Broken Frontier

In this issue a legend begins to take shape. With each passing moment, John Reid is becoming the Lone Ranger. There are a few twists in this legend, though.

It takes a skilled craftsman to recut a diamond, to take someone else’s work and to recraft it to show off every facet with sparkling brilliance. That is what writer Brett Matthews is doing with The Lone Ranger. The story has passed through several generations of fans now and yet, this title manages to make it feel as if it is being told for the first time.

Reid has recovered from his wounds enough that his next thought is arranging for revenge on the last member of the ambush party that slaughtered the Rangers. Tonto’s attempts to help Reid find balance are met with only more violence as Reid sets out armed with a single bullet – forged from his melted, silver Ranger’s badge. Meanwhile, Black Bart has discovered that one Ranger survived the massacre. This vicious killer intends to finish the job – even if it means slaughtering the families of those Rangers. We also finally get a look at the man who has been behind all of this death from the beginning. But what does he have to gain?

With issue #3, Matthews begins to bring in some of the familiar trappings of this old hero. A prototype mask, the silver bullet, even the name, the Lone Ranger, is given an organic origin. Most well done here are the characterizations, particularly Tonto’s. The bleak and bitter Native American continues to grow in heart as he honestly tries to help Reid deal with his own grief and guilt. When he is burned again, however, he displays a frighteningly efficient, violent side as well as a sense of humor that is black as night. Matthews manages to delicately balance the familiar pieces of the Lone Ranger with a newer, darker, and more violent edge. There is a sense of frontier roughness here that was never visible in the TV series. These are characters that are, literally and figuratively, living at the edge of the law.

Artist Sergio Cariello has his work cut out for himself this issue as well. With a number of silent panels and pages, it falls to his art to carry the story. Lucky thing he is up to the task. He embraces the landscape of the desert southwest, using it to show how it frames the characters, shapes them, and defines them. He also displays a gift with using characters’ eyes to show emotion. This adds an extra layer to the dialogue and even is able to take the place of words.

The Western frontier was once a place where society, law and order fought with chaos, unbridled freedom, and criminality. Matthews and Cariello return readers to "those thrilling days of yesteryear" with a hero who straddles the line of the frontier. A force for law and order but one who operates outside the law, a man who fights to protect society and yet chooses to live outside it, a man to help bring order to the west and yet who lives in freedom. This is the Lone Ranger. Meet him again, for the first time.