Well, it looks like it's time for an update. It's 2017, and Amazon has rebooted The Tick again, in a made-for-web TV series.
Arthur Everest has had a hard life. When he was just a young boy his father was killed in front of him when a team of superheros crash-landed on top of him. Then, most evil supervillain in the world -- The Terror -- stole his ice cream. It was a bad day.
Fast forward to today. Arthur has been in and out of therapy for years, but can just about function as a normal person if he remembers to take his meds. He has a secret obsession, though, with The Terror. Everyone believes that The Terror died in an daring explosion by the most super of heros, Superian. Arthur thinks... no, Arthur knows that The Terror is still alive, plotting the ultimate attack on humanity.
Then, The Tick shows up. The Tick is super-strong, nearly invincible, dumb as a brick, and absolutely convinced that Arthur is destined to be his sidekick. Oh, and he also stole a super high-tech superhero suit from The Terror, so that his sidekick could be appropriately protected. Mostly, of course, from The Terror, who wants his suit back.
The Tick is always wacky. That's what the franchise is. But in this series the rest of the world isn't quite so wacky. People die. People need meds for mental illness stemming from childhood trauma. People lose their jobs in the accounting firm if spurious superheroes follow them to work. And when someone is violently defenestrated, well, sometimes they don't stand back up afterwards. It's not quite fair to call this a hardboiled superhero tale, but it's certainly not as soft-boiled as the previous series have been.
I'm not entirely on-board with the philosophy that modern audience need high production values and Serious Themes in order to be properly engaged, and I like the overall feel of the 2001 series better. But this is a good series, and The Tick is still very much The Tick, and he still fights amusing villains of the sort one expects, even if they are covered in more blood than is strictly traditional for the franchise. If you are a fan of The Tick, (and if you have Amazon Prime), it's certainly worth checking out.