A "Magnificent Shakespeare Seven"

A young man looks across a chaotic, wide area. He spots a young woman, who immediately notices him. Their eyes lock. Emotions wash over them. Dramatic and dangerous thoughts enter their minds. And they both are aware their lives will never be the same.

For four centuries this iconic image of Juliet and Romeo has been ingrained in audiences and readers worldwide, and replicated by storytellers in all formats.

But what if this moment between Juliet and Romeo wasn’t one of romance but instead… a Spaghetti Western-style standoff?

This week my latest remix of the Bard, Romeo vs. Juliet: A Kill Shakespeare Adventure, is published by Gemstone Publishing. A new entry in the Kill Shakespeare series of graphic novels that mashes up the Bard’s greatest characters, the book is an “Elizabethan Western” that finds warrior-for-hire Juliet Capulet (she survived Shakespeare’s original ending of her story) tasked with protecting a border town nunnery from invading forces that include her ex, Romeo. In preparation, Juliet rallies together some former allies (Hamlet, Othello, Puck and more—a “Magnificent Shakespeare Seven”) and together they discover they must also battle something rotten in the state of the nunnery and a magic force that dreams are made on.

Without spoiling anything, the story culminates in a face off between Juliet and Romeo. It was this image that came to me two years ago and I immediately knew I wanted it to serve as the basis of a new adventure. As I developed the story, I realized it felt very natural to take these characters and elements from Romeo and Juliet—along with other plays like Hamlet, Othello, and A Midsummer Night’s Dream—and fit them into the Western genre.

THE MONTAGUES VS. THE… McCOYS?

The Verona of Romeo and Juliet (R&J) finds the entire city consumed by the tale of two warring families. The natural parallel is the Hatfields and the McCoys, the real-life battle that became tabloid fodder and now a part of American legend.

Most entries in the Western genre are set in places in which feuding factions dominate the towns as they try to prepare for battle. For example, most Clint Eastwood Westerns find him riding into towns laced with division, and his presence and actions increase it exponentially (a hallmark of any good story).

In Romeo vs. Juliet we incorporate this in the town and nunnery in the Padua of the story. Juliet discovers a hidden magical source within the nunnery as well as tension amongst the nunnery’s inhabitants regarding what to do with the magic. In addition, the Padua border town is inhabited by people who dislike the “diseased residents” of the nunnery, and this local population adds to Juliet’s obstacles.

“DO YOU BITE YOUR THUMB AT US, SIR?”

It wasn’t until I was well into the writing of Romeo vs. Juliet that I re-watched Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, which frames the Act 1, scene 1 confrontation between Benvolio and Tybalt as a Western standoff (complete with Ennio Morricone-esque music). I remember being entertained by the moment when I watched it in the theater many years ago, and it has become the DNA of my latest book.

In Romeo vs. Juliet, the story climaxes in a showdown and includes a number of other standoffs between characters—two (yes, two!) featuring Juliet and Romeo, and one involving Juliet and Hamlet.

“FORSWEAR IT, SIGHT!”

It seems natural to segue from discussing standoffs to the use of eye imagery in Westerns. So many iconic images from Western films are close-ups of gunfighters’ eyes as they stare down their opponent. And Romeo and Juliet features multiple mentions of eyes and vision (“Forswear it, sight / for I ne’er saw true beauty till this night”, “white-upturnèd wond’ering eyes of mortals”).

Romeo vs. Juliet artist Stefan Tosheff has stayed true to this imagery throughout the book, illustrating many close-ups of the characters’ eyes to increase the tension and detail the emotion underpinning every moment.

“THEIR DEATH-MARKED LOVE”

The opening of R&J telegraphs to the audience what is to come: death and unclean hands. It leads to increased tension as the story moves towards its ending, and every death that occurs along the way only adds to it.

Most Westerns don’t have a chorus or narrator that begin their stories by revealing a death (though some, like The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance—my personal favorite Western film—do), but a certain pact is always made with the audience: this story will end with death. In Romeo vs. Juliet, the story ends with… wait a minute! I can’t spoil the ending here! You have to read the book to find out who dies.

(Did I just admit that someone dies…?)

“REBELLIOUS SUBJECTS, ENEMIES TO PEACE”

As tensions rise between the Capulets and Montagues, there is one person trying to keep the public peace: the Prince. He is strong and delivers the final lament of the tale, but has been too late to prevent bloodshed from splattering on the streets (or, tombs) of Verona.

In most Westerns there is a sheriff in the town, and in most cases he (or she) is ineffective. Most are portrayed as bumbling or cowardly in order to create a strong contrast with the hero of the story, the true prophet of justice.

In Romeo vs. Juliet, the lawless border town doesn’t have a prince or a sheriff but rather a local business merchant, Antonio, who is the unofficial mayor of the region. He spends a great deal of time in the book discouraging Juliet from taking arms against a sea of invaders, wishing for Juliet to leave and keep the existing peace.

“PRINT THE LEGEND”

In R&J, we know right from the beginning that the titular characters are “star-crossed” and that their death is the thing of legends. I mentioned earlier that my favorite Western film is The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, which is a story about legends and storytelling itself.

In Romeo vs. Juliet, Juliet has become a legend in her own right. We meet her on the very first page of the book, with her story narrated by two mysterious figures (who we identify on the final page), and they reveal that everyone in Illyria (the world of Kill Shakespeare) is aware of her tale of woe.

About the author

Anthony Del Col is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer of comics and podcasts. In addition to previous volumes of Kill Shakespeare, he has also penned Luke Cage (Marvel), Assassin’s Creed (Titan), Son of Hitler (Image), The Death of Nancy Drew (Dynamite), and more. His non-fiction digital comic series for Business Insider has been read by millions and told the stories of “real-life superheroes” standing up to the Uyghur genocide, migrant exploitation, Islamophobia, Russian filtration camps, and more.