Like its titular superhero, The Tick just won’t die. Ben Edlund began drawing the character back when he worked at a comic book store in the mid-1980s, mostly to make fun of superhero comics. And then The Tick became a comic book. And an animated TV series. And a short-lived live-action series. Now, a new live-action series is about to start streaming on Amazon for a 10-episode season of pure insanity.

If you’ve already seen the pilot episode of The Tick, that’s no surprise—it has been out for almost a year and a half on Amazon. It was part of Amazon Studio's pilot program, where the company determines which pilots will go to series based on popularity. The Tick’s loyal fanbase made it a shoo-in, and it got picked up for a first season with a pretty hefty budget. At San Diego Comic-con this year, Amazon went all-out promoting this latest iteration. Outside the convention center was an enormous "experience" where fans could see sets from the series after watching episode 2 for the first time during a packed panel.

Edlund is still at the helm, and we had a chance to talk to him at Comic-con along with Griffin Newman, who plays protagonist Arthur. It’s been almost 30 years since Edlund created the super-strong blue guy with antennae who spouts surreal aphorisms and shouts "SPOOOOOOON!" as his catchphrase. But things in the world of comics have changed dramatically since, especially after countless blockbuster movies and TV shows.

I asked Edlund how The Tick will satirize this new phase in the superhero industry (you can see our interview in the video above and hear me make a super embarrassing error when I'm talking about Arthur). He said that the story's entire focus had to shift. It used to be that superheroes were rare outsider renegades or oddballs like the Tick. But now, everyone is a superhero—they are ubiquitous. Everyone feels entitled to be godlike, perhaps because they're gorging on information online or just immersing themselves in Marvel movies. That’s why Edlund decided to make the point-of-view character in the new show an ordinary person: Arthur, who is the Tick’s sidekick.

Newman added that Arthur is basically "unspecial"—but he's special in some ways, too. First off, he’s especially neurotic due to a terrifying incident in his childhood. He’s been in and out of mental health facilities but is managing to hold it together (mostly) until he meets a towering blue guy who laughs at bullets and speaks in genial non sequiturs about stopping bad guys. The series will be focusing on Arthur’s journey as he joins forces with the mysterious Tick. "The Tick is almost the field in which Arthur takes place," Edlund mused.

Edlund and Newman explained that the show’s tone will be humorous, but also dark. That’s obvious from the pilot, where the Tick's goofiness is contrasted with Arthur’s fragile, depressive state. Arthur’s traumatic past has left him as kind of Batman figure, only without power or resources. Teaming up with the Tick means he’ll finally have a chance to seek justice—if the Tick is even real. At certain points in the pilot, we're left wondering whether the Tick is a manifestation of Arthur’s mental illness. This, too, is part of the darker tone that Edlund was aiming for.

"Being a superhero is now a dark, gritty, not-very-savey thing," Edlund said. "Superheroes have a lot of... bitter rivalries and smallness. These heroes are getting increasingly like us, and small, just superpowered." Newman nodded knowingly. "They're not saving anybody."

You can watch the pilot now on Amazon, and the season in its entirety will start streaming on August 25.