Titan Books
Peter O'Donnell, writer
Jim Holdaway, artist
Modesty Blaise is one of those many characters I've heard about but wasn't really very familiar with. She was kind of a female James Bond in a comic strip, I believed for a long time. I was curious to find out more about the character and sample her adventures, but she was pretty far down on my list.
I was right about the comic strip part, although that comic strip has proven popular enough to lead into a number of prose novel adventures and comic books and inspire three films.
Modesty is the creation of Peter O'Donnell, based on a child he saw while he was serving during World War II. The character O'Donnell created was a child refugee without a name or anyone but herself to depend on with war and fighting all around her. The young girl was able to survive by learning various fighting and defensive skills. The few remaining skills she couldn't acquire on her own, like reading and writing, came from an elderly gentleman she befriended. This man, another refugee, also gave Modesty her name.
Later, Modesty's various talents allowed her to enter a small-time gang of thieves in Tangier. When the leader of the group was killed, Modesty rallied the rest and became their leader. She quickly grew the gang into one of the largest, most successful criminal empires, The Network, that operated in almost every country of the world. All of this was accomplished by the ripe old age of 20.
While serving as the head of The Network, Modesty met Willie Garvin, a Thai-style fighter with more rage than sense. Modesty saw potential in the man and, on a whim, bought his way out of prison. From that moment on, Willie served as Modesty's right-hand man. He, too, proved to be very adept at a number of skills critical to the criminal lifestyle.
The Network was so successful that in less than 10 years both Modesty and Willie could retired from lives of crime quite wealthy. She bought a penthouse in London, and he bought a small country pub. But the life of leisure proved boring for these two people so used to adventure and action.
Enter Sir Gerald Tarrant, head of a group of British secret operatives. He approached Modesty with a proposition that could alleviate her boredom and help his agency out with a problem they were having. Modesty agreed to take the assignment on the condition that Willie was included. Modesty and Willie don't actually work for the British government, so Tarrant has deniability and Modesty and Willie retain their autonomy.
In this collection, the pair help break up a murder-for-hire ring called "La Machine," track down a scientist being held against his will by thieves in "The Long Lever," and go up against Gabriel, an international crime boss they have run into before in "The Gabriel Set-Up." While Modesty Blaise is more down-to-earth than most James Bond movies, it is an adventure strip filled with action. Modesty and Willie each have an impressive array of natural talents they employ in the course of their adventures, but nothing -- in this collection at least -- enters the realm of supernatural, superhuman or beyond the ordinary gadgetry.
All in all, this collection of the first 354 strips in Modesty Blaise's nearly 40-year run is a very good read. To be honest, I doubt that I will buy any of the future volumes as they are pretty expensive for what would likely be one-time-only reads, but I will try to track down more of Modesty's adventures from my local library. They are that good.
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