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The Tick Accused

As a long-term fan of Don Simpson's Megaton Man (who has a web page here), I've managed to accumulate a footnote or two here and there on the topic. Simpson has mentioned a suspicion that the creators of the Tick might have worked from his own wastebasket in creating the big blue arachnid of recent cartoon fame.

If Simpson's more recent work provides reliable indicators, Simpson has become more philosophical about the notion that the Tick has become a more successful franchise than Megaton Man. Characters in the online strip, for instance, occasionally appear wearing Tick paraphernalia, as an ironic jab at the seeming injustice of it all.

Simpson has contented himself with fairly quiet suffering over the issue. Where a producer of 3-D graphics software attempted to use a model of a character undoubtably lifted from Simpson's most well-known creation, he took the folks to court (and rightly, too¹). But he lives with the notion of an unethical relationship between the Tick and Megaton Man.

Can we, however, credit this claim? Does the Tick owe to Megaton Man, or can we explain away the similarities with another hypothesis? In the absence of exculpatory data, the case against the Tick, while far from conclusive, seems quietly damning, particularly in view of that character's commercial success.

Did the Tick appear as a derivative of Megaton Man?

Arguments for the Prosecution

In the person of Megaton Man, we have a comedic superhero of enormous musculature and limited intellectual powers. Megaton Man has moved in circles strongly reflecting well-known comics. Megaton Man dresses in a skin-tight blue costume with some detailing. Furthermore, Megaton Man appeared in the early-to-mid 1980s.

All the elements of the previous statement apply, in slightly differing degrees, to the Tick. If Don Simpson suspects derivation, he can proffer the aforementioned similarities in defense of his claim. Given that Megaton Man remains in a limited niche - occasional hardcopy publications, including a backup feature in Savage Dragon, and the web presence that Simpson has created up at http://www.megatonman.com - we can see how the Tick's success, including a three-year run of a cartoon show and a possible live-action spinoff series, plus the various Tick comic books, could rankle Simpson.

Derivation and Targets of Opportunity

In general, character theft afflicts influential, well-known, and iconic prototypes. This invites the question: Did Megaton Man fit into any of these categories when the Tick's creators first put his likeness to paper? Granted, characters don't have to become household names before someone appropriates them, either wholly or in part (Wolverine may represent such a case). However, when a character does achieve such status, borrowings become exponentially more likely.

Precedents and Precedence

The Tick certainly does not represent the first overmuscled-yet-clueless hero. We can turn to mythology and ancient epics to see the misbehavior of heroes like Herakles and Gilgamesh, tales that might have provided some humor in their telling but certainly did involve Big Guys with Big Muscles getting into all kinds of trouble completely inconsistent with the Boy Scout Credo.

Specifically to superhero comics, the parody superhero considerably predates either the Tick or Megaton Man. The very existence of super-powerful men in skin-tight costumes (perhaps even blue ones) implies such a parody. We can find the type back in the sixties in DC Comics' Awkwardman, a member of the Inferior Five and misbegotten spawn of badly mismatched superheroic parents. The combination of one parent with muscles and another with aquatic powers left him waddling around dry land with swim fins and an accompanying shortage of physical grace.

Logically, Awkwardman could not owe to the later character Megaton Man (who, similarly, does not owe to him). Yet note the common features between the Tick, Awkwardman, and Megaton Man. Could an earlier creation provide some kind of template for any of these characters?

A Yet Earlier Model

Science and argument sometimes resort to a minimalist principle of logic that one may state thusly: Consider as "true" the simplest hypothesis that fits the facts. While this principle can bend and stretch as well as any other piece of intellectual taffy you may encounter, I think it has relevance here. I claim the innocence of the Tick in the particulars of this accusation based on a simpler theory that fits the facts.

This writer favors the theory that the Tick does not borrow from Megaton Man because an earlier and more well-known, more iconic, nay, even legendary figure provided him with a model.

We have in Wonder Wart-Hog a model. He appears as a comedic superhero who assails conventions and cliches of the genre; he fought crime with too many muscles and too few brains; he frequently suffered the consequences of ridiculous errors and absurd bad luck, usually to the detriment of his dignity; and he did all this over twenty years before either Megaton Man or the Tick saw print.

Verdict

My own instincts incline me to believe that the Tick does not owe to Megaton Man as a prototype, just as Simpson's instincts incline him to see plagiarism in the parallels between Megaton Man and the Tick. My first experience with Megaton Man, back around 1985, had me waxing nostalgic over Wonder Wart-Hog, who, to me, seemed an obvious model for Megaton Man. However, Simpson does not name Shelton's creation when he cites artistic influences that preceded his creation. The most relevant elements he does cite include early Silver Age comics and Berni Wrightson's hypermuscled creations that appeared in Heavy Metal magazine in the late seventies and early eighties. Given the absence of any elements that obviously belong to Wonder Wart-Hog, Simpson's definition of Megaton Man's family tree stands perfectly credible to fair scrutiny.

With the Tick, I proffer the same benefit of a doubt. No particular element or combination of elements in his basic concept imply that a specific source, let alone Megaton Man, provide a template from which unscrupulous talent might appropriate a character. If the Tick indeed borrowed from a prototype, Wonder Wart-Hog provides a more likely candidate.

In this case, perhaps the first for the Comics Recycling Bin, I have to judge the defendant innocent, at least insofar as the original accusation goes. Beyond muscles and a blue suit - which Awkwardman wore before either the Tick or Megaton Man did, and which Superman wore decades before either - only very superficial similarities connect the characters.

¹Note: The success of Simpson's litigation disinclines the use of any Megaton Man images on this page. Those of you who wish to see Simpson's work can view samples at http://www.megatonman.com.

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Email the author at ouzomandias@mailexcite.com.

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