| “ | Your worst nightmare. I'm ignorance. I'm fear. I'm hate. | „ |
| ~ Verminous Skumm |
Verminous Skumm is a real dirty rat. Born and raised in a sewer, this towering "Ver-man" aims to mold the world in his image, and is determined to inherit the Earth. He is the most evil Captain Planet villain and is responsible for killing Linka's cousin by giving him a drug overdose and harassed Todd Andrews, an HIV positive kid by making people hate and fear him by lying to them about HIV and AIDS.
Skumm fancies himself an agent of entropy with a mission to instigate chaos and degeneration in the natural order. He exults in humanity's every ecological mistake and helps to accelerate the environment's decline. His weapons are a loathsome intelligence combined with the cunning of a trapped rat. His rat pack inhabits only the most vile, degenerate environments of sewage and toxic waste.
Though standing seven-and-a-half feet tall, Verminous Skumm truly resembles a disease-ridden rat in every way, including the tail and claws. He wears a tattered blue jumpsuit and a red scarf around his head and face. His clothes are always dirty, torn and disheveled, as he spends most of his time underground - in sewers or the like..
Like all the villains in Captain Planet and the Planeteers, Skumm represents an ecological disaster. In his case, he represents poor sanitation and crime. In the two-part Captain Planet episode, Mission to Save Earth, Verminous Skumm is among the five Eco Villains who create Captain Pollution. They did this by creating and using five Anti-Elemental Rings consisting of Deforestation, Toxins, Smog, Super Radiation, and Hate. Skumm's element was Toxins. Unfortunately for the Eco Villains, Captain Pollution was destroyed and the Anti-Elemental rings along with him, leading Skumm and the other villains to flee.
One episode revealed that Skumm was (possibly) from an alternate/past civilization that he helped guide into destruction through massive overpopulation. Alternate future versions of him are shown to be even more mutated, sporting an extra smaller head on his shoulders.