Modesty Blaise: "The Girl in the Iron Mask"

[stolisomancer]

The "Modesty Blaise" comic strip ran for almost forty years in British newspapers, but had very little circulation in North America. Even so, it's had a large influence on comics in general; most notably, Chris Claremont has admitted that Storm is in large part inspired by Modesty, which puts her fingerprints all over most of the superheroines in the comic book industry.

After the shout-out to the strip in Secret Avengers #20, I've been rereading some of it, as the strips are currently collected in very sharp-looking volumes from Titan Books. The following strips are from 1991's "The Girl in the Iron Mask," drawn by Romero.


Modesty had, relatively recently, run afoul of a pair of reclusive billionaires. The Bone brothers have a nasty hobby, where they attempt to destroy business rivals and random strangers in an entertaining fashion. They attempted to do this to Modesty's friend John Dall, and she prevented it.

The Bones arrange for Modesty to be abducted by a group of thugs, tranquilized, and put down a hole in the middle of the Swiss Alps. Inspired by The Man in the Iron Mask, they also have their men bolt an iron helmet onto her. The theory, then, is that she'll go slowly mad from isolation and thirst.

There are two problems with their plan. One is that their housekeeper secretly telephones Modesty's closest friend, Willie Garvin, and tells him where Modesty is. The other is that, well, she's Modesty Blaise.

Comments

[greenmask]

Saw a Modesty Blaise paperback in Oxfam Books a while back. Didn't buy it.

Kicking myself.

[freezer]

Freud would have a field day with the Bone Twins, I think.

[btravage]

There is sensory deprivation and then there is sensory deprivation.

[midnightvoyager]

Uh, is Willie actually psychic or...?

[stolisomancer]

Not really. He's fond of saying that his "ears prickle" when there's trouble coming, and he's prone to trusting his instincts.

There's a very faint whiff of the supernatural in the strip in general; one of Modesty's closest friends is a blind psychic who can find things by "dowsing," and the earlier strips have a fair amount of Buddhist mysticism.

[midnightvoyager]

It just seemed kinda... "Oh, go this way, it happens to be the right direction. Why? I dunno, I just know. Psychic? That's silly. Also, there's probably people around the hole. Stop asking me why, there just is!"

[stolisomancer]

He's just going on instinct. He already knows that somebody abducted Modesty and that it probably wasn't kosher.

They've also established in a couple of past stories that both Modesty and Willie have trained with a lot of Mysterious Gentlemen of an Asian Persuasion, and a couple of the plot arcs have involved one of them just knowing somehow that the other's in trouble.

[sinanju]

Well, and if the guys who abducted Modesty didn't just kill her outright, then they had some nefarious plan in mind for her*--which means bad guys milling around. It's not an unreasonable assumption on Willie's part,

*The bad guys always have nefarious plans. (One of my favorite Modesty novels involves two bad guys, one of whom tangled with Modesty and Willie before, to his detriment. When Modesty and Willie get involved again, he's all "Shoot them! Shoot them now!" having learned by bitter experience not to underestimate them, but the other bad guy--who happens to be in charge--is too arrogant to listen. It goes...poorly for the bad guys.)

[starwolf_oakley]

Phillip Jose Farmer's World Newton Universe theory suggests that Modesty Blaise is the daughter of Tarzan and Queen La of Opar. That could explain a lot, maybe.

[stolisomancer]

Well, if nothing else, the closest O'Donnell ever came to saying what Modesty's ethnicity is is that, in "The Maori Contract," she's dark enough to pass at a distance for a half-Maori, half-English woman that she's trying to save. Since Queen La is apparently meant to be Caucasian in appearance, that would seem to

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Well, if nothing else, the closest O'Donnell ever came to saying what Modesty's ethnicity is is that, in "The Maori Contract," she's dark enough to pass at a distance for a half-Maori, half-English woman that she's trying to save. Since Queen La is apparently meant to be Caucasian in appearance, that would seem to

<suddenly realizes he's discussing the Wold Newton Universe theory>
<beats self in temple with claw hammer>
<message ends>

[darkknightjrk]

This looks like a lot of fun! I hope we get to see more of her stuff here. :)

[ladyvyola]

Which Titan volume is this? (Other than, dammit, one I don't have -- Oh, disposable income, I miss you!)

There needs to be more Modesty (and Willie) love. They are utterly awesome. And I'm rooting for celeste, who's one of the more interesting bit players I've seen.

[stolisomancer]

This is actually going to be in the one they release after the Lady in the Dark compilation, which comes out in August.