This story written by Patricia Larrús originally appeared on Global Voices on February 22, 2026.

Breaking the term “eternauta” down into “eter,” evoking eternity or a transcendence of death, and “nauta,” a traveler or navigator, you get “eternal traveler.” In the 1957 Argentine comic strip “El Eternauta,” by writer Héctor Germán Oesterheld, the eponymous traveler is Juan Salvo, a character who, far from being a traditional superhero, experiences an unfathomable tragedy.

Nearly 70 years after its publication, the tale has been turned into a Netflix series starring Ricardo Darín — one of Argentina's most celebrated actors — as the protagonist. The adaptation incorporates new themes while also respecting the original’s plot structure. Meanwhile, the masks its characters use for their survival appeared in protests against the government of Javier Milei in 2025.

Story aside, Oesterheld’s personal history and that of his family have also been gaining attention. The author, his four daughters and two sons-in-law disappeared at the hands of the civil-military dictatorship in Argentina (1976–1983), and two of the Oesterheld daughters were pregnant at the time of their abduction.

The series sent shockwaves that reignited searches for identity. With hundreds of babies and children having been kidnapped from their families, and fates of all kinds awaiting the victims — some were adopted by military personnel, some by civilians — they grew up not knowing their true origins.

Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo (Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo), a nonprofit organization founded in 1977, searches for those babies and children taken by the dictatorship. The organization takes identity inquiries and reports of possible abductions, but people also contact them if they are having doubts about their own background. During the period between the release of the series and May 2025, the number of people seeking to learn about their identity increased sixfold, and those contributing information about possible grandchildren being sought tripled.

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In the wake of the series’s success, relatives have organized and taken action by posting flyers on top of publicity posters for the production featuring photographs of Oesterheld and his four daughters, who are still missing. H.I.J.O.S., an organization made up of children of the victims, shared the following post on social media:

Where is Oesterheld?

“Where is Oesterheld?” This question went viral and transformed into a slogan after the series debuted. The whereabouts of Oesterheld, his daughters, his sons-in-law and the grandchildren his daughters were pregnant with are still unknown nearly 42 years after the end of the dictatorship in Argentina, the same fate faced by thousands of people in the country.

Estimates of the number of disappeared people range up to 30,000, according to human rights organizations. And the Parque de la Memoria victims registry has only collected information on 8,948 victims so far.

As in other countries in the Southern Cone that had dictatorships between 1960 and 1980, government-led repression during the last military dictatorship in Argentina was characterized by forced disappearance as a systematic means to exterminate political activists, union members, and students, only a fraction of whom were members of armed organizations. In the course of state-sanctioned terrorism, multiple methods were used to carry out the forced disappearances, one of them being death flights, in which people were thrown from airplanes into the River Plate.

Although the country carried out its Trial of the Juntas — the 1985 judicial process that sentenced some of the dictatorship’s repressors — most disappeared people have not been found, as is the case with the Oesterhelds.

The Oesterhelds

Héctor Germán Oesterheld was born in Buenos Aires in 1919 and was abducted in 1977, one year after the start of Argentina’s military dictatorship. He was a screenwriter, author and journalist who became a pioneer and leading figure in modern comics. He was also a political activist, joining the Montoneros guerrilla group. Described by his wife, Elsa Sánchez, as a “freethinker of the left with an overwhelming intelligence,” his keen social and political observations of Argentine reality and all its facets in his life are conveyed in the original comic.

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Oesterheld grew more committed to the political struggle in the 1970s. At that time, he created a new version of “El Eternauta,” which he finished writing while in hiding. That activism cost him his life. In their testimonies, survivors stated that, despite the tragedy and his physical deterioration, he always preserved his dignity and brilliance in his work.

Like him, his four daughters, also members of the Montoneros, were abducted. Two of them, Diana and Marina, were pregnant at the time. Diana was due to give birth in November 1976, and Marina between December 1977 and January 1978.

Fernando Araldi Oesterheld, Diana’s first child, was one year old when his parents were abducted. In 2010, the body of his father, Raúl, was identified by the Argentine Forensic Anthropology Team in Cementerio del Norte, a cemetery in the city of San Miguel de Tucumán. Neither his mother nor the baby she was carrying at the time of her abduction has been found. When his family was abducted, Fernando was left in an orphanage until his paternal grandparents recovered him.

No one saves themselves alone: Mothers, Grandmothers, H.I.J.O.S.

Elsa Sánchez de Oesterheld, the writer’s widow, searched for her daughters and grandchildren until her death in 2015; she was a member of the Abuelas de Plaza de Mayo. She joined the group after other grandmothers approached her and joined her search.

She has a quote published on the Abuelas website: “I am fighting for my grandchildren to know the truth. That is why I do not speak of restitution, but of the right to identity.”

The Abuelas were not the only organization founded as a result of Argentina’s tragedy and the fight of the relatives of state terrorism victims. Also in 1977, mothers searching for their children met in the same Plaza de Mayo located in front of the Casa Rosada, the presidential palace. They exchanged information and eventually founded the organization Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo), taking as their symbol a white cloth diaper worn as a headscarf.

Years later, in 1995, an organization made up of the third generation of relatives emerged: H.I.J.O.S. The acronym translates to Sons and Daughters for Identity and Justice Against Forgetting and Silence.

So far, the Abuelas have found 140 grandchildren since their search began. The most recent recovery of a grandchild was announced on July 7, 2025, the first resolved case since the series “The Eternaut” was released.

The organization continues its work, looking for people born between 1975 and 1983 who may be questioning their identity and origin. The two Oesterheld children are among nearly 300 who have not been recovered.

At the same time, the work of Argentina’s National Genetic Data Bank, essential for its provision of testing to reestablish identities, is threatened by cuts to scientific research funding under the current government. The Abuelas and other organizations are calling for public policy to be maintained in order to preserve memory as a countermeasure against state terrorism.

Fifteen days after “The Eternaut” series debuted, Manuel Gonçalves Granada, an Abuelas board member and a missing grandson recovered in 1995 (case number 57), told Infobae that “it gives them hope and joy to see the mechanisms the Abuelas built reviving because of the series.”

“The increase in inquiries creates enormous hope for finding the next grandchild, which is what we work for and what the Abuelas fight for every day,” he said.

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