The Tick: Heroes of the City, Volume 2

Bizarre adventures continue in this concluding volume to the first Tick anthology series, 'Heroes of the City.' 

Arthur's quest to become a superhero in his own right concludes as does Tick's adventure as a sidekick for hire. 

Meanwhile, more heroes (and a villain) experience some unusual episodes throughout the Tick Universe. 

Paul the Samurai takes on a new partner and investigates the sudden deforestation of a wooded area. It turns out Paul Bunyan is real and his girlfriend Babe, the Blue Ox, has left him for being too wild (don't worry, the relationship isn't as bizarre as you think). Bunyan has decided to finally settle down and it's up to our resident Samurai to bring Paul and Babe back together or the entire forest is going to be nothing but stumps!

Next, a news reporter is on the trail of the Man-Eating Cow. Starting to look like the Channel 6 fool, the anchor decides to set a trap for the hungry bovine. Will the newscaster get her cow? Or will she become 'Bessie's' next snack?

Adding a criminal element to this series, the mysterious Red Eye ventures down a lonely highway looking for his next victim. For a comedy anthology, this was pretty creepy. But I must say, I would love to see NEC craft a Red Eye horror series. I think it would be freakin' awesome!

Lastly, we've got a tale of the Crazy Blue Rocket. The story of this poor delusional superhero is rather tragic. While The Tick is pretty delusional, he's not such a tragic character. But I think it's because Tick is just nuts and always has. Crazy Blue Rocket has experienced a terrible trauma. He was once a respected hero of the city. For some reason, something caused him to lose his mind. In all, this story was just heartbreaking.

The Tick and Arthur storyline plus the Crazy Blue Rocket were all new-to-me. But I know that I have read those other hero stories before. But for the life of me, I can't recall where. I wanna say that I had read them in previous Free Comic Book Day comics. But those books were supposed to be of all-new material. Have I been lied too?

A good close to this 6-issue mini-series. However, I could have done without that very sad Crazy Blue Rocket tale. And really, where I have read those stories before hand???

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 7 out of 10 stars.