looking to build something new that encapsulated how society was feeling about those in power. Rather than idolizing a hero, viewers were looking to humanize them.

The broader shift toward seeing heroes in a more human light led to shows like The Tick, which is one of the most distinctive, often overlooked series in the superhero genre. Released on Prime Video in 2016, The Tick adapts the long-running comic by Ben Edlund. The second series developed for the hero, 2016's version of The Tick ran for longer than its 2001 predecessor, but despite a grounded story that looked into trauma and heroism in tandem, the show has become a forgotten gem of the modern streaming era.

Prime Video's The Tick Is A Perfect Comic Book Adaptation

Adapting Edlund's comic into a live-action series for the second time, The Tick stars Peter Serafinowicz as the titular hero, who crosses paths with Arthur Everest (Griffin Newman) at the perfect time. Arthur, often riddled with anxiety, is convinced that a super villain named The Terror is still alive and causing havoc despite having said to be defeated long ago. As Arthur's friendship with The Tick, which oftens roams into the realm of a grumpy/sunshine dynamic due to Arthur's anxiety and The Tick's overwhelming optimism, grows, the pair find themselves working together to take down threats in their city.

The Tick is a perfect comic book adaptation because it both refuses to take itself too seriously, but chooses to tell a sincere story. Expertly toeing the line between satirical and sincere, the show is clear that its leading hero is over-exaggeratedly optimistic, bordering on ridiculous. At the same time, the hero story that the series is trying to tell is only the facade. Underneath its broad strokes, Arthur's struggles with self-doubt and trauma are treated tenderly, grounded by the show's fantastical elements taking the brunt of the humor so that in quieter moments, the series can focus on character.

The Tick Season 3's Cancellation Still Hurts

Peter Serafinowicz as The Tick and Griffin Newman as Arthur in The Tick

Despite its strengths, The Tick was canceled after just two seasons on Prime Video in 2019. While the show was being praised for its foray into a satirical superhero sub-genre, The Tick was likely too niche for the streaming platform as it got on its feet. Despite the fact that the critical reception of the series was high, only growing with its second season premiere, The Tick wasn't afforded the opportunity to continue its story into a third season.

Not getting a third season was especially painful because it was clear that The Tick was building throughout its second season, expanding its scope to bring new stories to the forefront. With the cancellation leaving several stories left untold or unfinished, The Tick ending so abruptly is still a tough pill to swallow close to a decade later. While The Tick's live-action adaptations have both been short-lived, the show has gained more cultural significance because of their brief success. As a superhero series, shows like The Boys have been taking lessons from The Tick from the start.