"Donald Duck and the Rheinegold"

Here's an interesting thing (actually, it may turn out to be a really banal thing; you decide): I was reading this issue of the French digest Mickey Parade, which includes back-to-back printings of duck stories based on/inspired by the Iliad and Wagner's Ring Cycle.  Both of these were written by Ol' Man Martina.  The one was first published in January of 1959, the other in May.  So pretty similar, you'd think.  And yet, I was reading the first--which was the one I was most keen on reading, onaccouna Luciano Bottaro's art--and in spite of its high inducks ranking, it wasn't doing anything whatsoever for me.  I just found it lame and tedious, and to top it all off, you have Gladstone in the Paris-ish role acting wildly out-of-character (out of character for Gladstone, I mean.  I say if you're going to do these literary adaptations, you need to find a way to integrate the characters into them while more or less maintaining their personalities.  Otherwise, there's just no point to it).

So after that, my hopes were none too high for "Rheinegold" here (which is drawn by Pier Lorenzo De Vita, whose work I criticized earlier, but like here).  But then something hilarious and awesome happened in the story.  And then something else.  And again and again.  And I tell you, if I had had a better-quality copy of the story, I would've started a translation project then and there.  At the very least, I knew I'd have to share on this here blog.  I'm not trying to say the story's a masterpiece; it has its problems, not the least of which being that it's pretty clumsily plotted.  But you don't too often encounter a story that so often makes you think, "huh--I had no idea I wanted to see that, but now that I have, I realize that before I did, my life was incomplete."  So there you are.

The putatively interesting thing is that I would have such disparate reactions to such similar stories.  But I feel like the explanation is that Martina just put more oomph into this one.  The Iliad story is kind of eccentric, I guess, but not in terribly interesting ways.  Whereas this one…well, you'll see.

Scrooge's delightful fish pose there, for instance.  Note that, as is usually the case with these adaptations, the actual correspondence between the source material and adaptation is veeeery loose.  So you'll get bits and pieces that match up with bits and pieces from the original, but you will drive yourself to gibbering madness if you try to make the two fit together anything like exactly--in this story, there are even places where characters themselves seem to fluctuate.

Above, we see Scrooge/Alberich diving to retrieve what would be the Rheinegold were this Wagner, but in this instance is just a coin that some Beagles tossed in the water to trap him.  Note that the hat, in a clever move, is the Tarnhelm, though again, in Wagner, it wouldn't play a role in this scene.

Anyway, the Beagles do steal the helmet and ring from him (though Martina doesn't seem to know what to do with the ring--it's mentioned, but it plays little role, and it rarely appears), after the manner of Wotan and Loge in Wagner, although they do not otherwise play the roles of gods.  And then we get THIS deathless scene:

One Beagle betrays the other, so he attempts to kill his former partner with a knife, only to be transformed into…José Carioca?  Waaaaah?  How do you not love that?  It's also worth noting that this is the only time I can think of that I've seen Beagles turn on one another, not counting instances where our heroes trick them into thinking they're attacking one another or whatnot.  Say what you like about those guys: they display admirable solidarity.  I can't help liking this exception to the rule, however.  At this point, they are playing the roles of Fafnir and Fasolt, and the one with the hat accordingly turns himself into a dragon to guard the treasure.

…'an Daisy, Minnie, Clarabelle, and Clara as Valkyries.  Cowgirl Valkyries (because the story has an inexplicable, inchoate Western/Mexican theme).  I wish that this was a better scan, and in color, but alas, this is the only picture of all four of them like this; only Daisy, in the Brünnhilde role, plays any substantial role in the story.  It's still a great image, though.

Also, note that, in spite of theoretically taking place in some sort of typical vague, mythic past, when Donald/Siegfried is summoned (via smoke signals, because of course), he's living in his plain ol' house and arrives by car (though not, sadly, 313).

Unfortunately, the portrayal of Donald is a weak spot.  Stories like this really give you the impression that Martina flat-out does not like Donald, the way he portrays him as having basically no positive characteristics--like winning the above battle by sheer luck, as the dragon laughs itself to death when his sword gets stuck in a log.  I guess I shouldn't say that, because I get a similar vibe from some of Rosa's work, and I'm certain that Rosa doesn't hate Donald--but both of them get the tone very wrong too frequently.  It's one thing to play up Donald's bad temper/vanity/hubris--that's just par for the course.  But--although its hard to quantify these things--when Barks does this, it generally feels earned and realistic, whereas for a lot of other writers, it can just feel unfair, as it does here.

At any rate, in a rather clumsy effort at mashing different parts of the story together, it turns out that for some reason, the only way to get into the cave and get the treasure is for Donald/Siegfried to rescue Daisy/Brünnhilde.  So it's off we go.

Inexplicable Chip and Dale cameo!  It doesn't contribute in any way to the overall story, but hell, in a thing this goofy, you might as well just stack that shit on (I'm not sure if there's any way to tell from the above which is which).

…also, Burrito from The Three Caballeros.  Who…can talk now?  Sure, okay.  Could've given him a cartoon Mexican accent; refrained.  Now, Martina usually restricts himself to regular comics characters, but he's not averse to sticking movie characters in his stories, either.  An example American readers may be familiar with is the Mad Hatter from Alice in Wonderland appearing in "The Blot's Double Mystery."  When Western did crossovers like this,  the crossover was generally the point--look at this unusual thing we're doing!  Whereas Martina is much more matter-of-fact about it.  Not that I'm familiar with the paths by which Disney stuff filtered over to Italy in the first place, but it's easy to see how an Italian artist could see it and not interpret it the same way--with the same unofficial boundaries--that an American likely would.

…well, it's sort of cool-looking with the flames and all, which is good, because otherwise, it's just the usual tired gender tropes.  Whee.

To cut a long story short: Gladstone shows up, and for highly dubious reasons it's necessary to have a duel to determine who gets the treasure, and Donald's going to win except that his foot, the only part of his body that's unprotected, gets injured (and I can't believe I didn't make the connection and realize that Siegfried is a Northern European take on Achilles before now.  It is because I am a babbling cretin, probably) (and no, alas, if you were wondering, he doesn't become invulnerable by bathing in Fafnir's blood--it's just a potion of Gyro's).  And so, Gladstone wins.  Granted, he's not as offensive as he habitually is, but still…who's supposed to like a conclusion like this?  I ask you.

Anyway, this is why I like to read European comics: sometimes I find gems like this (yeah, in spite of everything, I'm still willing to use the word "gem") that would almost certainly never be printed in the US.  Fun for kids of all ages, I sez.