The Return of the Mammoth (Modesty Blaise comics), by Peter O’Donnell

[rachelmanija]

Modesty Blaise (like a female James Bond, only cooler and with more martial arts) and her knife-throwing platonic life partner Willie Garvin exist in both comics and books; I have read all the books, but not all the comics. They were somewhat formative influences on me, and you will understand why when I summarize the plot of this comic, which I found at Karen and Chaz’s house and had not previously read.

Willie is lounging shirtless in bed with one of his many girlfriends (he likes women, they like him, but Modesty owns his heart and soul) when he gets a call saying “Chloe’s in trouble! Come to Helsinki!” He immediately rushes off. The girlfriend, understandably concerned, calls Modesty, who goes to Helsinki in case he needs help. (This is way pre-cell phones, so she can’t just call him.) She figures Chloe is probably one of his girlfriends or exes.

In Helsinki, she spots a flyer for a circus where Willie sometimes performs as a knife thrower because of course he does, so she goes there to see if he’s checked in with them. The circus folk inform her that Chloe is his favorite elephant, who was recently confiscated by Russian scientists because she is a good genetic match for the frozen mammoth which they excavated from an iceberg. They intend to fertilize her to get a mammoth baby. Willie thought she’d be unhappy away from her sisters and also doesn’t want her experimented on, so he took off to rescue her.

Modesty goes back to her hotel to pack or something before going after him. But an international assassin on a completely unrelated mission spots her, leaps to the conclusion that she’s been sent to take him out, and sends his best goons after her. She takes out two of them unarmed, then gets trapped in a second-floor bathroom with more goons breaking down the door. Also meanwhile, the circus is parading through the streets below. So she strips down to her bra and panties on the excuse that this will look more like a circus costume than her rather modest previous outfit, squirms through the window, yells that she needs a trampoline, and leaps down once the circus people get it in place. Onlookers think this is part of the act and applaud.

This all happens in the first 4 pages.

Modesty then catches up with Willie and they hang-glide into Russia to rescue Chloe. The rest of the comic book (24 pages total) includes multiple gunfights, martial arts fights, several escapes on elephant back, Chloe knocking down the walls of a convenient semi-ruined castle on to more goons, and a climactic battle in which Modesty kills the main assassin with a gun to her head and both hands tied behind her back. (With her feet.) Meanwhile, Willie guards a wounded Russian general who was the original object of the assassination, in anguish because Modesty is wearing a bug in her bra, so he knows she’s in danger and can hear from her accelerated heartbeat that she’s about to make her move, but she made him swear to stay where he was rather than rush to her aid.

In the end, Chloe is restored to the circus and her sisters, Modesty is deeply moved by Willie’s devotion, and the Russian general says the scientists will just have to live without a baby mammoth. If there had been one more page, I’m sure a baby mammoth would have appeared.

Modesty Blaise: The Return of the Mammoth, Plato's Republic, the Sword of the Bruce (The Comic Strip Series)

Comments

[muccamukk]

I feel like this could have more Aaron Burr in it.

[mildred_of_midgard]

I still think we were on the right track.

[rachelmanija]

You were. See latest entry.

[muccamukk]

Oh there we go.

I'm probably not supposed to come out of this fandom osmosis secretly rooting for Burr, yet here we all are.

[rachelmanija]

Honestly he's pretty sympathetic even in the musical.

[davidgillon]

Love it. And of course it was.

If you're hankering for more Modesty, or at least more Modesty-like, 'The Apocalypse Codex', the fourth of the Charlie Stross Laundry Files novels, features Persephone Hazard, a deliberate Modesty Blaise analogue/tribute* and opens with her parachuting onto the roof of Schloss Neuschwanstein in the middle of the night in order to retrieve another of those artifacts Man Was Not Meant to Know about. Bob, the series protagonist up to that point (and himself a personification of computer geek culture's Bastard Operator From Hell), ends up along for the ride as project manager to Persephone and Johnny McTavish, her Willie-Analogue.

*Each of the Laundry Files novels through Apocalypse Codex pastiches/is inspired by a different spy fiction author.

[rachelmanija]

Oh, I should read that one!

[davidgillon]

Reading the previous three would help understand the background of the Laundry, but it's basically a Cthulhu mythos variant, so should be accessible enough without.

[jesuswasbatman]

I should probably warn you that the first book includes a use of the Holocaust as a plot device that some people find tasteless enough to throw the book against the wall and vow never to read anything by Stross again. I find it tolerable, but I understand people who don't.

[davidgillon]

Hmm, hadn't thought of that aspect, possibly because Stross is far from the first Cthulhu mythos author to have gone there and the idea may have been normalised for me.

[rachelmanija]

Could I start at # 4?

[jesuswasbatman]

As David said, reading earlier books will explain the set up of the Laundry and certain ongoing character arcs, but the basic plot of the fourth novel should be accessible enough. But it's the first book specifically that has the potentially culturally offensive content.

Stross has said that all the books are homages to specific spy writers: of the first three The Atrocity Archives is Len Deighton, The Jennifer Morgue is James Bond films, and The Fuller Memorandum is Robert Ludlum.

[jesuswasbatman]

If you specifically want a warning about what I'm talking about in the first book I'll rot13 it:

juvyr Anmv cerwhqvprf qrgrezvarq jub gur ivpgvzf jrer, gur Ubybpnhfg jnf abg cevznevyl n enpvfg trabpvqr ohg na vyy-nqivfrq nggrzcg gb fhzzba na ryqevgpu nobzvangvba ol znff uhzna fnpevsvpr, gb hfr vg nf n jrncba bs jne.

[rachelmanija]

No, I literally meant, "Is it possible to start at # 4, or is this a series which must be read in order from the beginning?"

[davidgillon]

There is an ongoing plot arc (basically escalating towards an eventual outbreak of eldritch horrors), but each book is a complete story in itself. Bob, the series protagonist, became an agent in book 1 and has slowly escalated in power, at the end of book 3 he was promoted to middle management. Book 4 is what happens next. You'll miss some background to Bob's story, but pretty much everything else is new in The Apocalypse Codex. It's probably the most accessible as a singleton as it spends very little time actually in the Laundry.

[vass]

her rather modest previous outfit

I see what you did there. :D

[loligo]

Ha! When I took a brief stab at seriously trying to figure out what it was, I thought "It sounds kind of like James Bond, but more fun," but I didn't know what that something might be. Now I do!

[lilacsigil]

I've read many of the comics, but I didn't know there were books! I always liked them because Modesty was always the centre of the action. Then she'd get tied up a lot, then fight off everyone anyway.

[rachelmanija]

The books are absolutely delightful and if you like the comics, you will like the books.. Obligatory warnings for -isms of the period, but I personally adore them. Modesty is always 100% badass, Willie is devoted and of course also badass, and they have immense amounts of h/c, surprisingly accurate martial arts, and absolutely bonkers plotting. The mammoth story is not at all atypical.

[genarti]

...AMAZING.

[sovay]

(Modesty Blaise comics), by Peter O’Donnell

Okay, that makes sense. (There were several Modesty Blaise novels in the house when I was growing up. I actually have a fondness for them.)

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I adore them.

[adrian-turtle.livejournal.com]

I have not read any of the books or comics. They sound amazing.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

This all happens in the first 4 pages.
HOW?

This all sounds amazing, though I am kinda sad there was no actual baby mammoth.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

O'Donnell packed a LOT into a small space.

In "The Sword of the Bruce," Modesty is flying an experimental glider when she's struck by lightning and bails out, only to be whomped over the head by the fallen-off wing, and falls unconscious into a loch and is fished out by a woman whose stable has fallen on hard times but inherited money from an uncle on the condition that she hike across Scotland carrying a replica sword of Robert the Bruce on the anniversary of some woman doing it with the actual sword, but if she can't do it the money goes to some other dude, who has hired thugs to break her leg so he'll get the inheritance by default. Modesty defeats the thugs and gets Willie Garvin to impersonate a priest who can accompany her as an objective observer. So the woman hikes with a sword on her back while Modesty fights off a bunch of goons in one area, and Willie fights off some more in a priest outfit.

I think that one was, like, ten pages.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

That is SPECTACULAR.