The phrase “you can’t judge a book by it’s cover” is more true in the realm of lucha comics than anywhere else. Collectors of Mexican wrestling magazines know full well that the cover subject of your average 70 ’s issue of El Halcon is rarely if ever actually covered inside. But Jose G. Cruz and comrades made an absolute art of titillating and enthralling newsstand passerbys with lurid imagery of Santo that had little to do with the adventures inside. Not that the wonderful fotomontaje interior wasn’t worth the pesos, but when you’re promised something like Santo in bondage at the mercy of two dozen vicious lilliputian cannibals, you want the damn cannibals!

The ‘golden age’ run of Santo in it’s original “Revista Atomica” format (just over 5x7”) saw mostly illustrated covers. These covers repeat several themes over and over:

-- Santo about to die of a mortal wound or inescapable peril like falling out of an airplane

-- Santo in bondage, shackles preferred

-- Santo woo’d by an evil femme fatale, as nothing takes a saint down like a sex scandal

-- Monsters, dangerous animals or freaks on the attack

Later cover, and runs published in Central and South America, featured either photo covers
or accomplished paintings by Jose G. Cruz himself. Some of these are imaginative, other completely derived from famous movie posters, but all do the job of a comic book cover —
they attract the buyer. Common themes included:

-- Santo photographed in some exotic new context, like riding a circus elephant

-- Santo macking on some allegedly attractive model, actress or troupe of dancers

-- Santo in staged combat situations

-- Santo bonding with a boy sidekick in a way that makes one uncomfortable now...

Santo about to die... a knife in the kidney will drop you faster than a bullet in the gut, but after years of ring toughening, Santo will likely just walk this off.

Here’s a triple whammy – Santo in shackles, flood waters rising, and a femme fatale up the same creek. Symbolism in the cave opening anyone?

I have Hideshi Hino horror manga about the bombing of Hiroshima that are less unsettling than this nightmarish attack by liliputian grapplers. Aaaaaaah!

These are original cover painting by Cruz himself, photographed in the museum-like offices of Hijo del Santo by FPU in 1998. Even when he ’s facing run of the mill thugs, the painted covers elevated the comics to full-on pulp noir status.

It is well known that the Mexican enmascarado is the manliest creature in the universe, but Santo proves it here by hanging out on the moon... SHIRTLESS! Why he needs the gloves is beyond me...

The masthead on the golden age books actually had creator Jose G. Cruz’s name bigger than Santo’s.

Latter runs and international editions popped the Santo name more.

To separate the rich kids from the poor, those who could afford it got their month ’s worth of Santo comics in leather-bound hardcover collections personalized with gold initials.

Here’s the gambit of cover styles from the latter eras and international runs. The illustrated look gave way to the use of stills direct from the Mexi-lucha-hero films. Other staged stills often featured combat with multiple opponents, or Santo bonding with a boy sidekick, which in this day and age just looks more and more wrong.

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Article text ©Keith J. Rainville, 2007. Artwork from the private collection of Keith Rainville. Content reproduced is © of the original owners.