THE ICONIC HERO by Dave Goode

Art by Vance Capley - 11x17 posters are available for $15 - Vance Capley Arts

 

"With his faithful Indian companion Tonto , the daring and resourceful masked rider of the plains led the fight for law and order in the early western United States. Nowhere in the pages of history can one find a greater champion of justice." I sometimes wonder if Fran Striker was creating The Lone Ranger for George W. Trendle and WXYZ Radio back in 1933 that he was creating one of America's iconic pop culture heroes.

 

The hero's origin is as much a part of Americana as real-life western legends of the Siege of the Alamo and the Gunfight at the OK Corral. Six Texas Rangers in pursuit of the Butch Cavendash gang are led into an ambush. Only one man survived. The younger brother of ranger captain Dan Reid. Found and nursed back to health by Tonto , a Native-American the surviving ranger makes a mask from his murdered brother's vest to hide his identity and the fact that one man had survived the massacre. He makes a vow to bring a hundred outlaws to justice for each one of his fallen comrades. As he begins his new life as a masked crime-fighter he adopts the silver bullet as his sign.The Lone Ranger is much like the masked wrestling heroes of Mexican cinema in that once he dons his mask he ceases to have any other identity than that of the Lone Ranger. No changing in phone booths for this character.

 Many actors have portrayed the Lone Ranger over the years. On the radio the most notable were George Seaton ,Earle Graser and Brace Beemer. Lee Powell played the character in Republic's 1938 serial THE LONE RANGER. Republic followed that up with the 1939 serial THE LONE RANGER RIDES AGAIN starring Robert Livingston. On television from 1949 to1957 the character was portrayed by two actors. Clayton Moore began playing the role in 1949. John Hart took over the role for one season while Moore sat out the year in a contract dispute. On television Tonto, the Ranger's faithful Indian companion was portrayed by Jay Silverheels, a Mohawk Indian born in Ontario, Canada. Moore is considered by many to be the definitive Lone Ranger. And aside from his playing the character on television he portrayed him in two feature movies THE LONE RANGER (1956) and THE LONE RANGER AND THE LOST CITY OF GOLD (1958). Both of these movies are pretty entertaining B-westerns. And if you haven't seen them you should search them out.

Dinosaur Comic Books Are Cool by Dave Goode

As cool as it was to read a comic book where a super-hero went up against a prehistoric predator there were some other dinosaur-fighters who were just as cool.

Turok,Son of Stone was one. The character first appeared in 1954 in FOUR COLOR No.596 from Dell Comics. His second appearance came in FOUR COLOR No.656 in 1955. Finally the character would receive his own title in 1956 and the feature would run for several decades. First published by Dell. Then by Gold Key. Then finally by Whitman.

The feature told the story of Turok and Andar to Native-Americans trapped in a deep canyon in the Carlsbad section of New Mexico where they encounter prehistoric forms of life that had disappeared from all other parts of the world. Except for maybe Dinosaur Island.

I imagined a Turok movie starring Jay Silverheels and featuring stop-motion dinosaurs courtesy of Ray Harryhausen. Heck! I'd have settled for a Turok movie that starred Michael Ansara and Sal Mineo as Turok and Andar.

Borrowing a bit from Edgar Rice Burroughs' book THE LAND THAT TIME FORGOT writer Robert Kanigher along with artists Ross Andru and Mike Esposito created what would become a cult classic among comic book readers.The War That Time Forgot first appeared in Star Spangled War Stories in 1960 from DC. It ran for eight years until 1968. The stories featured groups of American soldiers stranded on an uncharted island in the Pacific during World War Two that was populated by dinosaurs. This island was sometimes called Monster Island. But most of the time it was known as Dinosaur Island.  As a boy I made several "shadow boxes" inspired by the covers of these comics using toy dinosaurs and those bags of green plastic soldiers that have been a part  of every boy's childhood for years. But most of the time we just created our own Dinosaur Island adventures in our backyards.

Art by Vance Capley