Artist: Sergio Cariello
Colorist: Dean White
Cover Artist & Art Direction: John Cassaday
Lettering: Simon Bowland
I remember the Lone Ranger. Growing up as a young pup I would watch reruns of the tv show on my parents ginormous TV. So big was this television I swore it must have had Loki as an ancestor. This black and white serial was like magic to me. The epitome of good was the masked vigilante of whom the title of the show reflected. His trusty sidekick was the Indian Brave who spoke broken English and did bad war cries when running into battle… Ok so looking back on it now that show was crap. The good guy always got his ass handed to him by some cool cow poke dressed in black who at some point was outwitted by the idiot wearing white, riding a white horse, but no one could see that coming? I guess this was a time before people had the ability to look up from the ground. All that and Tonto was the stereotypical Native American who was indebted to the masked avenger because he saved his life, who never got his proper due for saving the dumb ass masked avenger whenever he decided to be a idiot hero. My Grandma could physically take the Lone Ranger, bend him over a pool table and not only unmask the jerk-off, but take his pride, wallet, and cherry to boot.
But I digress. This is a review about the new series from Dynamite comics. The two aren't related. It's a completely different species. No one would mistake the comic for the show. Even blind-mutes know the difference and they cant read the comic or watch the show. Anyone who thinks they are similar can meet me behind my favorite bar where I will show them what my Gran taught me.
This issue agrees with my statement of nightmarish nostalgia. The opening page shows the aforementioned Indian Brave standing over a shot up Ranger saying "How." A dubious start I know. Turning the page alleviates all my fears with the following line. "How are you alive?" This comic hates its roots more than homosexual Democrats hate their conservative, Klan attending Republican parents . If I had to pick one reason to continue reading this comic it would be Tonto. I love this guy. If I ever happen to get trapped in a comic book through some rip in the space-time-comic book continuum I want it to the Lone Ranger so I can buy Tonto a drink. Brett Matthews manages to take his weak, under rated predecessor and turn him into a 6'3" bad ass with a sense of humor similar to my own.
That's not to say that Matthews is perfect. He has a long, long, long way to go with the title character if he plans on making him a vigilante in any sense of the word. For fuck's sake, the guy doesn't even drink. Never trust a man that doesn't drink without a good reason. The man is just too weak at this point to be a lead character. Sure, he has the dark past thing down -his brother and father were gunned down- but he is too green to be a successful gunman. I can only speculate that Tonto will be carrying the whole comic for the next few issues. Not that that's a bad thing.
The artwork on this series isn't playing back up to the story though, as it is more of a harmony. Sergio Cariello is a very competent artists who does all the inside work. It's obvious that the artwork here is being pushed on display with a full page panel every four pages it seems like. If Cariello wasn't at least decent this would be torture. With a solid grip on making the bad guys either extremely ugly or so bad ass looking that no one messes with them my only complaint is that his work isn't used on the cover. Cover work should be somewhat interesting. Covers sell the comic to kids of all ages in that supermarket-impulse-buy-of–the
I look forward to buying the next few issues of this incarnation of the Lone Ranger, if for no other reason that to see how really fucking bad ass Tonto is. Overall I give this comic a rating of a Gimli; this comic is going to be big but right now it just has a lot going for it. Keep reading to see how it evolves.
2 comments:
without reading the comic, i'd have to say that from the sound of things the cover is completely inappropriate. i'm all about covers that kind of distill the work into a single image, but very firmly against just some random-assed design. now, if the comic has quite a bit to do with the creation of the Lone Ranger - his transformation and movement towards the wearing of the mask - then the cover art could work (this still doesn't mean it's particularly good, though). the review suggests that this is not the case, thus making the cover a rather useless image.
lone ranger or no, right-head makes a mean burger.
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