Everything You Need To Know About Amazon's The Tick

From comic to cartoon to prime-time sitcom to Amazon original series, The Tick has always featured super-sized bravado and powerful fun. And with the first season of its latest incarnation bounding toward its debut, CBR took to the press line of Comic-Con International in San Diego to speak to the cast and creators of this outlandish and outstanding new series. Here's everything you need to know in order to fully enjoy and appreciate the show.

This is Ben Edlund's baby

Edlund, who created the character and has had a hand in its every TV incarnation, was not on hand to speak to us at Comic-Con, but Michael Cerveris, who plays the nefarious Ramses IV, assured of this gritty reboot, "I think fans of the earlier incarnations will find plenty of things that'll feel familiar and there's certainly a lot of love and respect for all those incarnations."

"Ben is so much a part of the creation of it all, he's overseeing every aspect of it," he said. "I feel like fans of it should feel like it's in safe hands because we're all fans of it."

We should all be more like The Tick

Playing the goofy but glorious hero the Amazon series is named for, English actor Peter Serafinowicz told us the secret to tapping into The Tick is "He's like a toddler who is inside the body of the Incredible Hulk. But he doesn't have the anger. He's totally positive, and up for anything. Some things do upset him, but not for long. He's got a very short attention span...He'll be reckless once in a while, but he's good fun. He enjoys having a laugh, and he enjoys fun. And he's up for it! He's up for going along for anything."

Arthur will be the heart of the series

Griffin Newman teased to CBR how his frightful hero (or sidekick) will grow over the course of Season 1, saying, "I think the growth is Arthur reluctantly accepting that he belongs in this world. There's a lot of refusal of 'The Call' on this show. I feel like see that a lot in movies and tv shows, the refusal of the call. It feels like it's happening that because a screenwriter wants it to, and you don't really buy that Ryan Reynolds would ever doubt himself."

"But Arthur has every reason in the world to doubt himself," Newman said, "People have doubted him his whole life. They've been telling him what he's not capable of. And physically, he doesn't belong in this sphere at all! So I think, it's him learning to believe in himself and be able to do the things that he innately has been capable of doing, and has maybe been destined to do his entire life."

Dot and Arthur's relationship will undergo a major shift

Valorie Curry, who plays Arthur's paramedic sister on the show, told us that Dot is "very grounded," and accepts that superheroes are real, but isn't awestruck over them, because the death of her father showed her that humans are just "collateral damage" to them. So, she's not going to be super stoked to learn that Arthur's cavorting around in a costume, fighting crime.

"But more than that, she's spent her entire adult life being a caregiver for her ostensibly mentally ill brother," Curry explained. "She's always put herself last, and she's always been put last. And her grief has always been on the back burner to take care of his. So even though she is incredibly capable--I mean she's really a badass--she's still had to anchor her life around Arthur. So if Arthur doesn't need her anymore, the question then becomes what's anchoring her? What's their relationship about?"

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='ld%20%28Chair%29%20Faces%20May%20Return']

Ms. Lint is not to be messed with

Speaking of the shocking villainess she plays, Yara Martinez told CBR, "Ms. Lint is a super villain, and she works for The Terror. And she shoots electricity when she's trying to fry people to death, to a crispy corpse. And when her powers backfire, and everything goes against what she needs to happen, lint starts to get attracted to her. She attracts lint. So there are days on set where I was covered in lint."

Essentially, even under The Terror's mentorship, she's not completely come into her own yet. But Martinez hopes that Ms. Lint's powers will be fully realized if the show gets a second season.

The Terror Returns!

The malicious villain played by Jackie Earle Hayley didn't score any appearances in the Season 1 trailer. But Haley's appearance on the press line assured us he'd reprise the role.

"My character definitely lives in the past. There's flashbacks," Haley explained, avoiding comment on if The Terror faked his own death, as Arthur believes. "The Terror is this evil guy who's 140 years old. 15 years before Superian got him, he did something to Arthur that just changed Arthur's entire life, his entire mentality. And Ms. Lint, who is the villain, there's flashbacks of the Terror mentoring her. The way he treated her has so much to do with what's going on in the present time because of what the Terror did to them way back when. So it's that kind of intercutting that ties things together."

Executive producer Barry Josephson was more forthcoming, saying, "The Terror is somebody whose hidden away. He's somebody whose living a secret life. He doesn't want somebody--especially Superian--to know that he's alive--that's a little bit of a giveaway! But he has to live sort of underground, and you'll understand that from the beginning of the show."

Old friends (or enemies!) could reappear

As The Tick has gone from comic to cartoon to sitcom to its latest incarnation, CBR asked its producers if past characters from the franchise might reappear alongside the big blue buffoon and his neurotic sidekick. Josephson said unequivocally, "Yes, you will," though he demurred from naming names.

Executive David Fury teased, "Right now some of those characters don't really fit into this world, but the world--I will guarantee-it -will continue to get crazier and crazier as we go along. So who knows, Chairface Chippendale might show up down the road."

Here's hoping!

Starring Peter Serafinowicz as The Tick, Griffin Newman as Arthur Everest, Valorie Curry as Dot Everest, Brendan Hines as Superian, Jackie Earle Haley as The Terror and Yara Martinez as Ms. Lint, the first part of The Tick‘s debut season arrives Aug. 25 on Amazon Prime.