El Eternauta: tercera parte
| El Eternauta: tercera parte | |
|---|---|
 Cover of the book by Ediciones Record | |
| Author(s) | Alberto Ongaro |
| Illustrator(s) | Oswal |
| Current status/schedule | Concluded |
| Launch date | 1981 |
| Publisher(s) | Ediciones Record |
| Genre(s) | Science fiction |
| Original language | Spanish |
| Preceded by | El Eternauta: segunda parte |
El Eternauta: tercera parte is the continuation of the saga started by the Argentine comic "The Eternaut", created by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and drawn by Francisco Solano López in 1957. The original saga, and its sequel "El Eternauta: segunda parte", became fundamental pieces of Argentine popular culture and science fiction in the country. "El Eternauta: tercera parte", published in 1981, is a work that continues to explore the themes of survival, resistance, and humanity, although with a different approach and tone than its predecessors.
Editorial history
[edit]The Eternaut was an comic strip made between 1957 and 1959 by Héctor Germán Oesterheld and Francisco Solano López. They made a sequel, El Eternauta: segunda parte between 1976 and 1978. By the time Oesterheld joined the Montoneros guerrilla and used the comic to promote left-wing propaganda against the military junta, so he was victim of an enforced disappearance. But as the comic was still popular in Europe, it was soon followed by a third part. Editors Alfredo Scutti from Ediciones Record (Argentina) and Alvaro Zerboni from Eura Editoriale (Italy) negotiated the terms. The new series would be published first in Italy, in the comic L'Eternauta, and then in the argentine Skorpio.[1]
The story had no credited authors, and although it kept Oesterheld as a viewpoint character as in the 1975 story, it was written by Alberto Ongaro, with illustrations by Oswal, Mario Morhain, and Carlos Meglia.[2][3] Solano López received proposals to draw the new comic, but refused to do so because of the tragic circumstances of the sequel, which was still close in time. As Ediciones Record insisted, he only draw some faces for future reference, and asked that the credits do not mention him.[4] He draw the faces of the first thirty pages, over the drafts of Oswal; once he left the comic reused those faces several times in other panels.[3]
Plot
[edit]Juan Salvo and Germán have returned to the present, but Salvo still mourns his late wife and kid, Elena and Martita. With his powers he can summon images of unknown places, and he discovers that they are alive somewhere. It turns out to be a dimensional portal, opened by the atomic explosions, so Salvo and Germán cross it. Elena and Martita turn out to be duplicates in a mirror universe, along with their own Juan Salvo and Germán. All the people of the neighborhood in the mirror universe are abducted by an army of robots. Salvo and Germán find out that there was an invasion by the "condors", a ship from a thousand years in the future that accidentally crossed the portal and ended up in the 1980s. They meet their leader, Prince Condor, and escape: Condor does not want to return to the future, but to use the 1980s as a hideout in his war against the authorities of his time, and for that he needs to know the location of the portal. During their escape they find the other Salvo and Germán, who escaped from captivity and started a resistance. When they get cornered the duplicate Salvo and Germán attack the Condors and get themselves killed, so that the Condors do not pursue them anymore.
Now confident they are not being followed, Salvo and Germán use the portal to go to the future. They meet Germán O., a descendant of Germán, and member of the ruling council. They find out that one of the "Hands" from the first invasion was displaced to the future by the portal, and styling himself "the great magician" he raised an army to conquer Earth. Cóndor and Alma, two kids that he brainwashed and subjected to genetic experimentation, were the leaders of that army. When they fell into the past by the portal nobody realized what had happened, neither the government nor the Hand, who thought that his "children" were dead. Salvo steals from him a device that would kill them instantly, installed as a security measure, and killed the Hand. Back in the 1980s they kill Condor and Alma and blow up the spaceship.
References
[edit]- ^ García, Fernando; Ostuni, Hernán (September 2002). "Historieta & Sociedad: El Eternauta" [Comic books & Society: The Eternaut] (PDF). Revista latinoamericana de estudios sobre la historieta (in Spanish). La Habana, Cuba: Pablo de la Torriente Editorial. Archived (PDF) from the original on 23 June 2023. Retrieved 22 June 2023.
- ^ García, Fernando (1997). "La verdadera historia de El Eternauta" [The true history of the Eternaut]. Comiqueando #30 (in Spanish). Argentina: Comiqueando Press.
- ^ a b Daniel Riera (April 27, 2022). "El Eternauta: la inmortal historieta de Héctor Oesterheld, el guionista desaparecido" [The Eternaut: the immortal comic of Héctor Oesterheld, the disappeared writer] (in Spanish). Big Bang News. Retrieved August 29, 2024.
- ^ Solano López, Francisco (1995). "Solano López" (Interview). Interviewed by Andrés Accorsi. Argentina: Comiqueando #12.