The Eclipse Hobbit!

As far as I can remember the Eclipse Comics adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit came out of left field. I don't remember much buzz about it at the time, but it was a period when I was less connected to comics overall. After the burst of interest in fantasy in the 70's, largely as a result of the success of Tolkien's epic works, the story had gotten an animated treatment in both television and in the cinema. There had been a radio play or two, but things seemed relatively quiet in Middle-Earth. 

The adaptation by writers Chuck Dixon and Sean Deming was illustrated with consummate skill by artist David Wenzel. I had run across Wenzel on some Marvel comics and his name didn't evoke great confidence, but his work in this version of the story is at once distinctive and delicate. His vision of Middle-Earth is not derivative to my eye. Eclipse issued the story in three installments and then in collaboration with Unwin, the longtime publishers of the story produced a graphic novel. 

Wenzel's version of Gandalf is a potent one, as he seems far from fragile and is presented with strong features. He's less the wizened old man of other adaptations. Bilbo Baggins is a surprise as well, shown as quite chubby and with a haircut that frankly reminds me of Moe from the Three Stooges. The Dwarves look great, and distinctive as far as that's necessary in this tome. Unlike the bloated trilogy of recent years, it was less important to distinguish them in all sorts of peculiar ways. 

Gollum is quite different as well. Wearing pants makes him immediately more civilized than his counterparts in other media. He's less a creature and more a crazy and withered person. People love the Riddle Game in Bilbo's encounter with Gollum and it plays well in the novel, but I found it seemed to drag Jist a bit in this presentation. I was happy that this adaptation kept Beorn and his wonderful lodge, something abandoned in other renditions not unlike Tom Bombadil in adaptation of the grander The Lord of the Rings.

 

Smaug is outstanding! That said, the reading becomes quite dense as the band of dwarves enter the final stages of the story. The creators are clearly feeling the pinch of trying to keep all of the story from the novel and the panels get smaller as the captions get larger. This clearly needed to be at least one issue longer. The Battle of the Five Armies barely has enough pages to showcase it, though Wenzel does produce some stellar images. One complaint I have is that the elves don't look much different than the humans, and in some respects even more drab. But overall, the art has a lovely calm to it, that fits the atmosphere of the story being told. 

The adaptation has proven quite durable and is available sundry languages across the globe. I found a modern version on the stands of my local bookstore just a few weeks ago. If you're a fan of the Tolkien tales, this is a charming way to interact with these classic characters. 

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The Hobbit!

It's been a few years since I've dabbled in the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, those lush and beautiful fantasies which not only elevated that genre but continue to influence society after many successful film adaptations. For this trip I returned to the source, the original story -- The Hobbit. 

I own the book in more than few versions, but easily the one I cherish most is the hardback first edition facsimile edition gifted to me by my beloved Lizzie, my wife for forty years. She's gone now. But reading the book and seeing her inscription makes me warm inside with the love we shard for four decades. You'll pardon me if my take on this reading is a bit sentimental. 

I think of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings in much the same way as I think of Mark Twain's Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. The first work for each writer is tremendous, bristling entertainment and not unserious in any way, but are much less significant than the robust works which followed. That said, the early works are still integral for fully understanding the greater works. Huckleberry Finn builds on the relationships already established in Tom Sawyer but with greater focus on important themes. Likewise, the light-hearted The Hobbit sets the stage for The Lord of the Rings, introducing key characters and some few plot points, and most importantly establishing the world. 

Bilbo Baggins is a likeable hero, a creature of comfort who is rooted out of his warm hole and tossed into a dangerous wild territory where life and limb are on the line almost every minute of every day. His allies the Dwarves are singularly focused on their own mythic mission, and it is only slowly that he is able to assert himself in their company and then somewhat begrudgingly. As a guy who likes his privacy and his comfort, I readily identify with Bilbo when he's suddenly introduced to a dangerous world and then goaded into traipsing off into it. Gandalf, the wizard who we all know is not telling us everything is the linchpin who links Thorin Oakenshield and his companions with their "burglar", a Hobbit of uncommon worth and more than a few talents. Without Gandalf this story doesn't happen. In the later The Lord of the Rings saga the mission is one of necessity. Because of events in The Hobbit, Frodo's life is on the line and so he has little choice but to leave the false security of Hobbiton. 

The Hobbit takes place over a year's time and in addition to spaces we encounter many weathers as the story unfolds. Middle Earth is a territory rich in different environments, most familiar to a modern reader. Less familiar are the creatures who inhabit the world. Men of course, but also Elves, Dwarves, Trolls, Goblins (Orcs), and of course Hobbits. So too, do abound sundry animal species of animal such as Wolves, Ravens, Eagles among many others. Intelligence is not limited to the human species, far from it. This is a fairy land in which man can talk to animals and in which creatures of all sorts share the landscape. Telling the story from the perspective of a tiny Hobbit, a creature so small that often he escapes detection, keeps the saga from falling into a classic trap of a brawny hero saving the day. Brains are at least as important as brawn in this story. Swords, mallets, and axes might the weapons of choice, but strategy is the key to victory. 

And then there's Smaug. The dragon Smaug is among my favorite of Tolkien's creations, a dragon in keeping with the Nordic traditions which fueled the story, but singular in character. The theme of The Hobbit is demonstrated through Smaug's insatiable greed and his arrogance. His greed makes him make poor decisions at times and his arrogance gets him killed if belatedly from the perspective of the people living in his shadow. My favorite dragon is Marvel's Fin Fang Foom, but he comes from the same tradition which gives us Smaug. They are alike in so many ways, and they both meet defeat because they cannot imagine losing. Their overconfidence is their weakness. 

Reading The Hobbit again after so many years was great fun and kindled lovely memories. Tolkien was a smash in the 1960's and kicked off a fantasy boom in the early 1970's. When the movies were made around the turn of his century the saga recaptured the imaginations of folks around the world. Interest in fantasy waxes and wanes but Tolkien's works seem to have become standard and always available in some way. This delightful tale has been adapted many times in many mediums and the Dojo will be focusing on those in the coming days. 

The road goes every on. 

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The Marvellous Land of Snergs!

The Marvellous Land of Snergs was first published in the late 1920's and is purportedly an inspiration for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. He read it to his kids and the story which has echoes of Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, as well as The Hobbit, is strange little yarn. 

The story begins with the S.R.S.C. or Society for the Removal of Superfluous Children which is run in part by a woman named Miss Watkyns. She rumbles around and when she discovers a kid who is being mistreated or neglected will step quite vigorously and take charge of the kid and take them to the Land of the Snergs. The Snergs are an industrious society of small people, and offshoot of pixies according to the text, who live apart but who work for the S.R.S.C. from time to time. Also, in this strange territory is Flying Dutchman and his nautical pals. There are 478 superfluous children when the story opens but we are concerned with only two -- Sylvia and Joe. 

Joe is a mischievous little chap raised in the circus, and Sylvia is his closest friend. The two love to ramble around and cause trouble. Miss Watkyns punishes Joe after he throws a brick into a pot of soup to get a laugh. He gets bored during his punishment and talks Sylvia into running away into the woods where they spend the cold night cuddled up with a honey bear. Then they run across a Snerg named Gorbo, a particularly troublesome Snerg. Once the duo join up with Gorbo their adventures really kick off. After a feast in the village of the Snergs, the trio gets lost after they walk through a mysterious doorway., cross a deep river and find a strange and dangerous land beyond. The trio encounter a supposedly reformed child-eating ogre, a timid knight, an itinerant court jester, a stately if not overly wise king, and a duplicitous and scheming witch among others.  There is lots of eating in the story with meals being discussed at most every turn. Likewise, we see Gorbo become less of a self-centered troublemaker as he takes responsibility for the kids. 

It's pretty easy to see the inspirations Tolkien might have gotten reading these light-hearted misadventures to his kids. "Gorbo" is pretty dang close to "Bilbo" and the difference between Snergs and Hobbits is a matter of detail and care. Tolkien called Gorbo "the gem of dunderheads, jewel of a companion in an excapade". Wyke-Smith presents his Snergs to about the same degree of detail as Baum does his Munchkins, colorful but as much a plot device as anything. Tolkien's Hobbits are written with greater depth and much more realism and sympathy. There is a light snarky tone to The Marvellous Land of Snergs perhaps best exemplified by this sentence toward the end. "So perhaps the only definite moral that can be deduced is, if you by any chance encounter an ogre who claims to be reformed, pretend to believe him until you have got a gun and then blow his head off at the first opportunity."

Here is a link to a more thorough review at The Tolkien Collector. 

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Weirdworld - An All-New Adventure Into Epic Fantasy!

The way the Weirdworld stories tumbled out bit by bit from Marvel during the late 70's and into the 80's shows at once the durability of the concepts and the abiding patience of creators who know they have something special to share. Weirdworld was lucky to have some excellent artists in its time such as Mike Ploog, Alex Nino, Pat Broderick, John Buscema, Rudy Nebres, and Marie Severin among others. It seemed that each time a Weirdworld story managed to surface it offered a somewhat different take on the totally peculiar environment which at once evokes the arch danger of Middle Earth by Tolkien and the sardonic whimsy of Wonderland by Carroll. The Weirdworld stories hold up exceedingly well, better than many such works that evoke the Tolkien feel. Moench says he wasn't influenced by The Lord of the Rings and certainly this is not a copy, but details in both do make you scratch your head. Great stuff!

Weirdworld is one of those very special comic book projects that likely should not exist. Its origins are so odd and its development so dependent upon happen chance that I'm surprised it was ever produced. Doug Moench, the creator of Weirdworld and the only writer for the stories, came up with the concepts when he was just beginning as a writer and proofreader at Marvel. He needed some extra cash to help with his moving expenses to New York City and so he was offered the chance to pen a few back up horror tales for Marvel's black and white mags. One of the stories which came to him didn't fit that premise at all, but rather was an offbeat fantasy yarn, a story with remarkable charm but no apparent market.

"An Ugly Mirror on Weirdworld" was recognized by the editors at Marvel as being something special and Mike Ploog was assigned to draw it, an inspired choice. The story is about a misfit elf named Tyndall who is assigned by the local dwarf leadership to seek out evil and extinguish it. He journeys into mysterious lands and faces weird and dangerous threats only to eventually find an egg inside the bones of an ancient creature. The egg hatches and revealed is a lovely maiden, an elf like himself named Velanna. They realize that they belong together, and the story ends on a happy note. The story Tyndall and Velanna then languished for a couple of years waiting its chance for publication and a larger audience than the halls of the Marvel offices. Read the story here. 

That chance came in a one-shot mag called Marvel Super Action. The mag featured Marvel's breakout crime-buster Punisher and no mention is made on the cover of the sweet little story tucked away inside those pages. Weirdworld was unleashed. And it made a palpable hit on the audience.

A second story "The Lord of Tyndall's Quest" was written, this one once again illustrated by the remarkably talented Mike Ploog and perfectly inked by Alex Nino. Moench's yarn tells the further story of the elf Tyndall and his new-found companion Velanna, the elf from an egg. They fall into the clutches of a wizard named Grithstane who sends Tyndall on another quest, this time into the sky itself to the floating weird ring-island named Klarn (Tyndall's home supposedly) which casts a shadow on Weirdworld. This shadow is a breeding ground for evil. Tyndall finds a maiden about to be sacrificed but who is in fact a monster and he escapes with his life. He defeats Grithstane and saves Velanna and the pair once again appear to live happily ever after. Read it here. 

This story got a berth in Marvel Premiere, again after languishing for a few years. Two memorable stories, and many more moons and it appears that Weirdworld will be no more. But that's not true at all. 

Marvel Fanfare was a really odd comic book. An upscale production, it was positioned strangely in the direct sales marketplace because it used stories generally deemed not good enough (for whatever reason) for publication in a regular Marvel comic and gave them a high-end and glossy presentation. Lots of great stuff appeared in its pages, but all of it had a kind of orphan quality to it.

No less was this case with the three issues of the comic dedicated to Weirdworld. You have to understand that this was published in 1984, but the stories contained in these three issues were produced long before, back in the late 70's, and I assume an abandoned project since the saga of Weirdworld had exploded in other directions under other hands in high-profile ways, but more on that next time. I'm covering this story here because in terms of what passes for continuity it comes next, though readers weren't treated to it for many years after its sequels. (And this is how it's presented in the recent trade volume.)

Doug Moench is back writing his distinctive creation as is artist Mike Ploog, at least for the first chapter. The second two issues are both drawn by Pat Broderick, an artist of no small reputation. Broderick is ill-served here simply because for all his skill, he is a decided step down from Ploog on this kind of material. Superheroes it might've been a different story, but for high-fantasy Ploog had a special panache.

In this story we meet Mud-Butt, twice. What I mean is that the seminal character of Mud-butt underwent a profound physical change between the first and second chapters of the story. Mud-Butt is a dwarf malcontent and thief. Tyndall and Velanna throw in with him when they defend him in a bar fight. The trio then head off to confront the wizard Lord Raven who has send Goblins and other monsters to recapture a prize Mud-Butt had stolen from him. The true nature of the item is revealed in another tale. The trio run from and confront goblins and other weird creatures as they rush into and out of dimensional doors taking them all across Weirdworld. Ultimately, they save the day and defeat the villain, but we knew that already.

This seems like a good time to address one of the understandable but apparently untrue notions about Weirdworld. According to Doug Moench, the story was not inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings saga which had taken the world by storm. Moench claims he never read the stories, save perhaps for The Hobbit before he'd written Weirdworld. I choose to believe Moench when he says he was not riffing on Tolkien. But someone in editorial sure noticed the similarity. 

That Marvel quite wisely used the similarity to advertise and promote the Weirdworld stories is understandable and of course suggests to almost any audience that the work was inspired by same, even if that's not the case.

This is the blockbuster! These three very "super special" magazines collectively titled Warriors of the Shadow Realm, but part of the longer series Marvel Super Special are among the most beautiful comics ever produced in the genre. That the covers of all three are so riddled with copy and hype that they almost hide the beauty is regrettable, but back in the day a fan took what a fan could get. In this case what a fan got was a potent new way to publish beautiful artwork, giving it a painterly feel for Doug Moench's writing, but still maintaining the verve and energy of a classic comics page. The artists involved were Rudy Nebres (inks), Peter Ledger and Steve Oliff (paint and colors) and most importantly "Big" John Buscema (pencils).

If it were possible to worship an artist, my god would be John Buscema, He was simply the finest comic book artist of his generation and is in a league with Hal Foster and Alex Raymond. Famously disdainful of the superheroes he drew so many of, he took the Conan franchise made popular by the exquisite and increasingly baroque artwork of Barry Windsor-Smith and toughened it for the long haul. I consider Buscema's Conan the definitive version, even surpassing the transformative version by Frank Frazetta. Only Buscema was able to consistently present a Cimmerian who had all the characteristics described so vibrantly by Robert E. Howard, the charisma, the raw power, the nimble agility, and the raw drama. I'd imagine John Buscema was excited to have a chance to do more fantasy when he came to draw Weirdworld.

The story of Warriors of the Shadow Realm goes roughly as follows. Be careful there are spoilers. Tyndall, Velanna, and Mud-Butt come across a Savage Elf who is running from some mysterious flying Nightfangers. Later they encounter him again and come into possession of mysterious gems which have the power to evoke monsters in the Moon's light. The Savage Elf dies when the Riders of the five Shadow Riders enter the City of Seven Delights. The trio take the gems to a wizard who tells them of the origin of Weirdworld and the near-godly figure of Darklens who created the place as a by-product of his war with other gods. The gems contain the essence of the evil Darklens and the Riders are desperate to gain possession so that he might right again. The trio take the gems and later meet a tribe of Savage Elves who have taken the mission long ago to protect the crypt of Darklens so that he might never rise. The wizard betrays them all and takes possession of the gems giving Darklens access to his body but the intervention of a White Wolf, which also seems to be a wizard or more, helps to forestall the threat. In the end Weirdworld is safe once again, for the time being.

That's the story, at once classic and evocative of many other stories told over the ages. It feels very familiar indeed that small seemingly weak characters prove pivotal in stopping the resurrection of a dangerous sorcerer who threatens the whole world and beyond. It's as advertised, "in the fantasy tradition of Tolkien".

I'm exceedingly glad that I have this story in its original format as the reprint, as grand as it is, falls short of presenting this artwork in its proper from. The story has a number of triptych fold-outs, and the standard comic book page is simply not capable of properly presenting that grand artwork. There is lushness to the work here which at the time was unlike anything else available on the stands. There was Heavy Metal, and soon there would be Epic Illustrated, but when this saga hit the stands, it was unique. The depth and quality of the artwork is simply beyond words.

Weirdworld had one final outing (in terms of continuity if not chronology) and that came in Marvel's high-end magazine Epic Illustrated. Alas the series never rated a cover appearance, but here are the four issues in which the final classic Weirdworld story was told.

"The Dragonmaster of Klarn" brings together many of the same talents who worked on Warriors of the Shadow Realm, but sadly minus the transformative work of painter Pete Ledger. Instead the artwork here, as delightful as it was by John Buscema, Rudy Nebres and Marie Severin falls short in many respects to the masterpiece which preceded it. I have nothing but massive respect for these three artists, but sadly the sum is less than the parts in these four chapters.

But that doesn't speak to Doug Moench's story which in many ways reveals many of the secrets which have dotted the saga to this point. If the earlier yarns had a Tolkienesque feel, this story reminds me of Michael Moorcock's work especially how it suggests that Weirdworld is for intents and purposes a massive game board upon which gods of light and gods of dark vie for advantage. Our heroes and their opponents are merely pawns in that great game.

The story begins with Tyndall, Velanna, and Mud-Butt a year removed from their defeat of Draklens. They are living in a Dwarf village but their typical disdain they encounter frustrates Velanna in particular. She as it turns out has come under the spell of yet another wizard Lord Majister, the brother of Draklens. He has formed a crystal vessel resembling Velanna and is slowly filling it up with darkness, a darkness which is also filling up her spirit. She becomes increasingly angry with Tyndall and Mud-Butt as the trio leave the Dwarf village and get drawn into yet another quest, this one to find the blade of the Glorywand, a magic sword which Mud-Butt had long ago stolen the hilt from. They encounter Goblins who surround a mountain in which lives a beautiful sorceress who sends them across vast distances of Weirdworld to find a hero named Wulfbuck. who has been changed to more resemble his namesake. This quartet work together against the wizard who has transformed his Goblins into a more powerful undead army and ultimately defeat him when Tyndall's ability to command powerful dragons proves decisive. Velanna eventually overcomes the curse, and the heroes end their adventures once again on a happy note.

This story was enchanting, as are all of the Weirdworld but somehow this one falls a bit flat. I think it's because of the sameness of the story in many respects. While we do discover more about Tyndall's heritage and we do encounter a Velanna who is different, the story is yet one more battle against yet another wizard. Grithstane, Raven, Zarthon, Darklens, and now Majister, all different but all somewhat the same. I'd have liked maybe something a bit different, but that likely is because this time I read all these stories back-to-back, and that's perhaps unfair to Moench's storytelling.

Whatever the case, these are the last classic Weirdworld stories, and while the world itself seems to have been revived and quasi-fantasy characters like Arkon and the Black Knight have been woven into a brand new and rather different reality. But without the considerable talents the likes of Moench, Ploog, and Buscema, there is little to attract this reader to them.

Weirdworld was a series of special comic book stories produced by special talents at a special time. It's charm never weakens for me. 

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Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen!

I have to get into a particular mood to enjoy a silent feature film. They require a tick more concentration than a talkie and in the case of Fritz Lang the story being told is a hefty one with big themes. It's rather the opposite of watching the latest superhero release today, which require more attention simply because they move so quickly. Silent films tend to have their own pace, and it's often a measured one. That's certainly the case with Die Nibelungen. The pace is so measured that it's actually two movies -- Die Nibelungen: Siegried and Die Nibelungen: Kreimhild's Revenge. 

The first film follows the hero Siegfried who we find living among a band of strange and withered men and his mentor Muse. There seems little love lost here, but Siegried is tasked with going to kill a dragon which he does almost immediately. then bathing in the dragon's blood which makes him invincible save for one spot, and then he's off to get treasure and a sword from the duplicitous Alberich who attempts to ambush the handsome hero. He also gets a little net that makes him invisible when he throws it on his head. He becomes a king and with his retinue goes to castle of King Gunther and asks for the hand of Kriemhild his sister. Gunther wants Siegfried's help in winning over the warrior woman Brunhilde to marry him and Siegfried agrees. The we get a double wedding. Things fall apart from there. Secrets are shared and revealed and before you know it, Gunther and Siegfried who have sworn blood oaths to one another find themselves on opposite sides. Hagen of Tronje is an ally of Gunther's and he's pegged as something of a visual stand-in for Wotan/Odin because he has one eye and wears a resplendent winged helmet. He takes steps to find Siegfried's only physical weakness. Suffice it to say that by the end of this long movie with seven Cantos or chapters we find Kriemhild vowing vengeance against Hagen. 

The second movie picks up the action immediately. Kriemhild is very much in the midst of mourning Siegried's death, and she still holds bitter animosity towards her brother and hatred for Hagen. Then she gets a message that the powerful King Attila would like her hand in marriage, and she sees a way to gain power enough to gain vengeance. Hagen is no fool and knows that he's about to become quite powerful, so he sends the riches Siegried had gained, and which now belong to Kriemhild to the bottom of the river. Nothing he does quenches Kriemhild's lust for revenge and when she decides to play a long game. She and Attila have a son and when the Nibelungs visit Attila she wants him to kill Hagen. He refuses due to ancient traditions of hospitality, but when Hagen for reasons I still don't quite understand kills his infant son, he's more than ready to help Kriemhild. They sic the Huns on the Nibelungs and what follows is a rousing series of battles and a siege which results in an epic fire, a fire which the director Lang really set and burned down the immense set. It was a spectacle used to advertise the film. 

I found the first movie fascinating in many ways. Siegfried is the very essence of many a hero, and this was not lost on the Nazis when they came to power relatively soon after the movies were completed. They praised his Aryan physique and wanted Lang to make movies for the Reich. Lang wisely said no and quickly moved to the United States to continue his career. As I said, Siegried is the very essence of a hero visually, but the movie makes him out to be insanely naive and it's hard to feel much sympathy for him since he never saw it coming despite abundant warning. He's rich, brash, and invulnerable and these traits make him foolish in the final estimation. In the second movie Kriemhild's grief is palpable and her unrelenting will to see her vengeance done is remarkable. She pleads for the murderer to be brought to justice but a system of loyalty, one which was violated to slay Siegfried, keeps that from happening. 

These movies (especially the first one) have those elements which possibly inspired Tolkien's Middle-Earth epics, and for that I was driven to check it out. I don't know if I can recommend nearly three hours of silent cinema to anyone, but if you have the time and curiosity, I'd say you'll be entertained. 

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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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