As mindblowing as the previous volume, The Valkyrie introduce us to a more calculating and cunning immortal character who watched Siegfried's journey as he goes from the past. In the beginning, Siegfried has successfully renew his father's blade but in the process it destroyed Mime's forest abode. Unable to ignore his destiny, Siegfried decided to venture out of the forest with or without Mime's help. Due to Mime's lies about Siegfried's past, Siegfried became increasingly distant while Mime regretted now that the boy he had raised was long gone. However the main focus of this book was the Valkyrie that have been a silent witness to everything that happened in the first book. She was one of Odin's daughter who are instrumental to Siegfried's heroic destiny but she was seeking a forest's witch advice about the future and what her choice would come to be. The first volume focus more on the legend while in this book, the characterizations were given more priority as we became acquainted with the Valkyrie. Still as elusive as the Gods themselves, we're shown the desperation of whatever decisions that lead the characters to where they are now. The flow of the story is quite confusing as it was like the Inception of Norse mythology. Since I was reviewing a low quality ARC instead of the real thing, I couldn't quite completely engrossed by the pixellated artwork and the fact that I was missing a couple of pages from the book itself didn't actually give me enough perspective on the book as a whole. I might in the future, will try to obtain the real volume of the book. But from what I have received, the volume focus on more descriptive scenery of the world Siegfried lived in. There were hints of things far bigger was at stake by the choices made by both Siegfried and Valkyrie. It is a satisfying volume but a bit unnerving and disconnected as it was from another point of view. As a transition to the third volume, I couldn't quite find myself having those moment of enlightenment with the whole fantastic mysticism and allure that I get from the first book. I felt the story arc somehow didn't make sense and at times, pointless at the end. Generally, I definitely will be looking forward to the third volume now more than ever.The ARC is provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Inspired by Germanic and Norse Mythology "Das Nibelungenlied" and Richard Wagner's "Das Rheingold", Siegfried is a tale of a world filled with Gods, giants and creatures in the dark. It began with a gold of absolute power with an ability to be persuasive to its user and to own it, one must renounce love. Odin who didn't want to lose love, hurl the gold into the depth of the deepest river and send his daughter to guide it. But there was creatures called the Nibelungs who resides in the underworld and are renowned blacksmith. One of them is Fafnir who fell in love with Odin's daughter but she didn't love him in return until unexpectedly she fall in love with a man. Brokenhearted, Fafnir cursed his love and stole the gold. Fafnir then use the gold and shape it into an instrument of power, enslave the folks of the underworld and gorged by power he became mad while the forbidden lovers flee from the wrath of Odin and failed. But before they died, they had a son called Siegfried who was entrusted under Mime's care with the shattered sword as a reminder. Gee that did sound terribly The Hobbits and Lord Of The Ring right? The first volume carried itself magnificently as an introduction to the legendary character, Siegfried. We're introduced to an innocent boy now adopted by a blacksmith, enjoying his days playing around with the wolves except for one black alpha and grumbles about his chores amid repetitive questions of his origins. Nevertheless all his curiosity often place him at risk and mostly near death experiences, after finding life the hard way, he began to be more recluse and distant from his foster parent and began to live in the wild until he matured into a good hunter. But then living alone in the wild made him yearn for more out of life but Odin have and even bigger plan for him.A very complicated but closed storyline was all that made the series an intriguing adventure to be read. The artwork is as compelling and intuitively detailed as expected from the publisher. The writing and the story flow is as poetic as the legend itself. The atmosphere emitted from the pages gave readers the feeling of being inside the wild unforgiving nordic climes which reminiscence the Skyrim. At the end of the book, there were more freebies for fans to make this volume a collectible item on its own. Filled with more details about the author's work, interview and more artwork, its definitely a volume for fans of the author.The series has ended as its been been long published in French but only now was being translated. From the Archaia's release of the book trailer, Siegfried have been opted to become an animated movie. Despite the mediums, the graphic novel is definitely enjoyable as a whole.

Alex Alice set himself up to reinterpret the Saga of the Völsungs, The Ring of the Nibelung, inspired by Wagner and some other sources, and make both a graphic novel and an animated film. This is the first of the three volumes of the resulting graphic novel. Apart from the story itself, this also includes an interview with the artist where he explains the creative process of the project. I read it in English.

The story here is no surprise for anyone who knows the old Norse Mythology, though it felt a bit too quick. There were some changes from the original tales, but it all makes sense anyway. The strong point of Siegfried is, without a doubt, the art. The main characters are nicely drawn, mostly Mime, but it's everything else that is truly surprising, the other characters, the animals, the house, the forest...

My favourite moment was the riddling conversation between Odin and Mime, but I also want to praise the use of the Völva as a narrator which worked out really well helping the story progress.All in all, it's worth reading for any comics fan but recommended the most for those who like Norse Mythology.

 

This review was originally published at my blog both in English and Portuguese.