Salvatore "Sal" Asaro is a former assassin and mafioso who was a member of the Mandragora crime family, under his caporegime father. Sal was an older brother figure to a young, orphaned Helena Bertinelli, who was combat trained by Sal and grew up to become the mob-busting vigilante the "Huntress". Spurning the Mafia, Sal became a priest after escaping from prison.
History
Sal was born in Sicily to Nicola and Antonia Asaro, where they lived on their own farm. Nicola Asaro was a caporegime in the Mandragora crime family and had a brother, Tomaso Panessa, who was head of the Panessa crime family. When Sal was sixteen, his eight year-old cousin Helena Bertinelli, Tomaso's niece, was sent to live with the Asaros in Sicily following the assassination of the entire Bertinelli family, bar her. Sal quickly grew close to Helena and because an older brother figure to her. He comforted Helena when she had nightmare and followed her to church although he was an atheist.[1]
A few months after Helena's arrival, under the direction of his father, Sal "made his bones" with the Mafia when he was seventeen, having been trained rigorously in martial combat and assassination, a trade that had long been in his family. Years later, Sal told Helena he only remained by his father's side to stay with her. Over the years, Nicola and Sal would act as assassins for Don Stefano Mandragora, who would even visit them personal despite begin in hiding for decades.[2][1]
By the time Helena was eleven, her nightmares had not stopped and Sal decided to bring her into the family barn which she had barred from, revealing that Nicola and him were hitmen. He offered to teach Helena to fight and protect herself, and she accepted. Nicola, who was violent and abusive man, did not believe girls should be able to fight but Sal promised to whatever he said on the condition that Sal was allowed to train Helena and that Nicola was not allowed to physically abuse her. Helena meanwhile was fed the myth of the Mafia as a protector of the downtrodden as opposed to the brutal and despotic criminal syndicate it in fact was. By the time Helena was fifteen, Sal had trained to become an elite marksman and melee combatant, and even called her the "greatest hunter [he had] ever seen".[1][3]
Just before Helena turned sixteen, Nicola, Sal and Antonia Asaro were each arrested by the authorities as part of the Maxi-Trial, the most significant trial against the Sicilian Mafia in history. Nicola and Sal were indicted on eighteen counts of murder during the Maxi-trial and sentenced to life in prison.[1][3]
Helena only got to visit Sal in prison when she was almost twenty-one, and she created a scene by knocking out three prison guards, trying to break him out. Mysterious orders however instructed the police to let her walk.[3][4] Sal fell in love with a nun working in the prison ministry, who fell for him too and helped him break out of prison. They staged a fight and Sal switched uniforms with a guard but the guard was killed and, feeling like a murderer, the nun refused to see Sal after the escape. In an attempt to be closer to his lost love, Sal, an atheist, embraced Catholicism and became a priest.[5]
"You'll be my little sister no matter what, Hel."
Sal contacted Helena in secret and the two reunited in his church. Recounting their own romances to each other, Helena told Sal she did not want to end up like their mothers. Sal was shocked by Helena's vigilante exploits, afraid that her quest for vengeance was consuming her. Implored by Helena, however, he admitted to her that Mandragora had ordered the hit on her family and she set off to answer her family's cry for blood.[5]
Sal was kidnapped by the "Pope" and brought to Gotham City as leverage against Helena in the Pope's dealings with her. The Pope and his convey arrived at the old Bertinelli house where Helena, the hitman Omerta and upstart mafioso Tony Angelo were engaged in a three-way fight, the former two having initially arrived to stop the Angelo's violent play for power. Helena let Tony go in exchange for Sal. When Sal questioned Helena's battle garments and vigilantism, Helena replied that she was the vengeance-seeking "soldier" he trained her to be. However, Sal told her he didn't train her to fight so she could be a killer but instead to escape the Mafia's reach, value her life and think for herself. When Omerta returned to finish off Helena, she finally defeated her family's killer, opting to cut off his tongue instead of killing him. Heeding Sal's words, Helena declared a mission to defeat those who cultivate fear and injustice. Rejecting Batman's authority and moral rigidity, and Catwoman's self-serving bent, Helena declared herself the "first of something else" and baptized herself as "The Huntress" with Sal as the observing priest.[2]
Powers and Abilities
Abilities
Related
- 5 Appearances of Salvatore Asaro (New Earth)
- 3 Images featuring Salvatore Asaro (New Earth)
- 2 Quotations by or about Salvatore Asaro (New Earth)
- Character Gallery: Salvatore Asaro (New Earth)
Footnotes