Santana
Santana is part of the special group of beings called The Pillar Men, though it is unknown if he was a part of Cars's group.
Personality
Santana is, like his brethren, violent and aloof. Also like the other Pillar Men, he is shown to be very intelligent, capable of disassembling weapons far ahead of his time and of learning other languages from only moments of exposure to them.
Synopsis
History
Santana had originally lived in Mexico with the other Pillar Men, and some time after, had turned to stone in exposure to the sun and became trapped in the pillar.
It is unknown why Santana was not in Rome with Cars's group. The presence of the stone masks near his resting spot suggests that he was one of the proponents for Cars's Stone Mask project, though the location of his resting spot in Mexico suggests that he did not go to Rome to fight the ripple users and became trapped in the column by other means. The comments of the other three Pillar Men, however, hint that they at least knew about and acknowledged his existence in some manner, though Cars considers him weak in comparison to the ones who went to Rome.
Battle Tendency
Santana is discovered in a Mexican pyramid in 1938 by an expedition team led by Robert Edward O Speedwagon that is later betrayed by Straights. However, Straights notices that Santana had been absorbing the blood he shed and, to prevent Santana from awakening, dumped the bodies of the men he attacked into a nearby river. Santana is then excavated and studied by a team of Nazis in an underground base. The team, led by Major Rudolf von Stroheim, conducts live human experiments with the stone mask in order to try to strengthen the Nazi Army. The blood from a Jewish prisoner causes Santana to awaken, after which they attempt to conduct behavioral experiments on him. Santana is revealed to feed on vampires and is able to absorb food from the surface of his body. Santana, sensing hostility within the iron, fortified room, breaks many of his own bones in order to squeeze himself into the 4-by-20 cm ventilation outlet of the room, doing so at a speed faster than human eyes can perceive. Santana is then shot machine guns, but quickly learns both their language and the mechanisms of their weapons from only minutes of contact.
Santana then easily disposes of the Nazis who disturbed his sleep, and even manages to stay alive after being attacked, exposed to sunlight, and blown up by Joseph Joestar. He is the only member of the Pillar Men to survive the battle, and is possibly still alive throughout all of the arcs. However, it is possible that Joseph killed him with his vastly-improved ripple after returning to America.
Steel Ball Run
It is possible that the 'Santana Winds' blowing from Mexico at the start of Steel Ball Run are in homage to Santana, as well as a possible pun on the Santa Anna winds.
Trivia
Santana is the only one of the Pillar Men whose "past" or "true" name is unknown; he was nicknamed "Santana" by the Nazis who discovered him.
References
