If you’ve never heard of The Eternaut before the show debuted on Netflix, then you’re not alone. Héctor Germán Oesterheld and artist Francisco Solano López‘s 1957 comic El Eternauta was very popular in their native Argentina, but it’s only been published once in English, and it’s currently out of print.
Regardless, The Walking Dead and The Last of Us fans have undoubtedly noticed similarities between those shows and The Eternaut.
That may explain why this series is now among the 10 most popular shows on Netflix.
To serve as an introduction to the series, Watch With Us has put together the three reasons why you should watch The Eternaut right now.
One of the things that really stands out about The Eternaut is that it’s in no rush to explain what’s going on. Like the original comic, the story begins in Buenos Aires on an otherwise normal summer day that’s interrupted by snow. Anyone caught outside unprotected died almost immediately, turning humanity into an endangered species in a matter of minutes.
The Walking Dead and The Last of Us give the protagonists zombies and infected to fight. But in this show, the dead bodies simply lie where they fell, and there’s an omnipresent sense of dread. It would have been easier if this were something that could be fought with fists or a knife. Without giving too many spoilers away, what happened wasn’t an accident or a natural occurrence.
The Show Retains the Comic Book’s Argentinian Roots
We highly suggest watching The Eternaut in Spanish with English subtitles. There is an English dub, but there are better performances from the actors when they’re reading the lines in their native language. It would have been easy to transplant some of The Eternaut‘s story to America or other countries to broaden the appeal, but the original comic took place in Argentina, and the show would have lost something if it were stripped of its national identity.
There are some stark cultural differences as well, particularly towards the presence and absence of guns on this show. Unlike American citizens, Argentinians don’t have a prevalent gun culture, and the few survivors aren’t exactly eager to arm themselves. There’s also a greater sense of community among neighbors that’s no longer as prevalent in the United States. Those are small touches, but they make The Eternaut feel unique.
A lot of the show’s appeal falls on Ricardo Darín, who portrays Juan Salvo, the main character in the comic. The series has slightly diverged from the original story to modernize some elements and added a few new members to the supporting cast. But it’s Juan who dares to go outside first because he has to know if his ex-wife, Elena (Carla Peterson), and their daughter, Clara (Mora Fisz), are still alive, even if he has to risk his own life in the process.
Darin is also a much older actor than the typical protagonists in post-apocalyptic stories. And yet he carries himself with such determination that the audience can believe he will survive the situations he encounters. The original comic goes to some mind-bending places with Juan’s ultimate destination, but it’s unclear how closely the show will follow that outline. The one thing we know after six episodes of The Eternaut season 1 is that season 2 is likely to be even wilder.
The Eternaut is streaming on Netflix.
