Amazon's new superhero parody series The Tick has plenty of classic comic book characters from DC and Marvel to choose from that are perfect for poking fun at. Season 1 of the upcoming reboot will feature an epic Marvel superhero parody that not many of us might have expected. The Tick creator and executive producer had this to tease about what kind of comic character we should expect in the first season:
A very, very violent vigilante character - who won't have a skull on his chest, but he will be quite hardline in his reasoning.
Any Marvel fan will know that Ben Edlund is referring to Frank Castle, a.k.a. the Punisher, with his mention of a violent vigilante with a skull on his chest. The Punisher isn't exactly the funniest hero ever to grace to pages of a comic book, but that could actually work in favor of hilarity for The Tick. After all, the shenanigans of the Tick and his pal Arthur look goofy and over-the-top at times, but this new show will skew a little more dark and chaotic than either of the previous TV ventures. So the psychological underpinnings of the possibly insane Tick should mesh well with a character whose motivations couldn't be more clear. Or violent.
The time may be exactly right for a parody of the Punisher to succeed on screen. The character made his way into the limelight earlier this year when Daredevil Season 2 introduced Frank Castle as an antihero on a quest for revenge. Jon Bernthal stole the show as Frank, and it won't be too much of a surprise if the Tick version of Punisher will bear a lot of similarities to Bernthal's Punisher. Throw in the fact that Daredevil streams on Netflix while The Tick will debut on Amazon, and we may even be in for some meta humor about streaming services.
It should be interesting to see who The Tick casts to play its version of the Punisher. Ben Edlund went on in his chat with IGN at New York Comic Con to reveal that Patrick Warburton would appear on the new show in "a really interesting role." We can't say what the chances are that we'll get to see the original Tick himself playing a distinctly un-Tick type of character like Frank Castle, but it's guaranteed that Warburton would nail the role. He has the imposing stature to make for a believable non-superpowered vigilante as well as the comedic timing to guarantee a funny episode of television.
For a first look at Peter Serafinowicz and Griffin Newman as the Tick and Arthur, Amazon subscribers can check out the Tick pilot now. There's no saying how long we'll have to wait before we see the parody version of the Punisher when Season 1 debuts, so take a look at our TV premiere schedule to see what you'll be able to watch on the small screen this fall.
