Comics Do Shakespeare: The Sonnets, Verse 5: Nothing of him that doth fade, But doth suffer a sea change

Sonnet 144:

Two loves I have of comfort and despair,
Which like two spirits do suggest me still
The better angel is a man right fair,
The worser spirit a woman coloured ill.
To win me soon to hell, my female evil
Tempteth my better angel from my side,
And would corrupt my saint to be a devil,
Wooing his purity with her foul pride.
And, whether that my angel be turn’d fiend,
Suspect I may, yet not directly tell,
But being both from me both to each friend,
I guess one angel in another’s hell.
     Yet this shall I ne’er know, but live in doubt,
     Till my bad angel fire my good one out.


from Yellow Submarine one-shot (Western/Gold Key, February 1969), script by Paul S. Newman, pencilsand inks by José Delbo

Comics Do Shakespeare: The Sonnets, Verse 4: That's nice and all, but you're still goin' to S.H.I.E.L.D.* jail

Sonnet 166:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wand'ring bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
     If this be error and upon me prov'd,
     I never writ, nor no man ever lov'd.


from Marvel Team-Up #139 (Marvel, March 1984), script by Cary Burkett, pencils by Brian Postman, inks by Mike Esposito, colors by George Roussos, letters by Diana Albers
* Shakespeare Haters Immediately Enter Locked Detention

Comics Do Shakespeare: The Sonnets, Verse 3: A pretty racy punchline for Jay Ward

Sonnet 18:

Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
Thou art more lovely and more temperate:
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
And summer’s lease hath all too short a date;
Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,
And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;
And every fair from fair sometime declines,
By chance or nature’s changing course untrimm'd;
But thy eternal summer shall not fade,
Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow’st;
Nor shall death brag thou wander’st in his shade,
When in eternal lines to time thou grow’st:
     So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,
     So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.


from Mr. Peabody and Sherman (2013 series) #4 (IDW, January 2014), script by Sholly Fisch, pencils and inks by Jorge Monlongo, colors by Jeremy Colwell, letters by Tom B. Long

Comics Do Shakespeare: The Sonnets, Verse 2: Penguin right there, in black-and-white

Sonnet 94:

They that have power to hurt and will do none,
That do not do the thing they most do show,
Who, moving others, are themselves as stone,
Unmoved, cold, and to temptation slow:
They rightly do inherit heaven's graces
And husband nature's riches from expense;
They are the lords and owners of their faces,
Others but stewards of their excellence.
The summer's flower is to the summer sweet
Though to itself it only live and die,
But if that flower with base infection meet,
The basest weed outbraves his dignity:
     For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds;
     Lilies that fester smell far worse than weeds.


from Batman #549 (DC, December 1997), script by Doug Moench, pencils by Kelley Jones, inks by John Beatty, colors by Gregory Wright, color separations by Android Images, letters by Todd Klein

Comics Do Shakespeare: The Sonnets: Verse 1: Everyone's a critic

Sonnet 19:

Devouring Time, blunt thou the lion's paws,
And make the earth devour her own sweet brood;
Pluck the keen teeth from the fierce tiger's jaws,
And burn the long-liv'd Phoenix in her blood;
Make glad and sorry seasons as thou fleets,
And do whate'er thou wilt, swift-footed Time,
To the wide world and all her fading sweets;
But I forbid thee one more heinous crime:
O, carve not with thy hours my love's fair brow,
Nor draw no lines there with thine antique pen!
Him in thy course untainted do allow
For beauty's pattern to succeeding men.
     Yet do thy worst, old Time! Despite thy wrong
     My love shall in my verse ever live young.


from "Midnighter: Future State, Part Two" in Future State: Superman: Worlds of War #2 (DC, April 2021), script by Becky Cloonan and Michael W. Conrad, pencils and inks by Michael Avon Oeming, colors by Jordie Bellaire, letters by Travis Lanham