Possibly the funniest Tick comic since the original series, Tick: Karma Tornado #5 takes on that venerable institution, the super-hero team. Though Edlund is credited merely with the concept, it's clear that scripter Clay Griffith has the spirit in his heart, with his design of the members of the "Justly Compensated League of Super-Heroes" rivaling such gems as Man-Eating Cow or Paul the Samurai for supporting characters. Artists Hopkins, Muns and regular inker Dave Garcia help out with fun designs, especially when it comes to Building Man, and the end result is a funny little one-off story for regular Tick fans as well as those seeking any kind of funny super-hero outlet.
It's interesting to me how much of The Tick animated series maps to the issues of the comic series that I have read without either media duplicating the other. In this issue, we have Tick's tendency to follow the shiny promise of a super-hero tradition despite Arthur's more intelligent warnings, the notion that the Tick is one of the few true-blue heroes in the City and the strange roommate/partner/couple relationship that Tick and Arthur share. The latter is an especially strong element, as Arthur seems to have a pretty level-headed approach (relatively speaking) to the whole super-heroing thing and a devotion to the Tick, while the Tick will happily throw over his loyal friend in the name of super-hero genre staples.
As is typical for The Tick, the creators spend some time deflating the conventions of the super-hero genre. The structure of the story is straight out of the four-color handbook, introducing this new team and their powers, bringing in the lead character and then adding his conflict with the team, but the trappings are in a humorous vein. In particular, the designs for the villain team are some of the more unusual characters you'll see, about on the level of the Great Lakes Avengers, and I especially enjoyed the strange idea of Super Pilgrim.
While plenty of the humor comes from the heroes and villains of this world, the rest of it comes from the way the Tick reacts to it. His absolutely earnest faith in the team dynamic, as demonstrated by his clueless participation in their schemes or his hilarious diary entries, is a fun contrast with the nefarious business-tinged actual operations of the League. There's also a lot of humor to be found as the members of the League try to deal with Tick's often dangerously bombastic earnestness, whether it's Building Man's "We already attend a church" or Super Pilgrim trying to snow the Tick so that he'll gather up bribes for them.
Given the amount of super-hero parody that's out there, it says something that The Tick still stands as something of a high watermark. Creator Ben Edlund set a pretty high standard for the character, but it seems that the creators who came after him on Karma Tornado have captured the spirit, and more importantly the humor, of the whole endeavor. They've also captured the style, which means that the books are readable as one-shot tales, whenever one is in the mood for this kind of humor.
