El Santo Enmascarado de Plata (The Silver Masked Saint)

Real Name: Rodolfo Guzman Huerta

Identity/Class: Normal human

Occupation: Luchador (Wrestler)

Affiliations: Blue Demon, Mil Mascaras; Capulina (well-loved Mexican comedian who teamed with Santo in the film "Santo Versus Capulina" - in spite of the title, the two didn't actually fight, but Capulina bumbled around and basically made a huge nuisance of himself), El Incognito

Enemies: Argos and the Martian Invasion Force, Zombies, Tandra, Thorina, the rest of the Vampire Women, Baron Brakola, The King of Crime

Known Relatives: Jorge Guzman (son, a.k.a. el Hijo del Santo), unnamed father (passed down The Silver Mask to Santo in one of the films); El Caballero Plata (The Silver Cowboy, an unspecified ancestor of Santo's who fought vampires in the Old West days)

Aliases: Enmascarado, the Saint (English translation of his name)

Base of Operations: Mexico

First Appearance: Born September 23, 1917 in Tulancigo, Hidalgo, Mexico.

First wrestled as el Santo on July 26, 1942.

First appeared as a comic character in 1952.

First film role "Santo contra cerebro del mal" (a.k.a. The Brain of Evil), 1958

Powers/Abilities: Strong. Skilled fighter. Santo is portrayed in the films as being extremely durable, able to take ridiculous amounts of physical punishment. He is also a somewhat skilled detective.

History: Santo is a masked wrestler who battles zombies and vampires when he isn't in the ring. He is often aided by fellow wrestlers Blue Demon and Mil Mascaras.

The mantle of the Silver Mask is passed down from father to son across the generations, a legacy of brave and noble warriors, dedicated to protecting the innocent and freeing the oppressed. Virtually nothing is known about most of them save El Santo and El Hijo Del Santo.

Comments: It should be noted that the history above is devoted to the fictional version of el Santo, the persona created by and for the wrestler Rodolfo Huerta. In real life he began wrestling in 1934 at the age of sixteen, using a number of "stage names" before settling on el Santo. He retired from the ring at the age of 64, just a few weeks shy of his sixty-fifth birthday. His masked persona was first turned into a comic by publisher Jose G. Cruz, and the title ran for roughly 35 years, at some points being published twice weekly. The title started out being done on the cheap and looking it, but gradually improved in production quality.

Santo's film career covered some fifty two movies. His first two movies were Cerebro del Mal (the Brain of Evil) and Santo Contra Hombres Infernales (Santo vs. the Infernal Men), which were shot back to back in Cuba in 1958. In these movies he was depicted as a cop who wore a mask to protect his identity. In Cerebro del Mal, Santo's character is only called Enmascarado ("Mask"), and plays second fiddle to the hero, El Incognito

Santo finally publically unmasked in 1984 on a Mexican TV show, and died of a heart attack just over a week later. He was buried wearing the mask that made him famous. His son Jorge Guzman has taken up the mantle as el Hijo del Santo (the Son of Santo).

Alheli de la Garza got in touch to inform me of Santo's full title. Many thanks for that. (Muchas gracias por eso.) Thanks also to "Hooper_X" for a lot of additional information.

Manuel D. Montesinos informs me that Santo "was a very popular wrestler in Mexico by the end of the 50's. He dominated the whole 60's and during the 70's his popularuty grew at a point that he was considered a living superhero. There have been around a hundred movies made with him, all of them titled "El Santo... (...and the Curse of Dracula, and Frankestein's Daughter, vs. Blue Demon, in the Wax Museum, and the Invaders...etc.) In order to avoid the slightest shadow of copyright trouble, they spelled FrankeNstein with out the middle N.

The comic books (in photo novel style) had a content that always fascinated me because they were treated seriously and were adult oriented, with measured sex, full of calculated violence, and lots of action. The dialogue and general context was sometimes similar to a soup opera, but never dull."

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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