We study well-posedness of the complex-valued modified KdV equation (mKdV) on the real line. In particular, we prove local well-posedness of mKdV in modulation spaces M 2,p s (R) for s ≥ 1 4 and 2 ≤ p < ∞. For s < 1 4 , we show that the solution map for mKdV is not locally uniformly continuous in M 2,p s (R). By combining this local well-posedness with our previous work (2018) on an a priori global-in-time bound for mKdV in modulation spaces, we also establish global well-posedness of mKdV in M 2,p s (R) for s ≥ 1 4 and 2 ≤ p < ∞.