Funny enough material for a kid's cartoon series, to be sure, but as with other great works of art, such as Michelangelo's paintings and the Village People's songs, the subtext is where The Tick gets really interesting. The show plays on the long history of sexually ambiguous hero-sidekick relationships, from modern pairings--the spouselike bickering of Riggs and Murtaugh in the Lethal Weapon films and the chicken-hawkish Batman-Robin bond--all the way back to the manly antics of Achilles and Patroclus and those very first Sumerian "special friends," Gilgamesh and Enkidu.
On the episode titled "The Tick vs. Dinosaur Neil," Tick and Arthur argue--a la The Birdcage--over the impending visit of Arthur's sister, Dot, who "doesn't approve of our superhero lifestyle." Not wanting to upset sibling relations, Arthur asks his roommate to "tone down" his heroic behavior, to which the Tick replies, "I'll control my urges." In the end, of course, Dot relents and gives her brother and the Tick her blessing to embrace their true natures, in this case saving The City from a titantic, mutant dinosaur.
Subsequent episodes deal with the Tick's jealousy over Arthur's budding relationship with a woman ("Sidekicks don't kiss!" he admonishes), Arthur's disapproval of his roommate's new mustache, and even the heartbreaks and societal disapproval of gay adoption, as when the pair take in an infant foundling who turns out to be telepathic villain Mr. Mental in disguise. In that instance, the Tick explores his maternal side, refers to himself and Arthur as "co-dads," and endures the stinging rebuke of a stranger who declares, "You people are sick!" upon first seeing the unorthodox family.
NAYSAYERS MAY argue that homosexuality gets only a metaphorical treatment in the show, but as film scholar Vito Russo chronicled in The Celluloid Closet, that's been the case ever since the very dawn of the moving image. The Tick wears its gay-friendly intentions on its sleeve far more honestly than cowardly pabulum like Fried Green Tomatoes, and did anyone ever really think "Y.M.C.A." was about the joys of swimming laps?