Brandon Borzelli's Geek Goggle Reviews
Lone Ranger #9
Dynamite Comics
Matthews, Cariello & Cassaday
Part three of the four issue arc. The Lone Ranger continues his justice hunt, but this issue ends with a great cliffhanger and surprise ending.
As we have seen previously Tonto and the Lone Ranger rescue a man from a lynching. The Lone Ranger does some investigating and determines the man is not guilty of what he was accused of. The Lone Ranger decides he will assist the man back to Mexico.
Along the way he and Tonto take out the lynching team one by one. This may not sound great or even particularly cool, but it is. The stealth used to snatch up these guys is fabulous. It's so creative and deliberate you'd think he had been spying on these men for weeks to nail down their routines before pinning them at their most vulnerable point. It couldn’t be more chillingly scripted.
Meanwhile, Cavendish goes over the edge. He had been a bad guy behind the scenes. Working the puppet strings and appearing to be on the up and up to the rich folk. This issue he loses it. He turns bad and he turns bad ugly. We have known the guy is evil. Now everyone else does too.
Once the Lone Ranger has snagged the leader of the lynch mob he is about to get some answers about why he accused his Mexican friend, Rafael, of a murder he didn’t commit when Rafael turns on them all.
We are left with more questions than answers in this issue and it's great. A simple mystery almost solved was just thrown for a loop. And no I didn’t spoil the surprise ending.
In all the Lone Ranger universe has very few characters, but we get a nice advancement of Cavendish and we get some evolution of the Lone Ranger, but he is shown that he has a lot to learn. Tonto is just fantastic. His lines are simply, but his expressions are the most valuable asset of the entire title.
The art work adds more to the story in so many ways than any dialog. The wide shots of the eyes, the coloring of the sky, the face of Tonto, the sheer size of Silver - it seriously steals the book away from the story.
If you are a fan of westerns or of mysteries this is a story that is worth picking up. You don’t need to know anything about the Lone Ranger to enjoy this story. Dynamite has a lot of gold in its story chest, but this piece of silver is by far the brightest.
5 out of 5 geek goggles.
