Garbage Man

In a city rotting under garbage and corruption, a young garbage collector falls into a nuclear reactor and becomes Garbage Man: a living skeleton with monstrous powers who unleashes a bloody revenge against those in power.

Duhrdburg is a corrupt city where both literal and moral waste pile up. Johnny Santos grows up there, the son of a factory worker who died at the Brahman Industries android plant, marginalized by poverty and condemned to a toxic job as a garbage collector. His only escape is music with his psychobilly band—until an accident causes him to fall into the nuclear reactor at Blue Waste, a plant that transforms garbage into energy. Instead of dying, an amulet he carries absorbs the radiation and transforms him into a living skeleton with monstrous powers: superhuman strength, poisonous gases, control over rats, and an aura of terror. Thus “Garbage Man” is born, a dark avenger who becomes a symbol of the marginalized.

His first mission is to rescue Paola Dubois, his impossible love, imprisoned for exposing the fact that the reactor was causing mutations in the population. With the help of his army of rats and the Diamond Dogs—a pack of stray dogs led by a talking bulldog—he defeats Burke, his corrupt boss, and shelters a circus of persecuted freaks in the abandoned Blue Waste plant, founding the New Fantastic Pandemonium. From there, he begins his crusade against the Red Syndicate, a mafia of minibus drivers who control transportation in Duhrdburg and are tied to politicians and the city’s corruption, as well as against the mercenaries hunting him. In the streets, he faces a series of grotesque enemies, defeating them one by one.

But the struggle escalates: Brahman Industries, run by the dwarf child Danny Matzerath and advised by the sorcerer Zkauba, seeks absolute control of the Tesla Reactor, the heart of the Blue Waste plant, after it is discovered that it conceals a portal charged with quantum power leading to cosmic dimensions. Danny travels to the planet Yaddith, where he discovers that he and Garbage Man—his enemy—are reflections of the same entity. Rahotep, a cosmic pharaoh, tempts him with the Shining Trapezohedron, an artifact capable of altering reality. Manipulated by Zkauba, Danny betrays his mother—an artificial intelligence that governs the factory—and returns to Duhrdburg as the sorcerer’s slave.

In the struggle for power, Garbage Man falls into the hands of Zkauba’s androids, who seize control and establish an authoritarian regime disguised as social justice. The city enters a dark age until a new spark of rebellion emerges: Rita and Donna, conjoined twins, inspire the youth with their band Las Mutantes, unleashing a cultural revolution that challenges and ultimately defeats the dictatorship. In this final clash between oppression and freedom, Garbage Man—who has returned—rises as the ultimate defender of the marginalized.

RELEVANT INFORMATION: Hilario Peña is a Mexican writer and an expert in crime and detective fiction, winner of the José Rubén Romero National Novel Prize.

Garbage Man is his latest novel, blending industrial dystopia, horror, satire, and underground culture to create a unique imaginative universe that connects with alternative superhero cinema. Its audiovisual potential is enormous: it offers a charismatic and recognizable antihero, a large-scale dystopian world with warring factions, and a storyline that combines action, violence, and social critique—ideal for an underground audiovisual production.

AUDIOVISUAL POTENTIAL: TV Series, Miniseries, Feature Film, TV Film.

AVAILABLE LANGUAGES: Spanish.