History: (Swamp Thing II #82, 83)-Anton Arcane was born in the late 19th century in an unnamed Balkan state. He was a monstrous child who abused his younger siblings Gregori and Aniela, and the family was happy to see him leave for the Hamburg School of Medicine. Anton became obsessed with immortality, and surrendered his soul to sadism and debauchery in pursuit of it. He was caught taking drugs and abusing his fellow students, but when he attempted to reanimate a corpse the school had enough and expelled him. He became a battlefield medic during WWI and secretly used dead soldiers as subjects for his necromantic experiments. During the final days of the war he was summoned to his cousin Hans von Hammer's home to examine a wounded pilot. The pilot was actually the plant elemental Swamp Thing, who was trapped in an uncontrolled trip through time. It was this encounter and studies of Swamp Thing's body that would later inspire Arcane to pursue the theory that an eternally regenerating vegetable body could best survive the ravages of time. During the war Arcane struck up a friendship with Adolf Hitler, and would later become a trusted aide of Hitler during WWII. Arcane finally succeeded in reanimating the dead while working in Germany, creating a small band of undead creatures named the Un-Men.