Since I was a kid, I have been fascinated with the character of the Lone Ranger. I was mesmerized by the old television series. I stumbled across some old recordings of the radio shows and enjoyed the shows my grandfather used to listen to. I watched the short lived cartoon version of the Lone Ranger and Tonto. As a younger child, I often pretended to be the Lone Ranger.
Because of this, I was intrigued by the Dynamite comic book series when it premiered. I did not run out and add it to my comic subscriptions right away. I was afraid I would be let down by the vision of a comic book version of one of my childhood heroes. I finally picked up issue number 6 and I was hooked. I was able to find the back issues on E-Bay and have faithfully collected the series ever since.
Dynamite’s Lone Ranger has been one of my favorite comics since the moment I picked up issue 6. I love Brett Matthews vision and writing of the characters. Tonto and Lone Ranger are buddies who don’t talk a lot but bond over doing things together, which is often true of guy friendships. There were comic issues with very little words in them because of this relationship. The art of Cariello has been wonderful and was driven by the strong writing. I could talk for hours on the fantastic cover art of John Cassaday. These three have made a great series.
This series did have long stretches without regular monthly issues coming out. This would be my only real complaint. But it was always worth waiting for.
To my sadness, issue number 25 is the end of the Lone Ranger series. Matthews and company raps up the story with the final confrontation between LR and Butch Cavendish (the man who had the Rangers killed).
Review:
This issue starts off where issue #24 left off. The Lone Ranger has found Butch Cavendish at a church and is confronting him. Cavendish gets the upper hand and has LR at sword point. Cavendish is a man of many words and spends time gloating and monologuing. As per his character, LR has few words to say but is a man of action. The fight scenes are glorious and beautiful. .
Conclusion:
I loved this final issue. It was a great book end to a fantastic series. The story raps up in a way that fitting, worked completely without any gimmicks, and left me satisfied. Too often the final issue of a series either leaves you hanging or use bad story telling mechanisms to conveniently complete the story but this was not the case with the Lone Ranger.
Grade: A+
Thes have been a few masked thoughts of my complex mind.
