Now streaming on Netflix, El Eternauta is a six-part Argentine sci-fi series directed by Bruno Stagnaro and starring Ricardo Darín as Juan Salvo, who leads a group of survivors through a deadly snowfall and alien invasion in Buenos Aires.

Based on the groundbreaking 1957 graphic novel by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López, the series brings a cult classic to global screens for the first time in a live-action adaptation.

But El Eternauta is more than a story of survival. Over the decades, it became a symbol of resistance across Latin America—partly for its chilling portrayal of isolation and external threat, and partly due to the fate of its creator. Oesterheld was abducted by the Argentine military dictatorship in 1977 and never seen again, transforming the work into a cultural landmark, rich with layered meaning and political resonance. “That created a feedback loop between the story and the author’s life,” says Stagnaro, “where each one fueled the other.”