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Michael Uslan On The Important Moments In Lone Ranger / Green Hornet (Spoilers)

Published Mon, 10 Apr 2017 14:00:28 -0500

The Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet are related. It's one of the fun and little known facts from back when the two were both radio programs coming out of Chicago. Putting them together in one story is something a lot of writers have wanted to do. Recently, one finally did. This is sort of a writer's commentary as that writer, Michael Uslan, discusses his favorite and most important scenes from the Lone Ranger/Green Hornet series, on sale in trade paperback this Wednesday, April 12, from Dynamite. If you have read any of the interviews or commentaries from Uslan on the series he did with artist Giovanni Timpano, you know that not only do these characters have a deep, personal meaning to him but that the whole project is something for which he waited a long time and was a true labor of love. This article contains spoilers for the story. Cover art is by John Cassaday.

Michael Uslan:

The most important historic scenes in the Lone Ranger/Green Hornet graphic novel include these:

The first time in over 80 years that the multi-generational Reid family saga is told, revealing exactly when, where and why the superheroic torch was passed from The Lone Ranger and Tonto to The Green Hornet and Kato. This established the Great Uncle/Grand Nephew relationship of John Reid and Britt Reid that had only been hinted at over eight prior decades.

The fact that The Green Hornet and Kato were created to be the modern-day urban version of The Lone Ranger and Tonto, exchanging the great horse, Silver, for the great car, Black Beauty, in the process.

The emotional scene of The Lone Ranger and Tonto being reunited after so many years, and the details of the nightmarish treatment Tonto had to endure at the hands of white American society at the time.

Told for the first time ever… (SPOILER ALERT) the death of Tonto. And unlike "deaths" in comic book superhero stories of today, this death is real and permanent.

And perhaps most important, most historic, and most emotional of all, we show The Lone Ranger's final adventure, at last in action together with his grand nephew, The Green Hornet. And… (SPOILER ALERT)… the real, permanent, traumatic, emotional, sad, uplifting, death of the legendary Lone Ranger himself.

Along the way, there is a tip of the mask to Clayton Moore, a wink at everyone from Sgt. Preston of the Yukon to some guy named Wayne.

Because this is written as carefully researched alternative history and weaves in real people and events with The Lone Ranger and The Green Hornet, we get to meet Teddy Roosevelt, Eliot Ness, Adolph Hitler, Jesse Owens, Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill, Bat Masterson, Annie Oakley, Texas John Slaughter, Elfego Baca, Black Bart, Col. Tim McCoy, the Nazi Bund, and many others.

I invite all readers of every generation from those who grew up with western pulps, western movies, western TV shows, western comic books, The Lone Ranger on radio, in the movies or on TV, The Green Hornet on radio, in movies, or on TV, to Bruce Lee fans and today's hard core comic book and graphic novel fans, to "Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear!" The Lone Ranger Rides Again! And The Green Hornet Strikes Again! But this time, for the first and last time, TOGETHER!

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