The Eternaut: From Viral Fear to Historical Ghosts

Published in the late 1950s, The Eternaut is Argentina’s most important science fiction comic in the last century. Netflix’s new adaptation relocates the entire story to the present day, but faithfully preserves the original’s atmosphere of mystery and dread. Set during the summer in Buenos Aires, the series begins as the city is suddenly blanketed by a deadly toxic snowfall—an alien invasion unfolding in silence. To build suspense and tension, the pacing is deliberately slow: it’s not until the final moments of episode three that we finally see the threat survivors must face—mechanized beetles.

If you've watched any recent Argentine horror films, you’ll notice a shared tendency among their creators: a deep focus on mood and suspense, often at the expense of narrative clarity. The looming threat is rarely explained—suspense is treated as a guessing game left entirely to the audience. The filmmakers craft nerve-wracking situations, but refuse to provide answers. Take When Evil Lurks for example: where do the demons who possess people come from? No explanation. In The Wailing, what’s the origin of the ghostly cries in a crumbling La Plata apartment? Who knows. In Maybe It's True What They Say About Us, why does the daughter return from France only to join a cult? Don’t ask. In 1978, why are political prisoners turned into supernatural evil during the World Cup final? Figure it out yourself.

This approach may sound irrational, even illogical, but it’s made the new generation of Argentine filmmakers remarkably skilled at crafting suspense. The same is true with The Eternaut, whose runtime far exceeds that of a typical feature film. For international viewers unfamiliar with the comic, the lack of backstory isn’t a flaw—it’s a deliberate choice. Without any omniscient knowledge, we are placed directly in the shoes of the characters. We step out of an apartment in Vicente López and onto streets littered with bodies beneath toxic snow, nervously following the path into Buenos Aires city center in search of a missing daughter—unaware that an extraterrestrial conspiracy is slowly being uncovered.

I hadn’t read the original comic either. Going in, I only knew this was some kind of sci-fi story. At least by the end of Season 1, nothing really feels "sci-fi"—it’s more like a monster flick in which characters start fighting without warning or explanation. Maybe Season 2 will delve deeper into the story and finally unpack the title: The Eternaut. A time traveler with no way home? Okay, I’ll admit it—after finishing the show, I did go read the comic’s Wikipedia page.

Friends in Buenos Aires told me that by setting the story in the present day, the series also reflects and reexamines the nature of community relationships during the COVID-19 pandemic. Just that one insight instantly helped make sense of several plot points I had previously found puzzling. For example, why do the neighbors around Alfredo Favalli’s house so quickly organize into an armed group and remain suspicious against the main characters who are forced to take shelter in Favalli’s home? Why does Juan Salvo encounter such hostility—and even gunfire—when he tries to visit his ex-wife Elena’s apartment? Why is Juan so cautious, refusing to intervene when he sees passengers trapped in a commuter train car?

Then there’s the scene at River Plate’s Monumental stadium, where mysterious energy pulses seem to trigger mass mind control, inciting survivors to attack other citizens who had just managed to organize and collaborate together in an outskirt supermarket. In the original comic, the Monumental served as a military stronghold for human resistance. In the series, it’s been completely reimagined as the central base of alien control. The military’s refuge has now been relocated to the outskirts of the capital, in the northwest zone’s Campo de Mayo.

After all, at the height of the pandemic, people everywhere were tense—isolated within their own micro-communities, sometimes confined to their apartment blocks. Mistrust and suspicion toward others, especially those coming from “hot zones,” became the norm. Fear and ignorance often bred discrimination, even outright persecution.

A friend, Damian, sent me a quote from The Eternaut’s writer, Héctor Germán Oesterheld:

“The Eternaut is my interpretation of Robinson Crusoe. A story about human solitude—not surrounded by the sea, but by the fear of death. My Robinson is not alone; he has family, friends. That’s why they’re playing Truco(A multiplayer poker game)... The true hero of The Eternaut is a collective one. It’s the human group.”

This perspective sets the Argentine heroes of both the comic and the series apart from the lone savior archetype so often seen in Hollywood. After all, the card game Truco requires four or even six players—you simply can’t play it alone. That said, in the episodes I’ve watched, Juan Salvo still comes across as a very prominent solo protagonist. Perhaps that’s inevitable, given that he’s played by Ricardo Darín, Argentina’s unchallenged megastar.

In 1969, Oesterheld rewrote The Eternaut, this time infusing it with more political undertones, reflecting the turbulent era. By the time the second part of the comic appeared, he had become a spokesperson for the leftist guerrilla group Montoneros. During the military dictatorship of the 1970s, Oesterheld himself disappeared—one of tens of thousands who were detained, tortured, and killed in Argentina’s Dirty War.

Damian also sent me a photo: on a street in Buenos Aires, a Netflix poster promoting the series The Eternaut had been altered. Beneath Oesterheld’s name, someone had pasted the photos and names of other disappeared persons from that dark era. In a way, Oesterheld and the countless others who vanished have become “eternauts” themselves—navigating the long, shadowy currents of history.