The Swamp Thing series just netted its first cameo by an actor who had appeared in the 1982 Swamp Thing movie. Adrienne Barbeau, who played the love interest role in the very first Swamp Thing movie, puts in a brief appearance as the new boss of Dr. Abby Arcane in DC Universe's Swamp Thing episode 8, "Long Walk Home."
The 1982 Swamp Thing film was written and directed by Wes Craven and is still well-regarded, despite the liberties taken with the source material. Craven's script combined the characters of Abby Arcane and Matthew Cable into a single character named Alice Cable - a government agent assigned to protect scientists Alec and Linda Holland (siblings, rather than husband and wife, as in the comics) as they work on a secret project involving accelerated plant growth. A romance blooms between Alice and Alec and seems to continue even after Alec's transformation into the Swamp Thing. In this, the film foreshadowed the romance between Abby Arcane and Swamp Thing which writer Alan Moore introduced into the comics several years later.
Adrienne Barbeau's performance as Alice Cable was singled out as one of the best elements of the movie. It's no surprise then that the producers of the new Swamp Thing series should want her to appear, however briefly. Barbeau is introduced early on in "Long Walk Home" as Dr. Palomer - a new assistant director at the CDC, who demands immediate answers as to why Dr. Abby Arcane was so slow in returning back to their home base in Atlanta and why she failed to file daily updates on the plague she was meant to be treating. Fans of the show know it is because Abby has been busily searching for a cure for Alec Holland's condition and dealing with her own feelings for the Swamp Thing.
Modern day comics fans might be stunned to know that there was once a time when Swamp Thing had been more heavily adapted into live-action than Batman. Indeed, Swamp Thing's second movie beat Batman's second full-length feature film to theaters by a month. Of course, Tim Burton's Batman went on to become the biggest hit of the summer of '89, whereas Jim Wynorski's The Return of the Swamp Thing is barely remembered and not too fondly at that. Still, the sequel did inspire the first live-action Swamp Thing series, which was more serious and much better received, running for three seasons on USA Network.
It remains to be seen if any other prominent actors from the Swamp Thing films might show up in the final two episodes. Sadly, Dick Durock, who played the role of Swamp Thing in both live-action films and the 1990 television series, passed away in 2009. However, there is still a chance that Heather Locklear, who played Abby Arcane in The Return of The Swamp Thing, might do a cameo appearance.