History ComicStrip / ModestyBlaise

* DoesNotLikeGuns: Willie Garvin dislikes firearms in general and handguns in particular. He can use rifles and shotguns, even though he doesn't like to, but given a pistol, he is more likely to throw it. He claims it is because handguns make you overconfident and stupid, but it is implied that the real reason is that he can't hit a barn from the inside with one.

* BeardOfEvil: The terrorist leader in "The Greeneyed Monster" has cultivated an enormous bushy beard. As the coupe de grace of breaking his reputation and making him a laughing stock, Modesty claims it as a trophy and shaves it off.

* BadassBeard: The terrorist leader in "The Greeneyed Monster" has cultivated an enormous bushy beard. As the coupe de grace of breaking his reputation and making him a laughing stock, Modesty claims it as a trophy and shaves it off.

* MassiveMultiplayerScam: This, Modesty concludes, is how the fake [[spoiler:alien visitation in "Take Me To Your Leader"]] was carried out -- it was an elaborate conspiracy, with everyone in the area except the target of the deception in on it from the start. In revealing the results of her investigation, Modesty remarks that it's possibly the one explanation even less likely than the whole event being real.

* TheCon: Multiple examples. "Idaho George" is about Modesty having to save a conman friend of hers from the consequences of someone believing his con.

* MassiveMultiplayerScam: This, Modesty concludes, is how the fake [[spoiler:alien visitation in "Take Me To Your Leader"]] was carried out -- it was an elaborate conspiracy, with everyone in the area except the target of the deception in on it from the start. In revealing the results of her investigation, Modesty remarks that it's possibly the one explanation even less likely than the whole event being real.

* ThoseTwoBadGuys: The Boote brothers in "The Wicked Gnomes".

** Modesty absolutely despises blackmail.

** Modesty doesn't much care for slave traders, but she ''really'' hates anybody who deals in heroin. In "Children of Lucifer," Guido actually has to talk her into getting involved in a caper that involves a couple of drug runners potentially getting murdered, in the basis that she'd as soon kill those drug runners herself.

* DoesNotLikeGuns: Willie Garvin has no problem whatsoever with rifles and shotguns, but dislikes handguns. He claims it is because handguns make you overconfident and stupid, but it is implied that the real reason is that he can't hit a barn from the inside with one.

* {{Flopsy}}: In "The Hell-Makers", Modesty is visited by an emissary of the villain, who offers her an impossible choice requiring an immediate answer. Modesty rapidly improvises a plan to buy herself some time, part of which involves walking out of her hotel room dressed in the emissary's clothes (having disabled the emissary first) and letting herself be seen getting hit by a car and carted off to hospital, leaving the villain unable to find out from the emissary what answer she gave. Her skill at the flop is said to be so good that even though the driver is in on the trick and a skilled stunt professional himself, he's afraid for a moment that he actually hit her.

* BlackBraAndPanties: Due to Modesty's large number of lingerie scenes, and her always wearing black unerwear, this became an IconicOutfit for her.

* AllBikersAreHellsAngels: "Samantha and the Cherub"

* AristocratsAreEvil: Count Orlando Smythe in "The Balloonatic"

* BakerStreetRegular: Samantha 'Sam' Brown and her gang.

* {{Bandito}}: El Toro and his bandit gang from "A Few Flowers for the Colonel"

* BatheHerAndBringHerToMe:
** In "Willie the Djinn", Zuhir, the usurping sheik of Shibarahn has this done to the captive group of Englishwomen, including Modesty, that he plans to force to become members of his harem.
** Kang, the leader of the Chinese deserters, orders this done to Modesty after she enters the valley posing as a mute slave girl in "Death Symbol".

* BondVillainStupidity: ''All the time''. They often have good reason to, though; they know that if they kill Modesty, Willie will hunt them down and kill them (or vice versa). Because of this, villains tend to want to kill them both at the same time.
** In "Bad Suki", the villain captures Modesty and Willie together and keeps them alive against the recommendation of her more pragmatic and experienced henchmen, first to enjoy a chance to boast about the cleverness of her operation to someone capable of appreciating it, and then sticks them in a death trap that will suffocate them slowly (ie. give them time to escape).

* DistractedByTheSexy: What frequently happens to the bad guys when Modesty uses her distraction tactics.

* FunetikAksent: Willie Garvin's Cockney. Occasionally inverted to indicate when Willie is speaking in another accent as part of a disguise.

* BornInTheWrongCentury: In "The Red Gryphon", Count Alborini likes to think of himself as an Italian nobleman of the duplicitous old days of the Borgias and the Medicis.

* TheDogBitesBack: Kang, the BigBad in "Death Symbol, is killed when he stumbles unarmed into the quarters of the {{Sex Slave}}s he has been keeping and abusing. A dozen girls dog pile on top of him and smother him to death.

** In "Willie the Djinn", the usurping sheik of Shibarahn has this done to the captive group of Englishwomen, including Modesty, that he plans to force to become members of his harem.

* PseudoCrisis: In "The Greeneyed Monster", Modesty is staying in a recently-reformed BananaRepublic when she is roused out of her bed by two police officers who ask her to accompany them and refuse to answer any questions about where she is being taken. Several days worth of strips build the mystery and suspense about where she is being taken and why, before it turns out that she's just being taken to breakfast by the new President, an old friend with, as she recalls, a "rather alarming sense of humour".

* RitchBitch: Diana Millard in "The Greeneyed Monster" is the daughter of a British diplomat, and is a spoiled brat who uses her feminine wiles and her father's position to get what she wants.

* BatheHerAndBringHerToMe: Kang, the leader of the Chinese deserters, orders this done to Modesty after she enters the valley posing as a mute slave girl in "Death Symbol".

* EveryManHasHisPrice: In "Willie the Djinn", Sheik Kadhim depends on his army, led by an experienced Western mercenary soldier, to discourage his ambitious brother Zuhir. Shortly after this is explained, it is revealed that the mercenary has been bought over to Zuhir's service.

** In "The Killing Distance", Sir Gerald (barely) survives a sniper's bullet when it deflects of a medal on the costume he was wearing.
** In "The Hanging Judge", Willie is saved when a crossbow bolt deflects off the bandoleer of knives he is wearing. Again, he is left wounded, but alive and mobile.

* PrivateMilitaryContractors: In "Willie the Djinn", Sheik Kadhim has hired a foreign mercenary to command the sheikdom's small army and get it into modern shape. Unfortunately for Kadhim, it turns out the mercenary is willing to switch allegiance to his usurping brother on the offer of a higher payout.

* DescriptionCut: In "Willie the Djinn", Modesty asks Willie what he knows about the sheikdom they've been invited to visit. Willie replies that it's pretty quiet; Sheik Kadhim's brother Zuhir has ambitions to usurp him, but is kept in check because the army is loyal to Kadhim. The next panel shows Zuhir and the army's commanding officer finalizing a plot to assassinate Kadhim by sabotaging the plane he (and Modesty and Willie) will be traveling on.

* ArabOilSheikh: The sheik of Shibarahn, "a bit of desert with a lot of oil underneath", in "Willie the Djinn", is a FunnyForeigner version of the trope. He's built a new five-star palace and taken up collecting classic European luxury cars as a hobby, but he's also making a genuine effort to bring the benefits of modernity to his country, and it's mentioned that he's not only shut down his harem but is paying for the former occupants to get educations so they have something else they can do.

* ConMan: Idaho George

* DiabolicalMastermind: Gabriel

* EvilCounterpart: Bianca

* FanService:
** There are shots of Modesty changing clothes, bathing, getting out of bed (she always sleeps in the nude) or otherwise undressed in most of the serials, especially after [[http://www.badiaromero.com/ Romero]] started doing the art.
** Many action scenes show Modesty half-naked or completely nude. Often this is the result of a deliberate ShowSomeLeg tactic, or of ClothingDamage during a fight.
** There are so many lingerie scenes that her BlackBraAndPanties became Modesty's IconicOutfit.
** When Modesty dresses up for formal occasions her dresses tend to be very low-cut and often backless.

* TheNudifier: The eponymous girl in "The Girl from the Future" arrives naked because she claims that the time travel would only allow her and nothing else to be sent. [[spoiler: Of course, it all turns out to be part of TheCon]].

%% * RedScare

* PowerfulPick: In "Tribute for the Pharaoh", Modesty and Willie are ambushed by a pair of crooks who were looting a tomb. The one who attacks Modesty is wielding a pick, and actually gets the best the best of her before an intervention from Willie tips the balance in her favour.

* DescriptionCut: In "Willie the Djinn", Modesty asks Willie what he knows about the sheikdom they've been invited to visit. Willie replies that it's pretty quiet; Sheik Kadhim's brother has ambitions to usurp him, but is kept in check because the army is loyal to Kadhim. The next panel shows Kadhim's brother and the top army general finalizing a plot to assassinate Kadhim by sabotaging the plane he (and Modesty and Willie) will be traveling on.

* EveryManHasHisPrice: In "Willie the Djinn", Sheik Kadhim depends on his army, led by an experienced Western mercenary soldier, to discourage his ambitious brother. Shortly after this is explained, it is revealed that the mercenary has been bought over to the brother's service.

* FunnyForeigner: Sheik Kadhim al-Masfah and Vizier Jassim in "Willie the Djinn" are played for comic relief at first, with broken English and odd ideas about modernity. The Sheik is a man-child who is obsessed with gambling and sports cars, and boasts that he has modernized his country by (among other things) closing down his harem and sending all his wives off to train as secretaries.