Latest news with #HéctorGermánOesterheld
The Guardian
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
The Eternaut speaks to our uneasy times – that's why this cult comic has become a global Netflix hit
Aliens almost always invade New York, with a secondary preference for rural America. They're typically vanquished by a collaboration of cowboy sacrifice and eloquent leaders who restore order under the stars and stripes. The Eternaut, Netflix's new sci-fi series that became a global hit this month, breaks this mould: giant alien bugs controlled by an unseen extraterrestrial overlord take over Buenos Aires. Victory always seems far away – it's not clear that humanity will triumph. Like the 1950s comic it's based on, the series does not merely transpose alien invasion tropes on a new geography: it rewrites them. The Eternaut isn't about a lone hero who saves the day – it's a story about how ordinary Argentinians face existential threat. There is no single saviour in the story, according to the author, Héctor Germán Oesterheld: 'The true hero of The Eternaut is a collective hero, a human group. It thus reflects, though without previous intent, my intimate belief: the only valid hero is the hero 'in group', never the individual hero, the hero alone.' The series' tagline adopts this ethos: Nadie se salva solo – nobody is saved alone. The premise is strange even by sci-fi standards. The plot of the comic features a lethal snowfall, robot alien pawns, a time machine and a never-seen overlord species known only as Them. And yet it has struck a global chord: the Netflix adaptation captured 10.8m views worldwide in its first week. It made the top 10 in 87 countries. And it has not left the global non-English top 10 since its release. Publishers are rushing to reissue an out-of-print English translation of the book upon which it is based. In Argentina, the original comic has long been a cult classic. Oesterheld's decision to anchor the story in the streets of Buenos Aires allowed the work, illustrated by Francisco Solano López, to resonate deeply. It reflects the fears and dreams of mid-century Argentina shaped by the new social mobility led by organised labour and public universities. It is permeated by the belief that scientific progress could lift people and country by their bootstraps. If the original gave workers reading the comic on their daily commute a dose of optimism, the new series reflects a far more battered society. This generational shift is visible in Juan Salvo, the eponymous eternaut. In the 1957-59 version he was a young family man, the prosperous owner of a small manufacturing business, married to a beautiful housewife and the doting father of a cherubic daughter. In 2025 Salvo is in his 60s, a war veteran with PTSD, divorced, and the father of an independent teenager who is likely a sleeper agent for Them. The shift matters. The Argentina reflected in this mirror is older; it's scarred and haunted by decades of democratic breakdowns, dictatorship, hyperinflation and economic collapse. But it is also a story of resilience. As the local saying goes: Estamos atados con alambre – we're holding it together with wire – celebrating an ability to improvise with whatever material is at hand. In The Eternaut, 'we read a celebratory version of our customs and social organisation, in an artistic format – the comic – that shares some of the conventions of both 'highbrow' art and popular and mass art,' writes literary scholar Soledad Quereilhac. The series maintains, and even elevates, this celebration of argentinidad, or being Argentinian – from humour and music to sociability and card games. Buenos Aires is not just a backdrop, it's a protagonist. The characters fight on streets that remain central to our daily commutes and political battles. These arteries form a line of continuity in a text that has constantly acquired new interpretations as it travels through time, just like its protagonist. That successive generations have found new meaning in The Eternaut, despite vastly different circumstances, is part of what makes the text a classic, according to cultural critic Marcelo Figueras. And the mirror The Eternaut holds up to Argentinian society is far broader than just the story within the comic. When books are banned, they often take on new symbolic power. The Little Prince, a book partly inspired by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's time in Argentina, was banned by the 1976-83 dictatorship, giving it a weight beyond the somewhat naive tale. The Eternaut is similarly charged – Oesterheld, his four daughters, sons-in-law and two unborn grandchildren were among the 30,000 'disappeared' in the dictatorship. The faces of Oesterheld and his daughters have been pasted on Netflix posters lining Buenos Aires' streets – it is a temporally jarring moment worthy of the comic itself. Like the protagonist Salvo, the author – whose remains have never been recovered – is lost in time. And yet the new adaptation makes no mention of dictatorship. For some, this omission may read as historical erasure. But it may also be deliberate – a more general interpretation of collective trauma that sidesteps Argentina's polarised culture wars in which the politics of memory are dismissed as ideological excess or, more recently, as 'woke' distortions by the president, Javier Milei. Or perhaps the absence is the statement. The Eternaut's ideology was always coded in metaphor. Snow falls silently lethal. Alien overlords pull strings. Some read it as a veiled indictment of the military bombing of civilians and the later coup that ousted Juan Perón in 1955. In portraying a dignified, resourceful working class – Peronist by implication – it defied an era in which even saying Perón's name was forbidden. In the series, that appreciative perspective has shifted to Argentina's besieged middle class, once the pillar of the country's exceptionalism, now eroded by inflation and austerity. This too is tacitly political. In Milei's Argentina, where public universities are defunded, cultural institutions gutted and social programmes under attack, the show's message of collective survival, of interclass solidarity, is its own quiet rebellion. Though filmed before Milei's election, its ethos cuts against the libertarian gospel of radical individualism. Even the tagline – Nobody is saved alone – feels like resistance. The symbolism has been adopted by scientists protesting against austerity budget cuts who recently demonstrated against 'scienticide' wearing Eternaut-style gas masks. Salvation, hinted at in Salvo's very name, is the story's elusive goal. The comic ends ambiguously, in a temporal loop. Salvo is reunited with his family, but the aliens are not defeated. There is no cathartic American-style victory. Instead, another alien race touched by Salvo's struggle offers him cold comfort: humanity's fruitless resistance is inspiration for intergalactic intelligent species fighting against Them. It's not a happy ending. But it's not hopeless. The Eternaut carries on, buoyed up by human connection, friendship and stubborn resistance. Proudly made in Argentina. Jordana Timerman is a journalist based in Buenos Aires. She edits the Latin America Daily Briefing
Gulf Today
29-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Gulf Today
In Netflix's ‘The Eternaut,' an Argentine comic goes global
A group of friends gather to play cards in their host's cozy home when the power cuts. Cellphones die. An eerie snow falls all over the city, killing everyone it touches. The friends struggle to survive, their panic replaced by a growing awareness that humanity itself is at stake. This is the premise of 'The Eternaut,' a chilling dystopian drama out of Argentina that premiered its first season on Netflix on April 30. The six-episode, Spanish-language series with its mix of sci-fi elements and focus on human resilience has struck a universal nerve, rocketing to No. 1 among Netflix's most streamed non-English-language TV shows within days. Netflix already renewed the show for a second season, with filming scheduled to start next year. But 'The Eternaut' has touched on something deeper in Argentina, where legendary comic-strip writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld penned the original graphic novel in 1957 — two decades before he was 'disappeared' by Argentina's military dictatorship, along with all four of his daughters. Abroad, publishers are scrambling to keep pace with renewed interest in the source material. The Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books said it would reissue an out-of-print English translation due to the surge in US demand. At home, the TV adaptation has reopened historical wounds and found unexpected resonance at a moment of heightened anxiety about the state of Argentine society under far-right President Javier Milei. 'The boom of 'The Eternaut' has created a cultural and social event beyond the series,' said Martín Oesterheld, the writer's grandson and a creative consultant and executive producer on the show. 'It fills our hearts. It brings us pride.' For years, the surviving Oesterhelds resisted offers from Hollywood to adapt the cult classic, wary of the industry's seemingly irresistible urge to destroy New York City and other Western centers in apocalyptic dramas. To honour his grandfather's creation, Martín Oesterheld said the show had to be filmed in Spanish, with an Argentine cast and set in Buenos Aires. 'What he did was to do away with the representations of science fiction that we know in Europe and the United States,' Martín Oesterheld said of his grandfather. 'He told it on our own terms, through things that we recognize.' Netflix, pushing to expand beyond its saturated US market into previously untapped regions like Latin America, was a natural fit, he said. The streaming giant wouldn't disclose its budget, but said the special effect-laden show took four years of pre- and post-production, involved 2,900 people and pumped $34 million into Argentina's economy. In the show, aliens wreak predictable mayhem on an unpredictable cityscape — wide boulevards, neoclassical buildings, antique pizza halls and grimy suburbs — lending the show a shiver of curious power for Argentines who had never seen their city eviscerated on screen. The protagonists don't play poker but truco, a popular Argentine trick card game. They sip from gourds of mate, the signature Argentine drink made from yerba leaves. The snowfall is uncanny, and not just because it kills on contact. Buenos Aires has only seen snow twice in the last century. 'From truco in scene one, which couldn't be more Argentine, we see that 'The Eternaut' is playing with these contrasts — life and death, light and darkness, the familiar versus the alien,' said Martín Hadis, an Argentine researcher specializing in science fiction. 'It's not just a sci-fi story. It's a modern myth. That's what makes it so universal.' In updating the story to present-day Argentina, the show brings the nation's disastrous 1982 war with Britain over Las Malvinas, or the Falkland Islands, into the backstory of its hero, Juan Salvo, played by renowned actor Ricardo Darín. Salvo, a protective father and courageous ex-soldier who emerges to lead the group of survivors, is haunted by the rout of his comrades sent by Argentina's dictatorship to retake the South Atlantic islands. The defeat killed 649 Argentine soldiers, many of them untrained conscripts. 'The conflict in Las Malvinas is not closed, it's still a bloody wound,' Darín told The Associated Press. 'It's bringing the subject back to the table. That has moved a lot of people.' Faced with catastrophe, the protagonists rely on their own ingenuity, and on each other, to survive. Associated Press
Yahoo
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
In Netflix's 'The Eternaut,' an Argentine comic goes global as dystopia hits home
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A group of friends gather to play cards in their host's cozy home when the power cuts. Cellphones die. An eerie snow falls all over the city, killing everyone it touches. The friends struggle to survive, their panic replaced by a growing awareness that humanity itself is at stake. This is the premise of 'The Eternaut,' a chilling dystopian drama out of Argentina that premiered its first season on Netflix on April 30. The six-episode, Spanish-language series with its mix of sci-fi elements and focus on humanity's resilience, has struck a universal nerve, rocketing to No. 1 among Netflix's most streamed non-English-language TV shows within days. Netflix already renewed the show for a second season, with filming scheduled to start next year. But 'The Eternaut' has touched on something deeper in Argentina, where legendary comic-strip writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld penned the original graphic novel in 1957 — two decades before he was 'disappeared' by Argentina's military dictatorship, along with all four of his daughters. Abroad, publishers are scrambling to keep pace with renewed interest in the source material. The Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books said it would reissue an out-of-print English translation due to the surge in U.S. demand. At home, the TV adaptation has reopened historical wounds and found unexpected resonance at a moment of heightened anxiety about the state of Argentine society under far-right President Javier Milei. 'The boom of 'The Eternaut' has created a cultural and social event beyond the series,' said Martín Oesterheld, the writer's grandson and a creative consultant and executive producer on the show. 'It fills our hearts. It brings us pride.' An alien invasion hits home For years, the surviving Oesterhelds resisted offers from Hollywood to adapt the cult classic, wary of the industry's seemingly irresistible urge to destroy New York City and other Western centers in apocalyptic dramas. To honor his grandfather's creation, Martín Oesterheld said the show had to be filmed in Spanish, with an Argentine cast and set in Buenos Aires. 'What he did was to do away with the representations of science fiction that we know in Europe and the United States,' Martín Oesterheld said of his grandfather. 'He told it on our own terms, through things that we recognize.' Netflix, pushing to expand beyond its saturated U.S. market into previously untapped regions like Latin America, was a natural fit, he said. The streaming giant wouldn't disclose its budget, but said the special effect-laden show took four years of pre- and post-production, involved 2,900 people and pumped $34 million into Argentina's economy. In the show, aliens wreak predictable mayhem on an unpredictable cityscape — wide boulevards, neoclassical buildings, antique pizza halls and grimy suburbs — lending the show a shiver of curious power for Argentines who had never seen their city eviscerated on screen. The protagonists don't play poker but truco, a popular Argentine trick card game. They sip from gourds of mate, the signature Argentine drink made from yerba leaves. The snowfall is uncanny, and not just because it kills on contact. Buenos Aires has only seen snow twice in the last century. 'From truco in scene one, which couldn't be more Argentine, we see that 'The Eternaut' is playing with these contrasts — life and death, light and darkness, the familiar versus the alien,' said Martín Hadis, an Argentine researcher specializing in science fiction. 'It's not just a sci-fi story. It's a modern myth. That's what makes it so universal.' In updating the story to present-day Argentina, the show brings the nation's disastrous 1982 war with Britain over Las Malvinas, or the Falkland Islands, into the backstory of its hero, Juan Salvo, played by renowned actor Ricardo Darín. Salvo, a protective father and courageous ex-soldier who emerges to lead the group of survivors, is haunted by the rout of his comrades sent by Argentina's dictatorship to retake the South Atlantic islands. The defeat killed 649 Argentine soldiers, many of them untrained conscripts. 'The conflict in Las Malvinas is not closed, it's still a bloody wound,' Darín told The Associated Press. 'It's bringing the subject back to the table. That has moved a lot of people.' Argentine underdogs Faced with catastrophe, the protagonists rely on their own ingenuity, and on each other, to survive. What comes through, the creators say, is the Argentine saying 'atado con alambre' — roughly, 'held together with wire' — used to describe the inventive nature of those who do much with little in a nation that has suffered through decades of military rule and economic crises. 'It says a lot about being Argentine — taking whatever you have at your disposal and pushing your limitations,' said Martín Oesterheld. He was referring not only to the plot but also to the production at a time when Milei has waged war on Argentina's bloated state and slashed funding to cultural programs like the National Film Institute. 'As our culture is being defunded, we're taking this Argentine product to the world,' Martín Oesterheld said. Against this backdrop, the show's message of solidarity has gained an urgent new meaning, with Argentines outraged over Milei's libertarian ideology transforming the series' motto, 'No one gets through it alone,' into a rallying cry. The slogan was scrawled on signs at protests by retirees demonstrating against the government's sharp cuts to their pensions this month. To protect against police tear gas, some traded bandannas for the gas masks used in the show to shield against toxic snowfall. 'There is a general policy these days that the state shouldn't take care of its citizens, which relates to individual freedom,' Darín said. But there are many cases where if the state disappears completely, people are left to drift, as if they were shipwrecked.' A search reignited As the Netflix series exploded out of the gate, missing-persons flyers for Héctor Oesterheld, his daughters and potential grandchildren popped up on billboards for 'The Eternaut' all over Buenos Aires, a reminder of the real-life horror story behind the pulp adventure. By the time the military junta came to power in 1976, Oesterheld, 58, had become known as a committed leftist, his four daughters, ranging in age from 19 to 25, had joined a far-left guerilla group and the whole family had turned into a target of Latin America's deadliest dictatorship. Two of Oesterheld's daughters were pregnant at the time of their kidnapping. To this day, no one knows what happened to their unborn children, but they are believed to be among the estimated 500 newborns snatched from their parents and handed over to childless military officers, their true identities erased. The three surviving members of the Oesterheld family have never stopped searching. Martín Oesterheld's grandmother, Elsa, who raised him after his mother was killed, banded together with other women dedicated to finding their missing grandchildren. They became known as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Seizing on national interest in the TV series, the Grandmothers this month issued public appeals for help finding the disappeared grandchildren. The response was overwhelming. 'It was incredible, it went viral,' said Esteban Herrera, who works with the Grandmothers and is still searching for his own missing sibling. 'Since it's a science-fiction series on a platform like Netflix, we're reaching homes that the Grandmothers perhaps hadn't before.' The outpouring of emails and calls raised more questions than answers. Reaching out were hundreds of Argentine viewers newly determined to find their own disappeared relatives or suddenly skeptical about the legality of their own adoptions. 'The Eternaut' is a living memory, a classic story that's passed down from generation to generation,' said Martín Oesterheld. 'For it to be embraced by so many people in this way ... there is no greater social commentary.' ___ Follow AP's coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
In Netflix's 'The Eternaut,' an Argentine comic goes global as dystopia hits home
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- A group of friends gather to play cards in their host's cozy home when the power cuts. Cellphones die. An eerie snow falls all over the city, killing everyone it touches. The friends struggle to survive, their panic replaced by a growing awareness that humanity itself is at stake. This is the premise of 'The Eternaut,' a chilling dystopian drama out of Argentina that premiered its first season on Netflix on April 30. The six-episode, Spanish-language series with its mix of sci-fi elements and focus on humanity's resilience, has struck a universal nerve, rocketing to No. 1 among Netflix's most streamed non-English-language TV shows within days. Netflix already renewed the show for a second season, with filming scheduled to start next year. But 'The Eternaut' has touched on something deeper in Argentina, where legendary comic-strip writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld penned the original graphic novel in 1957 — two decades before he was 'disappeared' by Argentina's military dictatorship, along with all four of his daughters. Abroad, publishers are scrambling to keep pace with renewed interest in the source material. The Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books said it would reissue an out-of-print English translation due to the surge in U.S. demand. At home, the TV adaptation has reopened historical wounds and found unexpected resonance at a moment of heightened anxiety about the state of Argentine society under far-right President Javier Milei. 'The boom of 'The Eternaut' has created a cultural and social event beyond the series,' said Martín Oesterheld, the writer's grandson and a creative consultant and executive producer on the show. 'It fills our hearts. It brings us pride.' For years, the surviving Oesterhelds resisted offers from Hollywood to adapt the cult classic, wary of the industry's seemingly irresistible urge to destroy New York City and other Western centers in apocalyptic dramas. To honor his grandfather's creation, Martín Oesterheld said the show had to be filmed in Spanish, with an Argentine cast and set in Buenos Aires. 'What he did was to do away with the representations of science fiction that we know in Europe and the United States,' Martín Oesterheld said of his grandfather. 'He told it on our own terms, through things that we recognize.' Netflix, pushing to expand beyond its saturated U.S. market into previously untapped regions like Latin America, was a natural fit, he said. The streaming giant wouldn't disclose its budget, but said the special effect-laden show took four years of pre- and post-production, involved 2,900 people and pumped $34 million into Argentina's economy. In the show, aliens wreak predictable mayhem on an unpredictable cityscape — wide boulevards, neoclassical buildings, antique pizza halls and grimy suburbs — lending the show a shiver of curious power for Argentines who had never seen their city eviscerated on screen. The protagonists don't play poker but truco, a popular Argentine trick card game. They sip from gourds of mate, the signature Argentine drink made from yerba leaves. The snowfall is uncanny, and not just because it kills on contact. Buenos Aires has only seen snow twice in the last century. 'From truco in scene one, which couldn't be more Argentine, we see that 'The Eternaut' is playing with these contrasts — life and death, light and darkness, the familiar versus the alien,' said Martín Hadis, an Argentine researcher specializing in science fiction. 'It's not just a sci-fi story. It's a modern myth. That's what makes it so universal.' In updating the story to present-day Argentina, the show brings the nation's disastrous 1982 war with Britain over Las Malvinas, or the Falkland Islands, into the backstory of its hero, Juan Salvo, played by renowned actor Ricardo Darín. Salvo, a protective father and courageous ex-soldier who emerges to lead the group of survivors, is haunted by the rout of his comrades sent by Argentina's dictatorship to retake the South Atlantic islands. The defeat killed 649 Argentine soldiers, many of them untrained conscripts. 'The conflict in Las Malvinas is not closed, it's still a bloody wound,' Darín told The Associated Press. 'It's bringing the subject back to the table. That has moved a lot of people.' Faced with catastrophe, the protagonists rely on their own ingenuity, and on each other, to survive. What comes through, the creators say, is the Argentine saying 'atado con alambre' — roughly, 'held together with wire' — used to describe the inventive nature of those who do much with little in a nation that has suffered through decades of military rule and economic crises. 'It says a lot about being Argentine — taking whatever you have at your disposal and pushing your limitations,' said Martín Oesterheld. He was referring not only to the plot but also to the production at a time when Milei has waged war on Argentina's bloated state and slashed funding to cultural programs like the National Film Institute. 'As our culture is being defunded, we're taking this Argentine product to the world,' Martín Oesterheld said. Against this backdrop, the show's message of solidarity has gained an urgent new meaning, with Argentines outraged over Milei's libertarian ideology transforming the series' motto, 'No one gets through it alone,' into a rallying cry. The slogan was scrawled on signs at protests by retirees demonstrating against the government's sharp cuts to their pensions this month. To protect against police tear gas, some traded bandannas for the gas masks used in the show to shield against toxic snowfall. 'There is a general policy these days that the state shouldn't take care of its citizens, which relates to individual freedom,' Darín said. But there are many cases where if the state disappears completely, people are left to drift, as if they were shipwrecked.' As the Netflix series exploded out of the gate, missing-persons flyers for Héctor Oesterheld, his daughters and potential grandchildren popped up on billboards for 'The Eternaut' all over Buenos Aires, a reminder of the real-life horror story behind the pulp adventure. By the time the military junta came to power in 1976, Oesterheld, 58, had become known as a committed leftist, his four daughters, ranging in age from 19 to 25, had joined a far-left guerilla group and the whole family had turned into a target of Latin America's deadliest dictatorship. Two of Oesterheld's daughters were pregnant at the time of their kidnapping. To this day, no one knows what happened to their unborn children, but they are believed to be among the estimated 500 newborns snatched from their parents and handed over to childless military officers, their true identities erased. The three surviving members of the Oesterheld family have never stopped searching. Martín Oesterheld's grandmother, Elsa, who raised him after his mother was killed, banded together with other women dedicated to finding their missing grandchildren. They became known as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Seizing on national interest in the TV series, the Grandmothers this month issued public appeals for help finding the disappeared grandchildren. The response was overwhelming. 'It was incredible, it went viral,' said Esteban Herrera, who works with the Grandmothers and is still searching for his own missing sibling. 'Since it's a science-fiction series on a platform like Netflix, we're reaching homes that the Grandmothers perhaps hadn't before.' The outpouring of emails and calls raised more questions than answers. Reaching out were hundreds of Argentine viewers newly determined to find their own disappeared relatives or suddenly skeptical about the legality of their own adoptions. 'The Eternaut' is a living memory, a classic story that's passed down from generation to generation,' said Martín Oesterheld. 'For it to be embraced by so many people in this way ... there is no greater social commentary.'
San Francisco Chronicle
25-05-2025
- Entertainment
- San Francisco Chronicle
In Netflix's 'The Eternaut,' an Argentine comic goes global as dystopia hits home
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina (AP) — A group of friends gather to play cards in their host's cozy home when the power cuts. Cellphones die. An eerie snow falls all over the city, killing everyone it touches. The friends struggle to survive, their panic replaced by a growing awareness that humanity itself is at stake. This is the premise of 'The Eternaut,' a chilling dystopian drama out of Argentina that premiered its first season on Netflix on April 30. The six-episode, Spanish-language series with its mix of sci-fi elements and focus on humanity's resilience, has struck a universal nerve, rocketing to No. 1 among Netflix's most streamed non-English-language TV shows within days. Netflix already renewed the show for a second season, with filming scheduled to start next year. But 'The Eternaut' has touched on something deeper in Argentina, where legendary comic-strip writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld penned the original graphic novel in 1957 — two decades before he was 'disappeared' by Argentina's military dictatorship, along with all four of his daughters. Abroad, publishers are scrambling to keep pace with renewed interest in the source material. The Seattle-based Fantagraphics Books said it would reissue an out-of-print English translation due to the surge in U.S. demand. At home, the TV adaptation has reopened historical wounds and found unexpected resonance at a moment of heightened anxiety about the state of Argentine society under far-right President Javier Milei. 'The boom of 'The Eternaut' has created a cultural and social event beyond the series,' said Martín Oesterheld, the writer's grandson and a creative consultant and executive producer on the show. 'It fills our hearts. It brings us pride.' An alien invasion hits home For years, the surviving Oesterhelds resisted offers from Hollywood to adapt the cult classic, wary of the industry's seemingly irresistible urge to destroy New York City and other Western centers in apocalyptic dramas. To honor his grandfather's creation, Martín Oesterheld said the show had to be filmed in Spanish, with an Argentine cast and set in Buenos Aires. 'What he did was to do away with the representations of science fiction that we know in Europe and the United States,' Martín Oesterheld said of his grandfather. 'He told it on our own terms, through things that we recognize.' Netflix, pushing to expand beyond its saturated U.S. market into previously untapped regions like Latin America, was a natural fit, he said. The streaming giant wouldn't disclose its budget, but said the special effect-laden show took four years of pre- and post-production, involved 2,900 people and pumped $34 million into Argentina's economy. In the show, aliens wreak predictable mayhem on an unpredictable cityscape — wide boulevards, neoclassical buildings, antique pizza halls and grimy suburbs — lending the show a shiver of curious power for Argentines who had never seen their city eviscerated on screen. The protagonists don't play poker but truco, a popular Argentine trick card game. They sip from gourds of mate, the signature Argentine drink made from yerba leaves. The snowfall is uncanny, and not just because it kills on contact. Buenos Aires has only seen snow twice in the last century. 'From truco in scene one, which couldn't be more Argentine, we see that 'The Eternaut' is playing with these contrasts — life and death, light and darkness, the familiar versus the alien,' said Martín Hadis, an Argentine researcher specializing in science fiction. 'It's not just a sci-fi story. It's a modern myth. That's what makes it so universal.' In updating the story to present-day Argentina, the show brings the nation's disastrous 1982 war with Britain over Las Malvinas, or the Falkland Islands, into the backstory of its hero, Juan Salvo, played by renowned actor Ricardo Darín. Salvo, a protective father and courageous ex-soldier who emerges to lead the group of survivors, is haunted by the rout of his comrades sent by Argentina's dictatorship to retake the South Atlantic islands. The defeat killed 649 Argentine soldiers, many of them untrained conscripts. 'The conflict in Las Malvinas is not closed, it's still a bloody wound,' Darín told The Associated Press. 'It's bringing the subject back to the table. That has moved a lot of people.' Argentine underdogs Faced with catastrophe, the protagonists rely on their own ingenuity, and on each other, to survive. What comes through, the creators say, is the Argentine saying 'atado con alambre' — roughly, 'held together with wire' — used to describe the inventive nature of those who do much with little in a nation that has suffered through decades of military rule and economic crises. 'It says a lot about being Argentine — taking whatever you have at your disposal and pushing your limitations,' said Martín Oesterheld. He was referring not only to the plot but also to the production at a time when Milei has waged war on Argentina's bloated state and slashed funding to cultural programs like the National Film Institute. 'As our culture is being defunded, we're taking this Argentine product to the world,' Martín Oesterheld said. Against this backdrop, the show's message of solidarity has gained an urgent new meaning, with Argentines outraged over Milei's libertarian ideology transforming the series' motto, 'No one gets through it alone,' into a rallying cry. The slogan was scrawled on signs at protests by retirees demonstrating against the government's sharp cuts to their pensions this month. To protect against police tear gas, some traded bandannas for the gas masks used in the show to shield against toxic snowfall. 'There is a general policy these days that the state shouldn't take care of its citizens, which relates to individual freedom,' Darín said. But there are many cases where if the state disappears completely, people are left to drift, as if they were shipwrecked.' A search reignited As the Netflix series exploded out of the gate, missing-persons flyers for Héctor Oesterheld, his daughters and potential grandchildren popped up on billboards for 'The Eternaut' all over Buenos Aires, a reminder of the real-life horror story behind the pulp adventure. By the time the military junta came to power in 1976, Oesterheld, 58, had become known as a committed leftist, his four daughters, ranging in age from 19 to 25, had joined a far-left guerilla group and the whole family had turned into a target of Latin America's deadliest dictatorship. Two of Oesterheld's daughters were pregnant at the time of their kidnapping. To this day, no one knows what happened to their unborn children, but they are believed to be among the estimated 500 newborns snatched from their parents and handed over to childless military officers, their true identities erased. The three surviving members of the Oesterheld family have never stopped searching. Martín Oesterheld's grandmother, Elsa, who raised him after his mother was killed, banded together with other women dedicated to finding their missing grandchildren. They became known as the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo. Seizing on national interest in the TV series, the Grandmothers this month issued public appeals for help finding the disappeared grandchildren. The response was overwhelming. 'It was incredible, it went viral,' said Esteban Herrera, who works with the Grandmothers and is still searching for his own missing sibling. 'Since it's a science-fiction series on a platform like Netflix, we're reaching homes that the Grandmothers perhaps hadn't before.' The outpouring of emails and calls raised more questions than answers. Reaching out were hundreds of Argentine viewers newly determined to find their own disappeared relatives or suddenly skeptical about the legality of their own adoptions. 'The Eternaut' is a living memory, a classic story that's passed down from generation to generation,' said Martín Oesterheld. 'For it to be embraced by so many people in this way ... there is no greater social commentary.'
