CAHUN YOUR ENTHUSIASM (21)
By:
March 14, 2026
One in a series of enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, analyzing and celebrating our favorite… anti-fascist art! Series edited by Josh Glenn.
THE ETERNAUT
On September 4th, 1957, a new type of science-fiction hero, and a future legend of Latin American comics, was born in Argentina. That’s when the new comics anthology magazine Hora Cero, co-founded by Héctor Germán Oesterheld, began publishing El Eternauta.
Along with illustrator Francisco Solano López, Oesterheld created the eternal survivor of an adventure that — like Cortázar’s short stories — inundates daily reality with no previous notice. (A suburb in Buenos Aires, a group of friends playing cards, and a killing snowstorm that will change their lives forever.) The titular Eternaut is Juan Salvo*, whose name hints at his vocation as the saviour of his friends, his family, and beyond. Like a true romantic hero, he’ll dare to do anything — even if he loses everything in the attempt.
Arriving from another dimension, in the first issue, Salvo appears before Oesterheld himself, to give his testimony and prevent his (and our) story from falling into oblivion. A testimony that includes the uncanny figure of “Them,” extraterrestrial enemies who have come to destroy the planet and will not cease in their terrible attempt… and who at the same time represent so much more, in terms of real-world unequal fights and rights. The hero’s methods, battles, and creative ways of surviving make this story — versus what heroes and fights look like in mainstream (American) narratives — a Latin American gem.
Even as it portrays many of the “typical” genre topics of the time, El Eternauta goes beyond them, becoming a metaphor for Oestherheld’s visionary sense of the essence of human beings, our ghosts, our fears, and anything that truly matters. As such, the figure of the Eternaut has been readily reappropriated in politics, art, fan production, pop culture, storytelling, and — more recently — in a great Netflix series that brings Juan Salvo and his group to 2025.
The series connects to today’s zeitgeist by incorporating a young female Venezuelan migrant, an extra layer of Salvo’s past related to the 1982 Malvinas war, and also the character Favalli’s** fascination with the past. Through his collection of antiquated devices and objects, Favalli always discerns the big picture; a perspective that becomes a war cry in itself: “The old way/stuff works, Juan!’”
El Eternauta is about resistance, and is itself (in all its forms) a space of resistance.
* In Spanish, Salvo sounds like/means “I save.”
** Favalli is a wise sage in the comic. He becomes much more human in the TV series.
PS: Check out Fantagraphic’s 2025 reissue of The Eternaut in English. And here you have the trailer for the Netflix series.
CAHUN YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mark Kingwell on ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON | Lynn Peril on ZAZOUS | Judith Zissman on DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI | Annie Nocenti on MEDIUM COOL | Mike Watt on FASCIST | William Nericcio on LALO ALCARAZ | Josh Glenn on THE LADY VANISHES | Carlo Rotella on INQUIETUD | Heather Quinlan on CASABLANCA | Adam McGovern on HEART OF GLASS (MAD JENNY) | Matthew Battles on WOODY’S GUITAR | Carl Wilson on PALACES OF GOLD | Ramona Lyons on UPRIGHT WOMEN WANTED | Lucy Sante on CAMOUFLAGE | Adelina Vaca on THE LIVES OF OTHERS | Tom Nealon on THE BARON IN THE TREES | Nikhil Singh on PARIS PEASANT | Mandy Keifetz on THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED | Gordon Dahlquist on THE CONFORMIST | Michael Grasso on PYNCHONIAN RESISTANCE | Gabriela Pedranti on THE ETERNAUT | Heather Kapplow on ANTI-FASCIST PASTA | Marc Weidenbaum on (WHAT’S SO FUNNY ’BOUT) PEACE, LOVE, AND UNDERSTANDING | Peggy Nelson on PUPPETS | Sonia Marques on CARNATIONS AGITPROP.
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