Even though William Shakespeare has been dead for hundreds of years, he’s a timeless figure whose plays have been adapted by seemingly every theater company and big Hollywood producer out there, drilling his particular brand of iambic pentameter into most of us from a very early age. But now, the Kickstarter-funded 5-act comic No Holds Bard takes the idea of everyone’s favorite literary hero even further, by portraying him as an actual superhero fighting crime in Elizabethan England. Game on!

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/101952017/no-holds-bard?ref=video

The comic is written by Marvel Heroes 2016′s Eric Gladstone, mostly in — you guessed it — iambic pentameter. So expect glorious dialogue like, “Lament! This cruel fortune does plague me so” when you buy in. Better yet, this beast is illustrated by some stellar names, including Erica Henderson (The Unbeatable Squirrel Girl), Logan Faerber (brilliant freelance artist), Cara McGee (she’s done covers for Lumberjanes, among other rad things), James Callahan (he illustrates under the moniker Barf Comics) and Aaron Conley (co-creator of Sabertooth Swordsman). With a team as solid as that, we sure hope the story holds up.

By the sounds of it though, we’re certain it will. The comic opens with Shakespeare trying to feign off writer’s block while piecing together one of his masterpieces, when he receives a call from his trusty page (affectionately called Page) that the Queen has been stolen from her throne. He must go with Page on a rollicking misadventure to find the shadowy figure involved in her disappearance and restore peace to England! And Shakespeare-enthusiasts will be glad to see a few cameos from characters in his most famous plays.

Are you ready to throw money at this project, or what? There are some great rewards up for grabs. What do you think of the comic premise? Are you a Shakespeare and a comic book fan? Reach out on Twitter, or sound off in the comments below.

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HT: Kickstarter

IMAGE: Eric Gladstone