Truth, justice, goodness: The Tick fights for all of these. With a naivate that is both charismatic and amusing, this seven foot tall, blue-suited hero bounds across the rooftops of The City in search of evildoing. He has a heart of gold, an immense vocabulary, and a one-track mind. Justice for The Tick is not some philosophical or legal abstraction; it is something real that can be successfully fought for on the streets (or sewers, or in South America, etc.). Goodness comes naturally, and is not the product of religion or law. Good is just good.

"Spoooooon!"

The Tick is nigh-indestructible: he has survived being shot into space, eaten by a dinosaur, ninja attacks, falling several hundred feet, and other tribulations that would leave ordinary mortals good and dead. His origins are uncertain, although he has mentioned being in a mental institution at one point.

The Tick is the archetypal warrior god: long on a sense of righteousness, short on abstractions, he goes about his daily duties wholeheartedly and without question. Like Thor in the Norse mythos, Aule in Tolkein's, or Achilles in the Greek, The Tick is most comfortable fighting hand-to-hand with his adversaries. The Tick, like these other deities, fights with a sense of obligation and righteous duty, and not with the bad-ass machismo a la Rambo or The Terminator.

Being a super-hero has obligations with it that The Tick understands to his very core. He pursues neither love, nor financial success, nor deep philosophical Truths. Instead, he feels obliged to protect the weak, right wrongs, and make sure evil is punished.

Without his life as a super-hero The Tick would be nothing but a hollow shell, lifeless and sad. Super-heroing is what gives The Tick his purpose and fortunately adventure both follows him and calls him. One can hardly imagine The Tick playing out the lives that most of us lead. A suburban lifestyle is antithetical to everything that is The Tick.

"Ah, spelling America with a 'K', are we?"

The Tick is a simpleton. He is uncomplicated, single-minded, and probably fits the technical definition of a psychotic. But he is nevertheless a hero who warrants great respect, for he knows instinctively those things which too often get overlooked or overcomplicated by adults: honor, justice, truth, goodness. He never allows evil to get the upper hand.

"Roof-pig! Most unexpected!"

His adventures have ranged from fighting men equipped with very large Swiss army knifes, to battling a centennarian villian named The Terror, to combating his evil clone made from the cells of his own mucus. Through all of these he never resorted to Odysseus-like cunning. Complications never distracted him from his ulimate sense of right and wrong, and although this would never have flown in the backstabbing world of politics and business, it allowed him to thrive as a hero.

The Tick's archetype is one that is well worth remembering. The world is a complicated and strange place. The Tick's simplistic view of the world is refreshing because it reminds us that looking at the world through a child's eyes is not always a bad thing, so long as we make sure those eyes also have the child's sense of right and wrong.