‘The Eternaut’ Arrives On Netflix

A group of friends playing cards. Suddenly, a blackout hits Buenos Aires, Argentina… and the sky unleashes a strange snowstorm, toxic snow, snow that kills instantly. We Latinos know: it’s The Eternaut moment. The first alien invasion on Latin American soil has begun.

It’s a vast understatement to call The Eternaut, initially an Argentine comic serialized weekly from 1957 to 1959 and later, in book form, becoming the first Latin American science fiction graphic novel, a classic. You can’t quantify how what this work, now brought to the screen by Netflix in a breathtaking and simply spectacular way, represents for Latin Americans, and more specifically for the countries of the Southern Cone of South America.

The six-episode series (there will surely be a second and concluding season) presents an immaculate adaptation of the work written by the genius Héctor Germán Oesterheld (1919-1978) and cartoonist Francisco Solano López (1928-2011), with actor Ricardo Darín in a performance as timeless as the journeys of the character he embodies. If you’re not Latino or a comic book fan, you probably don’t know what I’m talking about, so I’ll put it in context. But first: go watch the best Netflix series.

The beginning of an endless journey

To understand the content written by the great Héctor Germán Oesterheld (1919-1978), one must simultaneously understand Argentine socio-political history, which is extensive and would bore you to tears. But in 1957, one of the many dictatorships that have stained that beautiful country with blood and pain dominated Argentina. At that time, the friend of the Nazis, Juan Domingo Pérón, had been defeated, but another dictatorship had established itself. Is this important? Absolutely.

Because the story that Oesterheld began publishing in weekly installments about an extraterrestrial invasion in Argentina had more to do with the reality of his country, thanks to clever and powerful metaphors, than with the aliens themselves.

This is a story-analysis about humanity; about power and control; about unity and the bonds that ultimately matter: friendship, camaraderie, loyalty, honor, family, and above all… freedom. It’s an ode against fascism, cloaked in the veil of an alien invasion. But let’s get to the series that many of us thought would never reach our screens. By the way, The Eternaut means something like the eternal traveler.

When I was 10 years old, I got my hands on The Eternaut, and it scared the shit out of me.

Imagine something that no one has dared to adapt as a series or film in almost 70 years. There’s a cult following and reverence for this work because it involves the life of its author; and this is where life sadly imitates art: In 1977, the last Argentine dictatorship “disappeared” Héctor Germán Oesterheld and his daughters. They weren’t extraterrestrials, they were humans. They never appeared again. The junta murdered them, say the probably-true rumors, in 1978.

Now, the Netflix series takes place in the present, and there are new characters like a Venezuelan woman who works as a delivery girl, or rather, her brother, who works as a delivery boy, but he’s playing soccer that night, and she does him the favor of making the delivery; this is a nod to reality: of the more than eight million Venezuelans who make up the Venezuelan diaspora, most have that job delivering food or whatever.

The rest of the characters remain faithful to the original comic. Then, there’s a massive blackout, temperatures drop, and it starts to snow. Soon, the friends gathered together playing cards look out the window and see people dying from coming into contact with the snow…and if this sounds bad, it’s just the beginning of a nightmare.

Our hero is Juan Salvo, a not-so-ordinary man, a former Falklands War veteran who knows how to maneuver in combat. Together, they devise a suit, using an old gas mask that one of his friends—almost a compulsive hoarder—found and sealing his limbs with lead duct tape to keep out snow and air. And this is the iconic and memorable suit that Latinos have associated with the character for decades. Juan’s mission is to find Clara, his daughter who was at a friend’s house.

The initial hypothesis has nothing to do with aliens—who would think of such a thing?—but with a shift in the Earth’s poles, since all electrical devices, including clocks, have stopped working.

Juan, protected by his suit, sets out to explore this new and terrifying reality, amidst striking cinematography where special effects merge with reality so that everything flows organically.

A Real Hero

Unlike other heroes, Juan Salvo is never alone; he’s always associated with people he meets along the way who become his allies: he knows that there’s nothing he can do on his own. Because he doesn’t even know what he’s up against. For now, the enemy is the one in front of them, and I’m not talking about the snow, but human nature, which means that in extreme cases, they can’t trust anyone. And then madness breaks out: everyone wants each other’s weapons and food and is willing to do anything to get it.

Until Juan meets some young men who were once Boy Scouts and they show him the horror: the city is full of gigantic beetles that devour everything in their path. These creatures are the strike force of something bigger. And that’s when they notice the lights in the sky; this is coming from above… Yes, the unthinkable is real: an alien invasion.

The themes, the same ones, the ones that never stop repeating themselves

This series doesn’t deserve spoilers, so I don’t want to address the main focus of the story: the invaders’ motivations. That’s also for next season.

But there are two key things: Juan Salvo discovers that many humans, starting with the army, are on the side of the invaders, and something very strange: he begins to experience Déjà vu, as if he’s already experienced all of this once or many times.

And here the story will enter the quantum realm. And I remind you again, this came out originally in 1957.

The Eternaut has inspired so many generations; today we could associate it with David Lynch. There’s even something very particular that we saw years later in Star Trek: The Next Generation, which borrowed from the Eternaut.

I must end now, before saying more than I want, but the lesson is that there is no end… freedom, love, and kindness… are eternal. Welcome, Eternaut, to this chaotic 2025.