In Popular Culture
In the sixth season of Showtime's Dexter, Wormwood is a chemical weapon used by the season villain "The Doomsday Killer" as he enacts the prophecies of the Book of Revelation.
The character Lebedyev in Fyodor Dostoevsky's The Idiot interprets the "Star of Wormwood" as the network of railways spread across Europe.
In The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, a senior demon called Screwtape sends a series of letters to his nephew, a junior tempter named Wormwood. In the Calvin and Hobbes comics, Miss Wormwood was named after this demon.
In the Christ Clone Trilogy by James BeauSeigneur, Wormwood is an asteroid. It is destroyed by nuclear missiles, but the arsenic contained inside its divided exterior fall into the Earth's oceans, poisoning the fresh water and killing most, if not all, human beings.
In the Stephen King short story Home Delivery, an alien object enters Earth's orbit and causes the dead to rise as zombies and attack the living; the hellish object, a meteor-sized ball made up of many writhing worms, is referred to as "Star Wormwood." Also in "The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger," Sylvia Pittson, the preacher-woman in the town of Tull, makes reference to the "Star Wormword" while she speaks of Satan during a Sabbath. In another Stephen king book, Under the Dome, Star Wormwood is mentioned several times by Chef Bushey. Star Wormwood is also mentioned by Mother Carmody in King's short story "The Mist" and its film adaptation. Finally, in King's novel Cell (2006), a woman mentions star Wormwood when comparing the previous events in Boston to the Book of Revelation, shortly after Clay, Tom, and Alice leave the city.
In The Light of Other Days by Arthur C. Clarke and Stephen Baxter, a meteor called Wormwood is heading for our planet.
In the Shadowmancer series of books by G.P. Taylor, Wormwood is a comet headed straight for London which will destroy Earth.
Wormwood is mentioned as a possible baby name by a Satanist nun in the novel Good Omens.
In the DC Comics miniseries Kingdom Come, the Secretary General of the United Nations is named Wyrmwood. He calls down a nuclear strike to rid the world of all metahumans.
Star Wormword, a novel by Curtis Bok, set in the Depression, is about a horrible crime, the subsequent trial, conviction and execution of the criminal. The author, himself a renowned judge, ends the book with a criticism of capital punishment.
In "Invasion of the Bane", an episode of The Sarah Jane Adventures, Sarah Jane Smith speaks of the star called Wormwood falling to Earth and poisoning the water. The enemy in this episode was an alien called Mrs. Wormwood. She was actually turning people into zombies using a drink called "Bubble Shock!".
In the manga series Angel Sanctuary, the Egg of Wormwood is kept hidden in Hades, and used to summon a meteor that will wipe out one third of earth's population, the devils and those who have blasphemed against God. It actually turns out to affect all life, even the angels.
Swedish black metal band Marduk has an album entitled Wormwood after the star.
Gothic metal band Tristania has a song named "Wormwood" on its album World of Glass (2001), clearly mentioning the star.
Irish post-hardcore band Bats have a song named "Star Wormwood" on their album Red In Tooth & Claw.
In Supernatural season 5 episode 2 "Good God, Y'All", the star falls and poisons a town's river, as an omen of the arrival of the Horseman War.
The American deathcore band The Acacia Strain's 5th album is entitled Wormwood.
In the Rifts role-playing game, Wormwood is an alternate dimension, specifically a living planet which is the only accessible location within the dimension. The planet is inhabited by humans who rely on the planet for housing, food and water. In recent history a dark force of demonic creatures has infested the northern portion of the planet like a cancer it turns the planet against itself.
In Dragon Quest IX there is a town called Wormwood Creek.
In Vampire the Masquerade, Wormwood is the vampires' name for the star Nemesis as it appears in the sky, growing brighter and larger, in the events leading up to the possible end of the world in the year 2000. The nature of the star, and whether the world ends or not, are left up to the storyteller running the game.
Black Metal Band Marduk released their album Wormwood in 2009. Their most popular album since World Funeral.
The American rock band Fozzy have a song called "Wormwood" on their album Chasing The Grail.
Occult Gothic Rock band Whispers in the Shadow have a song called "Wormwood Star" on their 2012 album The Rites of Passage.
In the Dresden Files book Cold Days, Harry encounters a small pot bearing the name Wormwood next to identical ones bearing the names of other famous plagues, and accidentally cracks it.
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