By Peter O’Donnell & Enrique “Enric” Badía Romero (Titan Books)
ISBN: 978-1840238662 (Album PB)
Spanish artist Romero was a familiar presence for generations of British comics and newspaper strip readers. He died on February 15th this year with most of his work out of print and nigh forgotten. Here are two reasons why that’s not right and should be rectified as soon as possible.
Infallible super-criminals Modesty Blaise and her lethally charming, compulsively platonic, equally adept partner Willie Garvin gained fearsome reputations whilst heading underworld gang The Network. At the height of their power, they retired young, rich and still healthy. With honour intact and hands relatively clean, they cut themselves off completely from careers where they made all the money they would ever need and far too many enemies: a situation exacerbated by their heartfelt and – for their calling – controversial conviction that killing was only ever to be used as a last resort.
When devious British Spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant sought them out, they were slowly dying of boredom in England. That wily old bird offered them a chance to get back into harness, have fun and do some good in the world. They jumped at his offer and began cleaning up society’s dregs in their own unique manner. That self-appointed crusade took decades…
From that tenuous beginning the dynamite duo went on to crush the world’s vilest villains and most macabre monsters in a succession of tensely suspenseful, inspirational action thrillers over more than half a century. The inseparable associates debuted in The Evening Standard on 13th May 1963 and, over passing decades, starred in some of the world’s most memorable crime fiction, in approximately three panels a day.
Creators Peter O’Donnell & Jim Holdaway (who previously collaborated on Romeo Brown – another lost strip classic equally as deserving of its own archive albums) crafted a timeless treasure trove of potent pictorial escapades until the illustrator’s tragic early death in 1970, whereupon Spanish artist Enrique “Enric” Badía Romero (and also occasionally John Burns, Neville Colvin & Pat Wright) assumed art duties, taking the partners-in-peril to even greater heights.
The series was syndicated world-wide and Modesty starred in prose novels and short-story collections, several films, a TV pilot, radio play, original American graphic novel from DC, an audio serial on BBC Radio 4 as well as nearly 100 comic adventures. The strip’s conclusion came on 11th April 2001 in The Evening Standard. Many papers around the world immediately began running reprints and further new cases were conceived, but British newspaper readers never saw them. We’re still waiting…
The pair’s astounding exploits comprise a broad blend of hip adventuring, glamorous lifestyle and cool capers: a melange of international espionage, crime and even plausibly intriguing sci fi/supernaturally-tinged horror fare, with ever-unflappable Modesty & Willie canny, deadly, yet all-too-fallibly-human defenders of the helpless and avengers of the wronged…
We have Titan Books to thank for collecting the saga of Britain’s Greatest Action Hero (Women’s Division), although they haven’t done so for a while now…
This volume was the first to feature Romero as sole artistic hand, following the unexpected death of Holdaway partway through ‘The Warlords of Phoenix’. To ease him into the job author O’Donnell was asked to write a lighter tale to follow up the epic. ‘Willie the Djinn’ plays well to the new artist’s strengths, and although there are echoes of a previous O’Donnell &Holdaway Romeo Brown romp, this tale of kidnapped dancing girls, oil sheikhs and military coups is a short, sweet treat, and change of pace to the usual storm of murder, intrigue and revenge.
Those elements return in ‘Green-Eyed Monster’ as the spoiled and obnoxious daughter of a British ambassador is kidnapped by South American rebels. Modesty & Willie must use all their skills to get her out of the terrorists’ clutches, escape deadly jungles and resist the overwhelming temptation to kill her themselves….
‘Death of a Jester’ closes out the volume as our antiheroes stumble across a bizarre murder that leads to another job for British spymaster Sir Gerald Tarrant. A man in Jester’s garb is impaled by a knight’s lance and thrown to lions in a caper revolving around Mediaeval Re-enactments, a band of bored and dangerous British ex-commandos and the impossible theft of the Navy’s latest super torpedo.
The infectious whimsy of the early 1970s was becoming increasingly present but under the strictly controlled conditions of prolific, ingenious O’Donnell and sleek slick Romero, Blaise & Garvin grew in stature and accomplishments to carve out a well-deserved reputation for excellence in these magnificent tales of modern adventure. Certified Gold. So bring them back please…
© 2005 Associated Newspapers/Solo Syndication.