The Complete Volto Archives
by
Arthur Lortie
alortie4@aol.com
02/22/2007
Well, as complete as I could make it.
Long before the X-Men's Magneto, but shortly after the two rival Magno's [one in Ace Magazines' Super-Mystery Comics, the other in Quality's Smash Comics], came the magnetic Volto from Mars!
He arrived, like Mork from Ork, in a bubble – and he came hungry! But, unlike most Martians, he craved not human flesh, but Grape-Nut Flakes!
He possessed powers far beyond those of mortal men. By raising his left arm and yelling “Volto”, he could repel all objects; hoist the right and yell “Volto” and he attracts. Do it too much, and he must recharge with hearty doses of cereal.
In the 20 adventures I found, he repels menacing animals and dastardly spies, wearing standard super-hero tights and the requisite finned headgear of science fiction heroes, Luckily at some point the artists realized that his lightning bolt belt buckle would turn Volto -- or any unlucky pitchman at a supermarket -- into a enuch. So they moved the design onto his stomach.
When I started indexing these, I assumed General Mills’ advertising campaign was a monthly, with some sequencing that could be uncovered. This was necessary to determine the length of the series and number of episodes.
So I started with a run of Sensation Comics and assigned dates to the ones I found. But then I discovered a couple in Fawcett books like Captain Marvel Jr. had strips that preceded the introductory strip in Sensation!
Finally when I found a strip in Batman that ran two months earlier than the same entry in Sensation, I realized sequencing wasn’t even standard within a company’s line. And finding these was strickly hit or miss.
According to Jerry Bails’ Who’s Who, artists Jerry Robinson and Frank Robbins worked on this strip from 1944 to 1946.
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.