Review of "Modesty Blaise: Children of Lucifer," by Peter O’Donnell and Enric Badia Romero

Review of

Modesty Blaise: Children of Lucifer, by Peter O’Donnell and Enric Badia Romero


Five out of five stars

Modesty goes beyond for Willie

This set of three stories featuring Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin demonstrate once again how committed they are to each other without there being a sexual component. Modesty even accepts being sexually used so that she can buy time for Willie and his allies to prepare for an escape.

 In the first one, called “The Hanging Judge,” a ruthless criminal that had his sentence extended is out for revenge against the official that did that. He is out of prison now and has captured the daughter of that official and is torturing her and capturing it on video. The official and his wife are neighbors of Modesty and they turn to her and Willie for help. The daughter is very clever and manages to send a signal to them that gives her location. Using their usual methods, they are able to rescue her, and she is smitten by Willie.

 The second one is “Children of Lucifer” and it involves a satanic cult that is a front for a major drug dealing business. The cult provides the drugs for several major organized crime syndicates and it is a double front. The leader of the cult is having their leaders gather for a meeting at which he plans to assassinate them.

 To protect their secrets the muscle operatives of the cult knock a woman unconscious on a ski slope and leave her for dead. Modesty, her man of the moment and Willie find her and rescue her. The man is a doctor, so he is able to quickly revive her so that she can tell them what is happening. Modesty calls another one of her men that is an FBI agent and he sends a team. All Willie and Modesty need to do is avoid the enforcers long enough for them to get there.

 The last one, called “Death Symbol” is by far the best of the three. In it we learn that Willie was once a member of the French Foreign Legion and when his unit was ambushed, Willie was wounded in the leg, and his friend saved his life. The daughter of that friend has been abducted and is being held as a sex slave in a redoubt in Tibet. That valley has been taken over by a unit of deserters from the Chinese army, so the natives there are also slaves.

 In order to get access and acquire intelligence, Modesty allows herself to be captured and used by the leader. Willie and some of the other locals then manage to destroy their munitions dump and free the girls. At the end, when they are on the plane, Willie expresses his appreciation for what Modesty did. Her response is, “Shut up and let me sleep.”

 These stories demonstrate once again how Modesty Blaise was a comic hero that was well before her time. So much has been made of other female comic heroes such as Wonder Woman, yet Modesty had no powers and was the best of them all.