Real Name:
Unknown
The Tick
Real Name:
Unknown
First Appearance: The Tick #1
Identity/Class:
Occupation:
Affiliations:
Enemies:
Known Relatives:
Aliases: Neville Need, Weekly World Plant Crossword Editor (Fired)
Base of Operations: Arthur's apartment, The City
History: The origins of the world's dumbest superhero are shrouded in mystery. He states he cannot remember his past before escaping from a Minnesota state mental insitute, the Evanston Clinic, and making his way to The City, some two hundred miles away. He sometimes claims to believe that he is in fact a genuine tick, albeit a very large humanoid one, but since he lacks any real resemblance to a blood-sucking arachnid (they are generally not large, blue, and able to speak in complete sentances), most people discount this.
Wherever he sprang
from, he soon began to establish himself as a superhero upon arriving in
the city. With his naive innocence, becoming a true hero is his life's ambition;
partly this is out of a desire to protect the weak and helpless, but mainly
it's so he can play with the super-gadgets, the secret underground headquarters
and everything else that makes up the standard super-hero lifestyle. To this
end he procured a variety of super-gadgets; the Secret CrimeViewfinder, the
Mighty Diner Straw, the Pez Dispenser of Graveness, his Hypnotic Secret Identity
Tie, etc, most of which look and sound cool, but don't actually do much.
He also got himself a sidekick. On his first patrol he encountered Arthur, a former accountant clothed in a flying moth suit, and they swiftly became partners and friends. The Tick takes his superheroing very seriously, reading Leotard Legends Monthly Magazine and watching Heroes every week to improve his crimefighting. He frequents Ben's Diner and the Bistro D'Burden, both of which are hangout spots for other superheroes. His biggest weakness is perhaps his short attention span, and his ability to be distracted by shiny objects.
Powers/Abilities: The Tick's nigh-invulnerability is his
main power. He can withstand the voids of space, 1 billion volts of electricity
for 5 minutes, seems impervious to bullets, mortar shells, hammers, farm
equipment, tomahawks, clever insults, erosion, explosive decompression and
severe poundings by genetically enhanced clowns. He is incredibly strong;
no known limit has been established for his physical strength. He has lifted
cars, toppled giant Ninja effigies, destroyed theme parks and hurled monoliths
way up into the air. He has the amazing ability to leap across tall buildings
in a single bound, usually crushing something when he lands.
His body is a weapon, a nigh-invulnerable shield against villainy. Not only is he one tough customer, he has also devised a set of maneuvers that he and Arthur use to fight crime. They only rarely work. The tights of justice are tingly and uncomfortable but it gets the job done and fits The Tick very well. His weak point are his antennae. They are very sensitive and are his sole source of balance. Without them he experiences severe bouts of vertigo.
Comments: Created by Ben Edlund.
Voice by Townsend Coleman in the cartoon series. The Tick was also the subject of a short lived (8 episodes) TV series on Fox TV in 2001. The show was produced and directed by Barry Sonnenfield of Men In Black fame.
CLARIFICATIONS:
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