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Glossary and Character Taxonomy  Breakdown by Country of Origin   Bibliography   Table of Contents    The Best of the Encyclopedia

Lone Ranger. The Lone Ranger was created by Fran Striker (Green Hornet, Ned Jordan, Yukon King) and George W. Trendle (Green Hornet) and appeared in the radio show "The Lone Ranger" (1933-1955); he also appeared on television, both live action and animated, and in four movies and twenty novels.

The Lone Ranger is a Costumed Avenger. John Reid was a Texas Ranger who, with five other Rangers, chased the vicious criminal Butch Cavendish into a canyon, only to be ambushed. Five of the Rangers were killed, and Reid was badly wounded. He was found by Tonto, a Potatawatomi Indian who had been his childhood friend. Tonto nursed Reid back to health, and Reid put on a mask and began pursuing vengeance against Cavendish and all others who would break the law and harm innocents. Reid funds his activities with the family silver mine, using the silver to create matched silver six-guns and silver bullets. He rides the brilliant stallion Silver, and is aided by Tonto. Reid is the great-uncle of Brit Reid, the Green Hornet.

* I'm including the Lone Ranger in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because he's an archetypal character. "The Lone Ranger" was pretty much immediately popular and remained so for the length of its run. At their heights, the radio show and tv show both had a vast array of marketing materials--buttons, action figures, etc--associated with them and flooding the market. The Lone Ranger became the archetypal masked cowboy, and perhaps in simply the archetypal cowboy, in the minds of listeners, viewers, and those who only peripherally knew of him--word of mouth regarding the Lone Ranger's radio program and tv show was quite strong. It can't be said that the Lone Ranger was the type of archetype who directly inspired numerous imitators, although Tonto did supersede all the preceding Indigenous sidekicks to become the archetypal Indigenous sidekick who inspired a number of direct imitations and lifts. The Lone Ranger wasn't the inspirational kind of character. He was simply the king of the fictional cowboys, masked or otherwise, and nobody else could touch him. 

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