On December 11, 2015, the pop culture news outlet the Nerdist reported on a new Kickstarter campaign: “Shakespeare Fights Crime Like Batman in NO HOLDS BARD.” The concept is simple. Take “everyone's favorite literary hero even further, by portraying him as an actual superhero fighting crime in Elizabethan England. Game on!” Along the way, the bard, Pirandello- like, will encounter and partner with his own characters. The enthusiasm for the project is in part based on the juxtaposition of literary and pulp materials. As one delighted academic commented on my Facebook reposting, “Shakespeare as a superhero! What a concept!”

Similar to the aforementioned No Holds Bard, this short book will offer readers a series of thought experiments. The goal is not to popularize Shakespeare or valorize comic books— in both regards, it's difficult to imagine a more golden or brazen age— but to explore the values in both. Shakespeare and Superheroes does not argue that comic books (in all their media platforms: books, video games, newspaper serials, cartoons, TV and radio series, movies, etc.) can or should replace Shakespeare. Instead, the aim is to think of comics as allusively Shakespearean, telling similar stories, expressing similar concerns, exploring similar values. But, to be clear, comics and Shakespeare are not the same or even separate but equal. You don't buy Batman to study Macbeth. Not only are the aesthetics of the respective reading experiences very different, so too are the speeds with which we read these materials. Cultural dynamics dictate that we take our time reading Shakespeare— there is an inherent presumption of depth; the comic book panel is inherently more visceral; comics demand action, not reflection.

That said, it is my contention that Shakespeare and comic books, however unequal, are at present in dialogue with each other. Those conversations, while real for our generation, are almost certainly ephemeral. Thinking about Hamlet and the television show Arrow will make perfect senses only to the current crop of comic book fans, movie goers, and gamers, and not simply because of the recent Shakespeare manga adaptations or the distressingly jejune but popular Kill Shakespeare graphic series. A seeming tsunami of adaptations, YouTube parodies, and daily Facebook memes have trained the computer literate to re- contextualize and revitalize seemingly ordinary objects.