Kill Shakespeare: A Sea of Troubles

This is something very different from what I was expecting. Which is a good thing, because I wasn’t expecting much more than a comic version of some tales from Shakespeare, maybe done up with a bit of postmodern fillips.

Kill Shakespeare is a lot more ambitious than that. This is a wholly new story that kicks off with Hamlet being sent on a presumably one-way trip to England. That part’s in Shakespeare, but after being shipwrecked things go off the rails. The kingdom Hamlet finds himself in is run by wicked King Richard III, allied with Lady Macbeth, who is in turn carrying on an affair with Iago. This Injustice League of Shakespearean baddies is looking for the magic quill of Will, an artefact with the power to control the world. Opposing them are a team of good guys including Falstaff, Othello, and a kick-ass Juliet. Hamlet initially falls in with Richard, who’s hoping Hamlet is the “Shadow King” who will be able to find and kill Will (Shakespeare). But then the not-so-much melancholy as just confused Prince of Denmark joins up with the oppressed freedom fighters of the woodlands. Meanwhile, the duplicitous Iago is playing all sides, as you’d expect.

It’s quite a bold re-imagining of things, and I give creators Anthony Del Col and Conor McCreery high marks for coming up with the concept. But while the idea is great, I thought the writing itself pretty rough. There’s an attempt to have people talk in a sort of faux-Shakespearean fustian that never sounds right, and there’s way too much talk in the first place. There’s just no need for stuff like this: “Hamlet, do not think that I mean to intrude into your destiny – nothing would be further from the truth. But it seems to me that this maelstrom of events has left your brain heavy and your spirit distracted. Trust in your own abilities. I beg you to take a moment to rest your mind, your heart, your soul. Within you lies a great power to pierce Shakespeare’s veil of deceit, to find this monster. The fates would not lie.”

The art by Andy Belanger had the same effect on me. Some of it is quite well conceived, like poor Macbeth getting Fortunatoed by his wife, a scene that is genuinely horrifying. But most of the rest of the time it has a basic, generic look that made me think of some of the less inspired Classics Illustrated. The various characters have little personality in the way they’re drawn, and could be hard to distinguish at times. Hamlet and Juliet look dropped in from a rom-com, and Othello is the stereotypical hulking Black man, with a shaved head and a build like a defensive lineman.

The actual story itself felt like it was something simple that was being dragged out too much. Nothing seems to happen in this first volume, and it mostly just feels like we’re being introduced to the characters as they run around. This also made me wonder just what the target audience was. I suppose most high school kids will have some idea of who Hamlet, Othello, Richard III, and Lady Macbeth are. But . . . maybe not. Even believing (hoping) that some Shakespeare is still taught in high school, I think very few people will recognize the names of Don John (from Much Ado About Nothing) or Parolles (from All’s Well That Ends Well). Not that it matters much.

So it’s something different, and if you’re familiar with Shakespeare it makes for a cute diversion. But the execution of the various ideas in play didn’t strike me as all that great and I came away feeling that they, somewhat surprisingly, didn’t have enough here to make a whole series out of. I’m not sure when or if I’ll continue with it.

Graphicalex