It would be easy to lay all of the credit (or blame) at the feet of comic book artists and Hollywood executives. But superhero roots go much deeper than that, and if you excavate long enough, you will inevitably bump smack into Richard Wagner, the 19th century composer whose four-opera cycle “The Ring of the Nibelung” is regarded by many as a genetic mother ship for today’s fleet of action heroes.
In terms of its cast of characters alone, Wagner’s “Ring” tetralogy has fanboy potential written all over it. The complex saga stars maidens, angry gods, female warriors, a temperamental dragon and an angsty teen hero whose powers get him into a lot of trouble.
The comic book artist P. Craig Russell sees the “Ring” as a crucial evolutionary step in the development of superheroes as we know them today. “I think it’s a continuum — from Ulysses to Wotan to Superman,” he said by phone from his home in Ohio.
Russell, whose recent credits include “Hellboy” and “Coraline,” penned his own comic book version of the “Ring,” a two-volume series published in 2002 by Dark Horse Comics, that he considers the most personal project of his career. An opera fan, he has even spoken to gatherings of so-called Ring Nuts, extreme fans of the “Ring” cycle. “It’s almost like going to a comic book convention — you see the same faces,” he said.
Even those who have never experienced Wagner’s epic should have little trouble recognizing the names of some of its chief protagonists such as Wotan and Brunnhilde and her fellow Valkyries. That’s partly because Wagner borrowed from a number of well-known myths and legends. But it’s also because pop culture has taken Wagner’s creations over the years and liberally repurposed them into a multitude of hit incarnations.
Marvel Comics created a character in 1970 named Valkyrie who continues to resurface in various forms in the company’s many franchises. Tall, blond and muscular, she is the essence of contemporary female empowerment.
She first appeared in “The Avengers” and has subsequently popped up — sometimes using the name Brunnhilde, sometimes in the form of a modern woman known as Samantha Parrington — in issues of “The Incredible Hulk,” “The Defenders” and others.
Comic book experts say Brunnhilde and her fellow Valkyries have influenced the recent flourishing of on-screen female action heroes whose soft-butch exteriors hide an emotionally vulnerable core.
On TV, the most recognizable offspring of Wagner’s Valkyries was the title character in the cult series “Xena: Warrior Princess.” In the sixth and final season, which aired in 2000-2001, viewers learned that Xena (Lucy Lawless) was once an evil Valkyrie who presided over a reign of terror in the show’s pan-mythological universe.
Ralph Macchio, a longtime writer and editor at Marvel, said mythological characters such as Wagner’s “have the angst and sense of absurdity and alienation that speak to a current reader. It’s all about wish fulfillment and hero worship,” he said, speaking from Marvel’s New York office. “That’s why they have lasted so long.”
More Top Picks Best Large Print Books For Seniors
The male superhero with the closest ties to the “Ring” is Marvel’s Thor. In 1980, comic book veteran Roy Thomas penned several issues of the Mighty Thor that incorporate major plot points from all four operas of Wagner’s cycle, including a climactic scene in which Siegfried braves a wall of flames to rescue his beloved Brunnhilde.
Thomas said the story of Siegfried — the teen hero of the last two operas in Wagner’s cycle — is an important origination myth for contemporary heroes who are becoming “less and less likable.” “Nowadays, it’s all about the flawed hero. And so was Siegfried. He’s a snotty kid,” Thomas said from his home in South Carolina. “Maybe his attitude is due to the fact that he doesn’t have time to grow up. He has to slay a dragon, resurrect his lover and then die.”
The influence of Siegfried can be felt in moody antiheroes such as Batman (like Wagner’s protagonist, he was made an orphan by the deaths of his parents); Hellboy (both are muscle-bound lugs with emotional issues); and Spider-Man (like Siegfried, he’s a bag of raging hormones who often lets love get the better of him).
Thomas later embarked on another “Ring”-related project by writing a graphic-novel version of Wagner’s cycle for DC Comics, featuring illustrations by Gil Kane and published in 1989.
Rob Tapert, a co-creator of “Xena” who is now working on the series “Spartacus: Blood and Sand,” said the entertainment industry’s attraction to ancient heroes such as Wagner’s is cyclical and tied to advances in screen wizardry.
“The technology has changed and that means you can tell these stories all over again,” he said from the “Spartacus” set in New Zealand. “These stories have withstood the test of time. It’s really a matter of how we can do it all new for a new audience.”