Kill Shakespeare #1 – Review

By Connor McCreery and Anthony Del Col (writers), Andy Belanger (art), Ian Herring (colors) and Robbie Robbins (letters)

The Story: Prince Hamlet of Denmark finds himself pulled off a ship and into a magical portal (created by Macbeth’s witches) that transports him into another realm. After nearly drowning at sea, he is found and rescued by a lord who introduces himself as Richard the Third. Although he seems reasonable enough to begin with, we soon learn that Richard has brought Hamlet into his world for a specific purpose: recruiting the young prince to steal the quill—and power source—of a great “wizard” named William Shakespeare.

The Good: Watching a writer pull classic characters like Hamlet and Richard III off the shelf to play with is like watching someone trying to juggle fine china: it’s exciting when it works, but even the slightest mistake can cause one hell of a mess. Stray too far from the classic, revered source material and the writer loses all connection to it. Stick too close, and they become a mere parrot of greatness. So as much as I adore the concept of this book (and believe me, as an English-majoring literature nerd it makes me very happy indeed) I would not want to be the one tasked to write it.

Fortunately, McCreery and Del Col handle themselves quite well in this first issue, and give the series a solid place to progress from. Both major characters introduced here are fairly recognizable, and nothing about them seems terribly out of place—Hamlet is as gloomy and father-obsessed as ever, and Richard is still two-faced and conniving. (I love the fact that it is Richard engineering this whole ‘killing Shakespeare’ plot; after the Weird sisters showed up I was convinced we’d be meeting Macbeth, but no, it turns out they’re working with Richard instead. Perfect.) There are a few details that seem off—Hamlet, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern being true and loyal friends, for example—but they make me more curious than upset. The authors don’t seem sloppy or unaware of the source material, so I can only conjecture that changing a small (but significant) detail like that will have relevance in the future.