The Ring of Nibelung Review: When Comic Meets Opera

Through an artful combination of elements from films, such as, The Lord of the Rings or Thor, comes a reimagining of a classic opera. With story-lines that seizes one’s attention and skillful artwork, “The Ring of Nibelung” quickly pleases.

An adaptation of four operas written by Robert Wagner, Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold) and Die Walkure (The Valkyrie), Siegfried and Gotterdammerung (Twilight of the Gods) are all showcased in this well-developed comic.

The operas were inspired by the adventures of the characters in Norse mythology. With this revamped look at classic mythical stories, The Ring of Nibelung includes dwarfs who live underground and who dig gold, giants who are consistently hungry for that gold, playful yet seductive mermaids that lack responsibility, petty feuds between gods and demi-gods, knights who are on endless missions in the name of humanity and more.

The stories, which were adapted by P. Craig Russell, are written in a way that each newly introduced part has its own unique flow and identity yet each of the stories transitions effortlessly into the stories that were immediately previous to it and that succeeded it. The characters all are believable in they roles that portray. The chief of the gods, Voton, is stoic and wise in his ruling of the gods, while his demi-god cousin, Loge, is a mischievous trickster who harbors deep animosity towards the gods of the story.

The illustrations gave a beautiful backdrop to the stories at hand. Each paper is filled with colors that pop and artistic dialogue bubbles that match the emotions that are being displayed. One down side to these lively pages is the fact that they can have a slight adult theme to them with bare-chested women and some graphic depictions of blood and violence. The illustrator is not clearly stated but the pages were colored the pages Lovern Kindzierski.

This is a graphic comic and it includes multiple parts to four different stories. The stories themselves could have been split up into four comics instead of being combined into one. Since this comic is over four hundred pages long; it would have been better for novices who do not frequently read such epic novels to not have to read such a large piece of work.

Regardless of the length of the novel, the artistic qualities of this comic outweigh that of the material. It was a captivating read that holds a person’s attention throughout.

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