Modesty Blaise: Death of a Jester

The Titan Books paperback Death of a Jester includes three Modesty Blaise comic-strip adventures, all dating from 1971. By this time Enrique Badía Romero had replaced the deceased Jim Holdaway as the strip’s artist. His drawing style is subtly different from Holdaway’s but it’s very nearly as good.

In The Green-Eyed Monster the daughter of the British envoy to the small South American republic of Cuarembo is kidnapped by guerillas. They claim to be fighting for freedom.

Modesty and the president of Cuarembo, Machado, are old acquaintances from her criminal days. Machado was a cop then, and an honest one. Machado and Modesty developed a certain mutual regard and respect. Modesty is inclined to be very sceptical of the rebels’ claims but she isn’t very interested in politics. What matters is that she does not approve of hostage-taking. In fact she disapproves very strongly.

The kidnapped girl, Diana, is the ex-girlfriend of Modesty’s current boyfriend Gil. Diana is spoilt, selfish, bad-tempered and generally a very unpleasant young lady. The first time she met her Modesty threw her into a swimming pool. But Modesty still does not approve of hostage-taking.

President Machado knows where the hostage has been taken. Any attempt to launch a military assault would certainly result in the girl’s death. On the other hand Modesty and Willie Garvin might be able to do it stealthily. Gil volunteers to act as their guide.

It’s a difficult enough mission and Diana doesn’t make it any easier.

This is a solid story and we get to see the Nailer (one of Modesty’s tricks for getting out of tight spots) used, but not by Modesty.

In Death of a Jester a couple of hippies see a court jester killed by a knight in black armour. This sort of thing doesn’t happen in 1971, but they really did see it happen.

A crazy aristocrat is reliving the Middle Ages and taking it a bit too seriously. He’s also stolen something much more high-tech and much more dangerous. There are also lions to contend with.

Modesty and Willie manage to get themselves invited to the crazy earl’s castle. The earl tries to seduce Modesty and he thinks he’ll get suspicious if she doesn’t sleep with him, so she does sleep with him. It’s all in the line of duty.

Willie learns about jousting at first hand and Modesty gets to demonstrate her skill with a rapier.

The mock-medieval setting makes this a very entertaining adventure.

As is customary in her comic-strip adventures The Stone Age Caper begins with Modesty and Willie on holiday, this time in Australia. O’Donnell loved exotic settings and in 1971 I guess Australia qualified as an exotic locale. This is the Australia of the English imagination, bearing no resemblance to the real Australia, which makes it more fun in some ways. For the English of course Australia was Bondi Beach and the Outback.

It’s in the Outback that Willie finds the girl. Her name is Judy and she’s been deliberately left to die, stranded in the desert. Willie nurses her back to health. Speaking to Modesty by radio he tells her that Judy has mentioned a nickel mine. That gets Modesty’s attention. She’s just encountered an old acquaintance in Sydney, Mr Wu Smith from Macau. They know each other from Modesty’s criminal days. He’s planning a nickel fraud. Modesty had no intention of interfering. It’s none of her business. She isn’t a cop. But she figures she should join Willie to find out a bit more.

Of course Modesty and Willie get drawn into the affair and much mayhem ensues. Since this is Australia most of the mayhem involves boomerangs.

If you’re easily offended you’ll find something in every frame of this story to offend you. It’s not exactly in tune with today’s ideologies.

It was controversial at the time for featuring Modesty topless.

It’s a crazy story but fun in its way.

Three fine comic-strip adventures with Death of a Jester being the standout. Highly recommended.

I’ve reviewed lots of Modesty Blaise: the novels Modesty Blaise, Sabre-Tooth and I, Lucifer and the comic book collections The Gabriel Set-Up, The Black Pearl and The Hell-Makers.