Writer – Joe R. Lansdale
Artist – Timothy W. Truman
Inker – Rick Magyar
Colours – Sam Parsons
Letters – Brad K. Joyce

After the previous issue, Tonto now finds himself alone, the Lone Ranger nowhere in sight though he is most likely chasing down the monster that is killing people as well as the missing Captain Barrett. On a stagecoach, Tonto is having a jolly good time putting up with the racism of small-minded men when it is attacked by that very same Aztec creature. Those onboard are no match for the otherworldly being and it picks them off one by one, bullets doing no good against it. Tonto manages to save the woman he rides with and throws a jar of pickles at it, for whatever reason it scalds the face of the monster so that they are able to make their escape. Arriving in town soon after, Tonto has figured out what it is that will harm the beast and when thinking on whether to tell the Lone Ranger, he decides against it – Kemosabe no longer a friend and a man who can discover it all for himself. That being said, the Lone Ranger tracks the creature to the very same town where Tonto has arrived and where on this night of all nights, they are holding a festival. It is both a good and bad thing as the large crowd will draw the monster in but it will also provide many innocent souls for it to feed on. As one might expect, Joe R. Lansdale and Timothy W. Truman bring Tonto and the Lone Ranger back together in common of a shared purpose and by the time all is said and done, they are once more friends and partners as it should be. This was a thrilling issue, packed with action from the first page to the last and all of it beautifully illustrated by Truman. While Truman has done a lot of work over the years, he always seems to excel when it comes to horror and westerns and this book had both which was great. Lansdale manages to do a number of things with this issue, painting Tonto as a more than capable hero, one who understands things and is more than able to deal with all manner of situations that come his way which is more than can be said by any number of the men and women he runs into. What is most illuminating about all of this is that Tonto might be the more talented of the two, the Lone Ranger and himself. As it is, Tonto finds that deep down inside himself, he was blaming his friend for the part he had in the deaths of his family and it is this part that comes to the surface so that he was able to learn to forgive and then together, defeat the monster from the stars. A fun, quick and over-too-soon little miniseries that does everything right.

4 out of 5