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.