The moment Amazon confirmed The Tick for another live-action update, superhero fans had to wonder if the big blue bug would be getting the ol’ gritty Dark Knight treatment. The lighting is just as dark (they do share a cinematographer), but our first full clips from the new series give Peter Serafinowicz a spoonful of that trademark bluster.

Ahead of its full pilot release on August 19 (along with the delightfully weird Jean-Claude Van Johnson), The Tick released its first two clips to Entertainment Weekly, both full of that blissful superhuman ignorance and Arthur frustration. Plus, new costume!

 

 

So reads the official synopsis:

In a world where superheroes have been real for decades, an underdog accountant with zero powers comes to realize his city is owned by a global super villain long-thought dead. As he struggles to uncover this conspiracy, he falls in league with a strange blue superhero. The Tick stars Peter Serafinowicz (Guardians of the Galaxy), Griffin Newman (Vinyl), Jackie Earle Haley (Watchmen), Valorie Curry (House of Lies), Yara Martinez (Jane the Virgin) and Brendan Hines (Scorpion). The Tick is executive produced by Ben Edlund (Supernatural), Barry Josephson (Bones) and Barry Sonnenfeld (A Series of Unfortunate Events), directed by Wally Pfister (The Dark Knight), and written by Edlund.

Says creator Ben Edlund of the new series:

This has been a labor of love for Amazon, Sony, and all of us. The only way for this to have value was if we found a wholly new expression of ‘The Tick’ and Arthur’s story in live-action, and I think we’re on to something! Visually and thematically this new ‘Tick’ lives in the textures and rhetoric of today’s superhero saturation tsunami – and for it to be something you want to watch for hours, it needed to find its way to a story with heart and stakes, as well as absurdism. Is it a radically new hybrid of humor and super heroic action with characters you will care desperately about? YES! Yes it is.

We’re inches away from the August 19 premiere, but does The Tick look any better in its second go?

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