Anton Arcane

Anton Arcane
File:Antonarcane.jpg
Publication information
Publisher	DC Comics
First appearance	Swamp Thing #1 (November 1972) (cameo) Swamp Thing #2 (January 1973) (full)
Created by	Len Wein Berni Wrightson
In-story information
Abilities	brillant sorcerer and scientist,able to animate and possess dead flesh, can control insects.

Anton Arcane, sometimes simply known as Arcane, is a DC Comics villain who first appeared in Swamp Thing vol. 1 #1. He is an evil sorcerer/scientist who created a group of monsters that he dubbed the Un-Men. One of his creations was the Patchwork Man, a creature created with an intentional similarity to Frankenstein's monster; the Patchwork Man had once been Anton's own brother, Gregori.

He had an odd obsession with the superheroic swamp creature called the Swamp Thing. He took control of Swamp Thing's body, but was defeated and fell out of a window to his apparent death. However, he managed to hold onto life, though his injuries were such that he had to have some of his Un-Men build him a new, misshapen Un-Man-like body. In this form, he attacked the Swamp Thing twice more before truly dying; his soul then went to Hell.

Arcane's soul later escaped from Hell, where it took over the body of Matt Cable, who was married to Gregori Arcane's daughter Abby. Arcane combined his own magic with Matt's inherent psychic powers to battle the Swamp Thing, but he was exorcised directly to Hell. Matt later entered a coma and died, whereupon he became Matthew, a raven living within The Dreaming.

Arcane next appeared as a demon, having been promoted to this status by the Lords of Hell in recognition of his evil. He attacked Swamp Thing yet again, and was defeated. In a later story, he was shown to have repented his evil ways after having found God, but that was short-lived and he eventually became evil once more. After God banished him back to Hell, Arcane was tortured by a demon named Josephine, whom he seduced into helping him escape. Swamp Thing defeated the two demons, causing their forms to morph together, and when last seen, it was revealed that the Arcane/Josephine being was pregnant.

In adaptations

Louis Jourdan portrays Arcane in the 1982 Swamp Thing film directed by Wes Craven and in the 1989 sequel The Return of Swamp Thing. In the live-action Swamp Thing television series, Mark Lindsay Chapman played Arcane, and Don Francks voiced Arcane in the short-lived Swamp Thing animated series.

External Links

• Roots of the Swamp Thing - An extremely detailed timeline chronicling all the events of Swamp Thing, Hellblazer and related titles in chronological order, spanning millions of years of DC/Vertigo history, including the life of Anton Arcane