The cover of the Volume 1 trade paperback "Now and Forever"
The iconic Lone Ranger has been adapted to comic form many times, the most recent version being published by Dynamite Comics starting in 2006.
The series is notable for its Darker and Edgier tone as well as doing away with more stereotypical elements such as Tonto's infamous broken English.
This comic book provides examples of:
- Army of Thieves and Whores: Deconstructed. The Ranger and Tonto defeat one by stealing the money that would've been used to pay them. Their employer, a corrupt rancher, tries to offer to pay them by checks but many of them are wanted men and wouldn't even be able to enter a bank without getting arrested.
- Art Shift: The first three issues have a dark, blurred, disorienting art style that fits with the disturbing horror tones. The fourth issue gives a more defined art style.
- Bait-and-Switch: In "Devil's Rope", one of the villains talks about Connor, the deadliest man he's ever met, over a scene where a huge man enters a saloon, intimidating all the other patrons. The man is then bothered by a "dandy" at the bar and threatens to kill him. Then every customer at the bar dies of poisoning and the dandy kills the big man, eats his forearm, and introduces himself as Connor.
- Cannot Talk to Women: The Ranger, when he meets Fiona Doyle.
- Circus of Fear: Issue #3, complete with a Repulsive Ringmaster, The Freakshow, Knife-Throwing Act, and Hall of Mirrors.
- Creepy Child:
- Issue #1 shows a mute child named James who murders his parents and then the couple who take him in. The Ranger discovers a letter stating his parents were hoping to take him to a special hospital with doctors who could help him.
- Issue #2 has Annabelle, a shopkeeper's daughter who sings a creepy song about a prospector getting killed by monsters in a cave.
- Darker and Edgier: In comparison to the iconic TV show, at least. This version includes cannibals, prostitutes, and even a murderous child.
- Decon-Recon Switch: The first 25 issues of Dynamite's deconstructs several elements of the Lone Ranger in the first several issues before slowly reconstructing the character. Starting with his Origin Story, Reid is obviously distraught and angry over the deaths of his father and brother, and seeks out to get revenge instead of dedicating himself towards justice. It's only when he finds that the man who betrayed his family was already dead and with Tonto's suggestions that he starts to consider becoming a hero. Over the course of the comic Reid finds himself facing moral dilemmas, such as whether he should let a mob kill a Mexican immigrant or send him back to Mexico where he will be executed for the crime he committed. His relationship with Tonto is also far more antagonist, as while grateful for his help Reid naturally doesn't know him and as Reid starts to develop a stricter Thou Shalt Not Kill rule they argue over Tonto's willingness to kill. However as Character Development kicks in he and Tonto become close allies, he starts to develop a more clear sense of right and wrong while dedicating himself to fighting criminals in the pursuit of justice, and he becomes far more cheerful as he starts to recover from his tragedy. The final issue shows him abandoning all of the more "realistic" outfits he had worn in the previous issue in favor of the one he wore in the tv show, which shows that the reconstruction is now complete.
- Divide and Conquer: A common tactic of the Ranger and Tonto. They steal the money a corrupt rancher used to pay for his hire guns, turning them against him. They also release and rebrand the herds of several corrupt ranchers so they can't tell who owns which cow. This results in a shootout that gets one of them killed.
- Doomed Hometown: Before he met the Lone Ranger, Tonto's village was attacked by the US Army who wrongfully blamed them for white settlers massacred by rogue Native warriors. His wife is killed.note
- Even Evil Has Standards: Connor is an ex-Confederate cannibalistic Psycho for Hire but even he's disgusted by racism and the persecution of Native Americans. He tells Tonto that he's killing him purely out of pragmatism, not prejudice.
- Guile Hero: Due to their Thou Shalt Not Kill rule, the Ranger and Tonto have to outsmart their enemies rather than directly fighting them. For example, they turn several corrupt ranchers against each other by releasing their herds and rebranding them, making it impossible for them to tell whose property is whose.
- Handicapped Badass: Emperor Lee, an armless, legless Chinese circus performer who is also a skilled acrobat and knife-thrower. He even puts up a good fight against the Lone Ranger.
- Heroic Neutral: Before meeting the Lone Ranger, Tonto opposed making war against the white men and wanted only a chance to raise his son Tacome with his wife Chakwaima.
- High-Heel–Face Turn: Fiona Doyle
- It Will Never Catch On: One ambitious Senator claims Ulysses S. Grant has no chance at a second term. Grant did, in fact, win a second term.
- Love Makes You Crazy: While investigating the death of a Human Cannonball, the Ranger finds out that his cannon was sabotaged by one of the circus' freaks, who coveted his aerialist girlfriend.
- Majored in Western Hypocrisy: Tonto attended the real-life Carlisle Indian Industrial School
, one of the infamous boarding schools that Native American children were forced to attend to strip them of their culture, convert them to Christianity, and assimilate them into white society. - Mythology Gag:
- "Devil's Rope" has a cannibalistic villain, similar to the 2013 movie. There's also a moment where he rides into town carrying a flamboyant lady's parasol, similar to a gag in the 2013 movie.
- Dan Reid Jr. often wears green and defeats an outlaw by smashing a hornet's nest onto him.
- Nay-Theist: Tonto becomes this after his tribe is slaughtered and he leaves.
- No Historical Figures Were Harmed: The Ute tribe sends the Lone Ranger to find a Ute healer, who he's been told was captured by Mormons. He later learns that the healer is actually Rebecca, a white Mormon woman who was captured by the Ute as a child, raised as a slave, and trained as a healer. She is likely based on Olive Oatman.
- Parental Substitute:
- John for Dan Reid Jr.
- Tonto for Kahnaka.
- Psycho for Hire: Connor, an ex-Confederate blockade runner who was starved in a prison camp and forced to resort to cannibalism.
- Redhead In Green: Fiona Doyle, a redheaded Irish woman who wears green to a date with the Ranger.
- The Rival: Beshkno to Tonto
- Shaming the Mob: After James, a mute Creepy Child, kills his parents and the couple who take him in, a whole town is eager to find him and lynch him. The Ranger and Tonto find him first. They try to capture him alive but he falls off a cliff to his death. They bring his body back to the town, show it to the mob, and the Ranger shames them all.
- Taking the Bullet: The Lone Ranger does it for Tonto in "Lines Not Drawn".
- Thou Shalt Not Kill: A staple of the Lone Ranger. However, turning his enemies against each other so that they kill each other doesn't seem to bother him much.
- Worthy Opponent: Barrow, a hired thug working for a corrupt Senator, considers Tonto to be this.
