The Ring Of The Nibelung!

The Ring of the Nibelung is a bravura collection which attempts no less than to adapt the libretto of Richard Wagner's epic Ring Cycle operas. I'll have to honest and say that Roy Thomas and Gil Kane are not the talents I'd have first thought of to produce this work with the help of Jim Woodring on colors and letters by John Costanza. Thomas has lots of experience with sword and sorcery stories with his fine adaptations of Robert E. Howard's works, and Kane is certainly no stranger with much epic work of his own including his sword and science epic Blackmark. But Kane's dynamic style seems somehow too modern to my eye to take up a myth like this one. His buildings always have a modernistic regularity to them. But he does draw a damn attractive naked dame and he gets a grand opportunity in these epic yarns. 

In Book One: The Rhinehold we meet those unclad damsels who guard their gold, but not before we get a bravura presentation of the creation of the world and the gods.  The shapely Rhine maidens tempt a dwarf named Alberich. He seeks his revenge on the world by stealing the gold and using his skills to make a ring which gives him great power and a helmet which lets him become invisible and change his form. The gods Wotan and Loge seek out Alberich to steal away his stolen booty to ransom a goddess that Wotan in a foolish moment had promised to two giants so that they would build him a great fortress called Valhalla. That goddess protected some special apples which gave the gods immortality and Wotan has bartered this gift away. There is no end to the treachery in this opening salvo of the epic saga. 

In Book Two: The Valkyrie we meet the Volsung Siegmund, a heroic type who is on the run from warriors who hate because he tried to stop a rape. He finds sanctuary with a young woman name Sieglinda who looks remarkably like him, but when her husband comes home, he challenges our hero to a death match. Before that can happen, the woman doses his drink and she and our hero realize they are brother and sister, separated by circumstances long ago. There's a magic sword "Needful" only Siegmund can extract proving he's the hero the day. The then have sex. The scene shifts to Valhalla where we find Wotan and Fricka his wife arguing, and Wotan agrees that his son Siegmund will die and sends Brunhilde the Valkyrie (also his daughter) to Earth to do the deed. She can't bring herself to do it, but it does get done. She is put into a deadly sleep. The magic sword is broken. We learn though that the tryst has proven fruitful, and the dead Siegmund has a son. 

In Book Three: Siegfried, the son of Sieglunda and Siegmund is being reared by a terrible dwarf named Muse who is trying to use the boy, now a young man to win the Rhinegold from the dragon Fafnir. His attempts to forge a blade for Siegfried are failures. Then he is challenged by Wotan to a game of chance and loses his head if he doesn't prevail. He finally has Siegfreid reforge the blade "Needful", and this is used in a terrific battle with Fafnir. Our hero is able to do this because he is without fear. Then Muse tries to kill Siegfried but fails. Wotan reveals to our hero the whereabouts of a lovely warrior and he finds Brunhilde asleep. One kiss and she is awake, and the couple declare their love. 

The saga wraps up in Book Four: The Twilight of the Gods. This final installment begins when King Gunther and Queen Gutrine are tricked by Gunther's half-brother Hagen and so seek both Siegfried for Gutrine's husband and Brunhilde for Gunther's wife. Hagen it turns out is the son of the Nibelung Alberich and is seeking all along to gain control of the Rhinegold treasures. Using magic Siegfried is given amnesia and becomes a pawn of the royals and even uses the Tarnhelm to disguise himself as Gunther and bed Brunhilde in his name. Brunhilde is of course angry and seeks vengeance. Our hero passes up an opportunity to give the ring back to the Rhinegold maidens but refuses and soon is killed by treachery. Brunhilde joins him on the funeral pyre as the age of the gods passes away for all time. The ring is taken by Hagen who is himself lured by the maidens into the water where he will die, and the ring will reside hidden from men. 

I don't suggest for a moment that The Lord of the Rings is based on the The Ring of the Nibelung. But they do draw from the same sources and both epic tales share a great many details. There is of course a great ring of power which is sought by the characters to make them masters of the world, there are brothers who fall out and one kills the other for the ring, and there is a broken sword which must be reforged before a hero can fulfill a prophecy and strike down an implacable enemy. There are not elves in this story, but dwarves abound and giants as well. Tolkien is wise to steer clear of incest as that might've impacted sales of the Middle-Earth saga more than a smidgeon. This presentation by Thomas and Kane is potent and straightforward. Kane's angular artwork either works for you or it doesn't, and Thomas does a pretty good job with capturing the flavor of high-toned language throughout. 

More on the Nibelungs tomorrow. 

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