Broken Frontier

A steadfast legend receives a modern retelling and updated origin; bloodier, brutal, and definitely more contemporary, it’s a whirlwind read – if piteously flawed.

John Reid has been a figure of cult status for over half a century, donning his tell-tale, signature black mask and spurring his horse to the classic "Hi-yo, Silver – away!" Now, long since modern media has heard hide or hair of this archetypal avenger, Dynamite Entertainment brings him barreling out of the cultural cobwebs with a grittier, Eastwood and Deadwood inspired re-imagining, placing the usually kitschy character in a west that’s wild due to more historically accurate, sincere dangers, such as the gang of vicious, mercilessly violent law-dodgers as appear in the inaugural issue. John’s past is laid bare here, granting the appearance of a father that shaped his morality, a brother that shaped his spirit, the education that gave him an edge over less-knowledgeable outlaws, and, finally, the horrific event that shattered all of the above, giving John due cause for everlasting vengeance.

Writer Brett Matthews does a commendable job of bringing dramatic ferocity to Reid’s backstory, crafting a truly thrilling, big-budget cinematic version of an (until now) merely nickel-and-dime, black-and-white pulp serial. The action of the comic is fast and remarkably violent, the slower scenes sodden with atmospheric heft and relentlessly rising momentum. The downside of such an aesthetic, though, is that the book lacks even one single ounce of subtlety. Where the quiet family drama during the first half of the issue should complement the upcoming tragedy by constructing sympathetic, complex personalities of the main characters, instead it merely shows how inept Matthews is at any style beyond sensationalistic, hyper-Hollywood dynamism.

An extensive – but perfect – example of this overly-dramatic style gone bad: there’s a moment in the opening, wherein John’s dad – the town’s Sheriff – comes galloping home after hunting down a wanted bandito, and in the excitement of the reunion, John – at this point only a little boy – asks gleefully of his father: "Did you get the bad man? Did you kill him?" John’s dad smacks John a good one across the face and responds: "I did kill that man today. He was a bad man and he had it coming. That doesn’t make it a good thing." Dad then walks off to go to bed, and John is left sulking, hunched upon a tree stump, obviously torn and considering his father’s words. Day turns to dusk, dusk turns to evening, evening turns to late night, and still John sits and ponders. Then, at some undetermined time yet later still, John enters his dad’s bedroom and – without prelude – states: "The stump…you cut the tree down to build the house. It doesn’t mean you miss the shade."

Personally, I couldn’t see a single reason how the stump or the house or a Zen revelation that quite frankly wouldn’t occur to anyone outside of a monk (or a sappy writer trying too hard) would ever enter the mind of a boy John’s age, and even if it would, the hint that John is well above average in the philosophical ethics department could have been made much more realistically, and much less histrionically than this. But Matthews’ writing runs this course, every moment clearly captured and spotlighted, granting a presentation that, in the end, insults all but the most attention deficient reader. The rest is sparsely dialogued, rapidly told, and in love with the arguably popular (though manifestly ubiquitous) decompressed comic book tale. The entire issue is, at best, a five minute read, though most will probably be hard pressed to break the three-minute mark. Worst of all, when the reader reaches the end and realizes that it is the end, an inescapable feeling of having been cheated out of three dollars for little more than a brief sneak-peek of an epic story is adamantly heartfelt.

On the other side of the creative coin, artist Sergio Cariello (of Deathstroke and Azrael fame) comes out with (sorry for this) both guns blazing, illustrating like the rising Big Two star he should be. His art is as much Adam as it is Joe Kubert, and the combination makes for a spectacularly visceral blend of the beauteously classic and the grippingly modern. Under his pencil and pen, the western landscape is barren, arid, a true wasteland, and its human inhabitants little more than speech-equipped cavemen, barbarous and tribal, yet still for all of that human and recognizable.

Out of this background, this setting, John Reid will eventually come to be The Lone Ranger, though while the ride appears to be a viscerally thrilling one it also looks to be a pricey, unnecessarily protracted one, too. There is not, despite popular opinion, only one thing the retelling of a classic icon needs; beyond a contemporary style of action and conflict, it also requires a modern, more elevated use of narrative and naturalistic, effective character interaction, two things that this particular series lacks even an inkling of. Though for those who only wish for cheap thrills and a story that won’t eat up more than a single television commercial-break’s worth of time, then The Lone Ranger is for you!