Customer Reviews

Modesty Blaise: The Scarlet Maiden

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Modesty had a great run, nearly forty years of daily comics. These three stories come from about the middle of that era, the early 1980s. In the first, The Scarlet Maiden, some inept thugs develop a misunderstanding with Modesty about a sunken treasure. This has more tongue-in-cheek humor than anything else I've seen in the Blaise canon. Basically, Modesty and her towering sidekick Willie were on vacation anyway, and playing along with the bumblers seemed like fun - but not for the bumblers, of course. The second story, Moon Man, reminds the reader that the Cold War was still under way back then, so we're treated to a fine bit of spy vs. spy adventure. We're also treated to a bit more of Modesty than even her bikini in Scarlet Maiden revealed, and a reminder that European attitudes towards undress will startle some conservative Americans.

The final story, A Few Flowers for the Colonel, really tops the collection, though. The premise comes across as ordinary (save the schoolgirls from the evil white-slavers and the nun from their vile amusements). Two characters really stand out, though. Anselmo, a young teenager, learns that bravado and bravery are very different things. Then the Colonel of the story's name shows him what bravery really means.

The strip as a whole dates from the early 1960s, when the first of the James Bond movies came out and a few years before Diana Rigg defined the spy-babe in catsuit as Emma Peel. Even if she's not as well known, at least not in the US, Modesty made her own contribution to that tradition. It might look a bit dated now, nearly 30 years after these stories appeared in the papers, but this still rewards the reader looking for a hot babe in some fine, fun adventure.

- wiredweird

If you are a fan of adventure strips like Buz Sawyer, Captain Easy, Terry and the Pirates and Rip Kirby, you'll like Modesty Blaise and her sidekick, Willie Garvin! Not quite James Bond and not quite "The Saint," Modesty is a combination of the two. The stories in this volume are as good as any O'Donnell wrote and will absolutely hold your interest. The art work is pretty good, too. Titan is doing a great job reprinting these strips.