Ben Santini

BEN SANTINI

Real Name: Benito Santini

Class: Human technology-user

Occupation: Government agent

Group Affiliation: Stormwatch: Team Achilles, formerly Black Razors

Known Relatives: Victoria N'Gengi (Flint, ex-wife)

Aliases: None

Base of Operations: McLean, Virginia, Earth-50

First Appearance: WildC.A.T.S. (Image) #2 (September, 1992)

Powers: Ben Santini was a skilled military strategist and combatant. As a Black Razor he wore body armor and was equipped with hi-tech firearms.

History: (WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #2) - The Black Razors were an I.O. special forces unit that dealt in extraterrestrial and supernatural threats. John Lynch and the I.O. monitored an explosion in Georgetown after a clash between the WildC.A.T.S. and the Cabal fighting over Voodoo, a woman with the power to see Daemonites and exorcise them from humans. Void warped them away from the explosion, and the I.O., who were investigating them, tried to pull them into their field headquarters using one of their psionics. Void warped the team away from I.O. hq back to the WildC.A.T.S. MIRV. I.O. director John Lynch wasn’t thrilled with a rogue covert action team on the loose and dispatched a squad of Black Razors led by Ben Santini to deal with them. The WildC.A.T.S. learned that the Cabal was using their mole B’lial, who’d possessed U.S. vice president Dan Quayle and the U.S. government’s resources to construct a dimensional gateway to the Daemonite homeworld in a project called Reunification. Marlowe said he’d need Voodoo to exorcise Dan Quayle of the Daemonite possessing him, and Voodoo said she had no idea what she’d landed herself in. Zealot explained that the Kherubim and Daemonites had been at war for eons, and the WildC.A.T.S. and Cabal were from groups stranded on Earth long ago. Thirty years ago the Daemonites scored a major victory, and without Voodoo’s help they’d win the war for Earth. The Black Razor squad came at the WildC.A.T.S., deciding to shoot first and ask questions later. After a brief fight where Marlowe shot Santini in the kneecap Lynch told Marlowe he wanted to make a deal with him, the identity of the Daemonite mole for the location of Project Reunification. The WildC.A.T.S. went to S.D.I. Astronomics, where Dan Quayle and the Cabal were set to receive the Orb of Power needed for Project Reunification from NASA. The WildC.A.T.S. dealt with the Cabal members, but Dan Quayle introduced his bodyguards, the government sponsored superteam Youngblood. After Youngblood realized something was wrong with Quayle Voodoo exorcised the Daemonite from him.

(WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #15, 16) - Ben Santini was appointed as the new leader of the Black Razors, but found his team didn’t have the same confidence in him as Lynch, and some of them saw him as weak because he was crippled. For his part Ben harbored a grudge against Jacob Marlowe for crippling him. The new U.S. administration, wanting to undue the ecological disasters perpetrated by the Daemonite possessed Dan Quayle called for an energy commission summit in Aspen, CO and invited the country’s biggest corporate heads. The Daemonites, not wanting to see their work undone, were assassinating the corporate heads one by one, with only Jacob Marlowe surviving an attack because his WildC.A.T.S. protected him. The Black Razors were tasked with protecting the remaining corporate heads, and Santini warned them that while they could fight a full-scale assault some of the hits had been performed by a Daemonite shapeshifting to disguise themselves as someone close to the target. I/O agent Daley worked at a restaurant that served as a Daemonite and Cabal money-laundering operation and overheard details of the Daemonite’s next targeted attack. He was able to pass off the information before the Cabal got wise to him and killed him. The Black Razors prevented a Daemonite squad from killing businessman Daniels in Boston, and learned from one of the assassins that the Daemonites had planted a mole in the WildC.A.T.s disguised as one of their own. The Black Razors engaged in a computer simulation combat scenario to analzy the WildC.A.T.s battle techniques so they could spot the imposter and Fleming complained to Grady that he was in the line for a promotion and should have replaced Lynch as their leader instead of Santini. Santini went to confession and admitted that he was tempted to kill Jacob Marlowe when he met him again. Higher-ups ordered Santini to stay out of action because he was too valuable to lose and direct his team. He told the Razors he knew some of them lacked confidence in him, but assured them he wanted them all to come back alive. The Black Razors attacked the WildC.A.T.s at the energy conference, hoping to find the mole. The Daemonites provided backup in the form of aircraft, cutting Santini off from his team. Santini identified Maul as the imposter Mr. White, and joined the battle, gunning the imposer down. The Black Razors took Mr. White back to their labs for dissection. With the conflict over Santini made it clear to Jacob Marlowe that he held a grudge against him, and when Marlowe asked where the real Maul was Santini said that wasn’t his problem.

Comments: Created by Jim Lee & Brandon Choi.

Ben Santini was originally published by Wildstorm Comics, an imprint of Image Comics, which DC acquired the rights to in January, 1999.

Ben Santini's appearance in WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #2 was reprinted in Absolute WildC.A.T.S and republished by DC Comics in a digital format., WildC.A.T.S: Covert Action Teams (Image) #15, 16 was reprinted in James Robinson’s Complete WildC.A.T.S.