El Eternauta: Science Fiction and Politics

"It was early morning, just three o'clock. Not a single light was on in the neighborhood houses [....] [...suddenly a creak, a creak on the chair in front of me, the chair that those who come to talk to me always occupy...]" These words open El Eternauta, widely considered one of the great Argentine science fiction comics.

The name is not arbitrary: the series weaves an intriguing story full of subtle metaphors about politics and society, involuntary heroes summoned by a reality that demands them, collective resistance to oppression, and technical ingenuity, with a singular look at the future and a tribute to metafiction through a poetic language that never stopped being proper science fiction.

Introduction

From the very beginning, science fiction writers have shown that a limited imagination is only an excuse for the lazy. With futuristic devices, supernatural characters, and plots of destruction or pre- and post-apocalyptic odysseys, science fiction also tells us its perception and critique of the material reality in which we live.

In this report on this particular science fiction comic, we will focus more on the underlying metaphor than on the aspects we might usually review, such as the material of the ships or whether the distance calculations of an interstellar journey are correct. The idea is to invite you to look beyond the comics and rediscover, through second readings, what the author may have been trying to tell us.

You may even notice two different perspectives on the same subject, understanding how the author's subjectivity feeds his creativity and modifies a structure we thought was established. After reading similar viewpoints, reviewing other stances, and rereading the comic, we present here another attempt to decipher some edges of the first two parts of El Eternauta, by H.G. Oesterheld.

El Eternauta (1957–59): From Survival to Resistance

The first edition, written by H.G. Oesterheld (1917–1977) from 1954 to 1959, told the story of the author himself and Juan Salvo, who becomes El Eternauta, reaching the chair of the man who years later would be the comic's writer, to tell the events that led to his transformation into the Traveler of Eternity (hence the name) in search of his family through the "vagaries of the continuum".

The question of how he lost her transports us to Buenos Aires in 1963, when an alleged natural catastrophe manifested as deadly snow (it doesn't snow in Buenos Aires except for page-one exceptions) takes Juan Salvo, his family, friends, and the rest of humanity hostage, but at the same time turns them into masters of their own fate like never before.

The chaos, the absence of the state, and humans driven by self-preservation produce the first Robinsonnade metaphor: the struggle for individual survival in a world that has become strange and antagonistic. Throughout the comic, and especially in the second part, this concept will mutate in its symbolism and connotations, as the author's way of thinking is expressed through the protagonists and the events they face.

El Eternauta (1969) and El Eternauta II (1976): Manifestos of Political Science Fiction

Both from the creation and the first delivery, back in 1957, alongside the brilliant Solano López on the art, in serial form in a general entertainment magazine, El Eternauta and Oesterheld's work took place in a violent and oppressive context. At that time, however, the edition might have contained the same metaphorical content we give to its second version, but its style was closer to formal science fiction.

It was in the 1969 reissue—when any extra word could become a ticket to exile or a symbolic epitaph on your clandestine grave—that Oesterheld changed the series' direction, now drawn by the great Alberto Breccia. Through the script, he became more politically engaged, putting much of his personal thought and the ideology he shared with his struggle companions into those now more somberly illustrated pages (one editor says that in 1976 he only went to the publishing house to hand over the three weekly pages of El Eternauta II, almost clandestinely).

Of course, the change did not leave behind the poetic subtlety that has elevated him as one of the most intense Argentine comic writers, although military censorship knew how to read between the lines, and tragedy engulfed him. Besides suffering the kidnapping and disappearance of his four daughters, H.G. Oesterheld suffered the same fate at the end of 1977, and to this day the whereabouts of his remains are unknown.

The Individual Hero vs. the Collective Hero

In several works of science fiction, and especially in comics, we find the individual hero, who in pursuit of a certain goal—whether protecting others out of pure love for society or expiating inner pain and taking revenge on those who wronged him in the past—knows how to stand out from the crowd through his attire. The color of his clothes gives him the originality and individuality he claims for himself.

El Eternauta is different, in Oesterheld's words. His actions are individual on practical or intellectual levels, but he is "collective hero (...) a group hero." It is the small group (El Eternauta) or the larger group (in the second part) that always surrounds him or awaits him, collaborates, and takes center stage, even involuntarily. The incursions into Juan Salvo's mind that Oesterheld gives us are an invitation to know what really moves this group hero seeking the individual and collective freedom that the colonization of the Ellos oppresses, both in humans and in aliens.

A Metaphorical Reading of His Enemies

Unlike other sagas and series, El Eternauta does not have a very extensive bestiary or catalog of enemies. In fact, the opponents Juan Salvo and company face are quite limited, and from my personal perspective, El Eternauta has only three classes of antagonists:

Circumstantial Enemies

The main characteristic of the four principal physical enemy types that El Eternauta and the rest of humans face is that, like humanity, they have been colonized and are manipulated from a distance. The Manos, naturally good and sensitive, had a terror gland implanted that killed them if they got scared, so the Ellos kept them in harmonious colonization of their wills.

The colonization of the Gurbos (giant beetles), the robot men, and the Zarpos was also technological, through a device called teledirectors, or in the latter case through their actual creation in laboratories. The living being as an evil being only because of oppression, not by choice. A whole humanist metaphor about the colonization generated by certain cultural and social impositions, mainly through the economy (which is the direct transfer of the Ellos' technology in the comic), and how even we humans have become enemies of ourselves. The circumstantial part is that the contenders will realize they have a common evil and, often, when it is already too late, they will understand that they could be fighting on the same side and that their momentary separation is the product of a superior force that oppresses and conditions them. Does it remind you of something?

Intellectual Enemies

As the concept suggests, one of El Eternauta's main antagonists is the philosophical and existential challenge that certain circumstances of his adventure generate. Final decisions where the confrontation between pragmatism and idealism is seen, a contest that has the same winner throughout the series. Explosions and gunfire are a constant between panels, but no laser or bullet wounds as much as a tragic decision about family or peers.

This type of enemy configures another metaphor for the man who questions his existence, his actions, and accepts their consequences. It is the man who wakes up from the intellectual lethargy that peacetime gives and matures in the face of extreme situations, one of the origins of philosophy.

Metaphysical Enemies

The main antagonist of this group hero is everything that generates the previous two: the Ellos. An invisible entity, like a God or a superior force, that has practical presence over others' lives. Without physical integrity that can be aimed through a gun's sight, the Ellos managed the Manos, who in turn exercised delegated dominion over the other two species. However much one tries, the Ellos cannot be defeated with humanity's technological tools; other machinery is needed, involving neurons and will, not oil.

El Eternauta III (1983) and Another Transformation of Juan Salvo

At the beginning of the article I said I would only consider Oesterheld's El Eternauta (the first version, the 1969 reissue, and El Eternauta II). This is because with the writer's disappearance, the series loses interest for me on an intellectual level. This is where the idea of the collective hero that Juan Salvo had become clashes with the solitude and selfishness of the special hero, since the previous chapter emphasized Juan Salvo as a kind of superman with special powers (telekinesis, premonition, superhuman strength, etc.). Exploiting this, Juan Salvo begins to become a hero closer to classics like Superman, Spider-Man, etc.

This doesn't take away from later presentations, but it does stop being part of the analysis because, in my opinion, El Eternauta dies with its original writer, H.G. Oesterheld. Nevertheless, this brings us back to the first point we established and the engine of this report: science fiction, no matter how far from reality it may be narrated and drawn, is so tied to the author's existential circumstances that any change in him moves us to a completely different world; just as we like in this genre.

Having read this point of view on this particular comic, although with a general comment on the others, tell us in what terms you think stories with involved artists are enriched or lost. Tell us about metaphors you have found in other readings of other works, or comment on the importance of treating more transcendental themes in works that, for many, are simply a product developed only for entertainment.