10 DC Villains To Watch Out For In 2019 On Film & TV

7. Anton Arcane - Swamp Thing

DC Comics

Although the main villain for the Swamp Thing TV series is yet to be confirmed, out of all the creature's bad guys, it is Anton Arcane who is most likely to be the show's main antagonist.

Back when Justice League Dark was still in active development, it was rumoured for a time that Ben Mendelsohn was up for the part. That casting may now have flown out the window, but still, there are plenty of reasons to be excited about Arcane potentially appearing in the Swamp Thing TV series - especially since he's such a terrifying-looking character.

He's the stuff of nightmares, but Arcane wasn't always that way. Created by the late Len Wein and Bernie Wrightson, Arcane started out life as an evil scientist determined to find the key to immortality. He dabbled with sorcery, but when that failed to get him any results, he decided to lure Alec Holland to his evil lair, where he then attempted to gain the form of Swamp Thing.

As you can see, the process didn't exactly work, and though the new series is just as likely to pool inspiration from Alan Moore's critically revered stint on the Swamp Thing book (which will hopefully include a Constantine cameo), there's no way it can ignore Wein and Wrightson's contributions, especially since Arcane is the character's most notorious adversary.

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WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well. In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.