Verminous Skumm

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Verminous Skumm is a villain of the Captain Planet animated series which includes Captain Planet and the Planeteers and The New Adventures of Captain Planet.

Though seven and half feet tall, Skumm has a face like a dirty rat and a body to suit it with a long tail. He is always shown wearing dirty, torn blue clothes and a red scarf around his head. He was born and raised in a sewer. Skumm hated humanity and declared war against mankind and the environment. In his first appearance ("Rain Of Terror"), he and an army of those like him start up an abandoned coal factory and burn excess coal to create a massive acid rain cloud to destroy a farming community. He would later steal nuclear weapons and hide them in various "hot spots" around the world ( the now infamous "If It's Doomsday, This Must Be Belfast"), giving the detonators to each side in a war, to prove that humans were self-destructive. And if they didn't use them, he would use his own detonator. The Planeteers stopped him before the bombs could go off, however. He was also one of the five to gain a Pollution Ring from Dr. Blight, which formed Captain Pollution ("Mission To Save Earth" Parts I and II).

Skumm also created a toxic mutation spray called Rat Rot ("Skumm Lord"), which could mutate humans into rat creatures like himself (note that it is never stated if his followers are mutants like him, or Rat Rot victims). He also created the highly addictive designer drug Bliss ("Mind Pollution") and spread it throughout Washington, D.C. Shortly after, he opened a seafood restaurant in San Francisco, selling highly poisonous food to the city's population ("The Big Clam-Up").

Skumm was also the villain in the controversial episode "A Formula For Hate", in which he spreads misinformation and lies about the AIDS virus to ruin a young victim's life.

In the Hanna-Barbera produced seasons however, Skumm would turn his focus away from his environmental war and focus more on stealing and selling artifacts to fund his operations, with environmental and monument defacement as a side project ("Nothing's Sacred"). He also had an interest in street gangs ("Talkin' Trash").

Skumm was voiced by Jeff Goldblum in his first appearance, and by Maurice LaMarche in subsequent episodes.