Uncle Happy represented an interesting step for Peter O’Donnell, the creator and writer of the comic strip. His concept for the character was a woman who underwent horrific experiences in childhood but survived and came out much stronger. She put herself back together again. A crucial aspect of the character is that despite those traumatic experiences she is a fully functional woman. She is perfectly capable of having normal emotional relationships with men, and she is perfectly capable of having normal sexual relationships with men.
It was therefore important to make it clear that Modesty has a sex life. In the early strips this was implied. In Uncle Happy it’s made quite explicit. Modesty has found a new man. They have moved in together and they are most definitely sleeping together. This was quite daring in 1965, for a comic strip published in daily newspapers.
Uncle Happy is also interesting for being set partly in Las Vegas, and for the fact that there is clearly a kinky sexual element to the nastiness of the chief villainess. It also demonstrates that Peter O’Donnell was quite comfortable dealing with female evil as well as male evil.
On a skin-diving holiday Modesty meets underwater photographer Steve. Pretty soon they’re shacked up together. Everything is going great until he gets kidnapped. Modesty rescues him but he won’t call the cops. Modesty suspects he’s mixed up in something criminal. They’re both keeping secrets from each other and their love affair fizzles out.
Then Willie Garvin shows up unexpectedly. He’s investigating the possible murder of an old girlfriend but there’s an odd link with Steve - the people who kidnapped him are the very people Willie is investigating. These people are a rich philanthropist and his wife. The philanthropist has earned the nickname Uncle Happy for providing disadvantaged kids with an island playground.
Bad Suki is interesting for other reasons. O’Donnell preferred to avoid topical subject matter and in fact he preferred to avoid anything that would make his comic strips date. Modesty’s clothes (when she’s not on a mission) are stylish and elegant but in the 60s you’ll never see her wearing the latest Carnaby Street fashions. Her look is timeless.
Bad Suki was an exception to all of these rules. It deals with a subject very topical at the time - drugs. And it deals with the emerging hippie subculture. It’s an experiment that works reasonably well, but it was an experiment that O’Donnell did not care to repeat.
Willie rescues a hippie girl having a bad acid trip. Willie is no fool. He knows you can’t help people who don’t want to be helped. But he and Modesty feel sorry for the girl. They figure if they can’t help her directly they can deal with the drug pushers.
This is yet another Modesty Blaise adventure featuring underwater action. I’m not complaining. I love underwater action scenes.
It’s also a story that displays a ruthless side to Modesty that you don’t see in most of her adventures. In general Modesty hates killing and does so only when strictly necessary. But this time she intends to kill and she intends to enjoy it. This is another experiment that O’Donnell was reluctant to repeat.
So while Bad Suki can be a bit cringe-inducing at times when dealing with the far-out groovy hippie world it is an intriguingly atypical Modesty Blaise story.
So, two comic-strip adventures, one extremely good and one flawed but interesting. Which makes this volume a worthwhile purchase.
Both adventures feature Jim Holdaway’s art.
I’ve reviewed three other early Modesty Blaise comic-strip collections, The Gabriel Set-Up, Warlords of Phoenix and The Black Pearl, as well as the first three novels - Modesty Blaise, Sabre-Tooth and I, Lucifer.
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