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Trashcan Man is an antagonist of the Stephen King 1978 novel The Stand and its 1994 and 2020 TV miniseries adaptations of the same name.
In the 1994 miniseries, he was portrayed by Matt Frewer, who also played Panic in Disney's Hercules and Jobe Smith in Lawnmower Man 2. In the 2020 miniseries, he was portrayed by Ezra Miller, who also portrayed Kevin Khatchadourian in We Need to Talk About Kevin and Credence Barebone in the Fantastic Beasts film series.
Biography
Donald Mervin Elbert aka Trashcan Man is a deadly schizophrenic, who has a love for fire and using fire to destroy things. His name comes from his past when, as a youngster he would start fires in trashcans. He got shock treatments from an Indiana institution until he went to prison for arson.
When the superflu kills all the inmates and guards, Trashcan Man is able to escape prison and goes to his hometown, Powtanville, Indiana. He then lays waste to cities and oil tanks with fire and while he's running he experiences an agonizing accident by jumping over a railing and breaking his right wrist, the net result of the accident is his hand points away from his body at a 90 degree angle. While burning down Gary, he gets rough burns on his left arm and then gives up his plan to burn the United States and joins Randall Flagg, who appears to him in his dreams and says that he has great work for Trashcan Man in the desert. He then travels to Las Vegas, the kingdom of Randall Flagg and his followers, and encounters The Kid, a mentally unstable drunkyard, who only agrees to side with Randall Flagg if he gets to take over, but The Kid is killed by the wolves sent by Randall Flagg.
Trashcan Man, like all of Flagg's followers, is given a black gem and becomes one of Flagg's top men. Trashcan Man also has a gift with discovering weapons and very dangerous devices and searches for them in the desert and arms the fighter jets at Indian Springs Air Force Base as well. He proves to be useful until he gets harassed by a few of the workers, which causes him to relive memories from his past and abandons his loyalty to Randall Flagg.
He blows up all the trucks and fighers, kills Flagg's pilots, and then disappears in the desert. He discovers a nuclear warhead, and plans to destroy Flagg and his forces with it, but develops radiation sickness. He reappears close to the end of the book, when he brings Randall Flagg and the rest of the followers the nuclear warhead, now attached to Trashcan Man's ATV. Furious, Randall Flagg orders Lloyd Henreid, his right-hand man and second in command of Las Vegas, to take Trashcan Man away. Henreid sympathizes with Trashcan Man and tells him that he needs to get the nuclear warhead away from there, and that it's dangerous. Flagg then orders Lloyd to shoot and kill him. Before Henreid and Flagg make a move to do anything with Trashcan Man, The Hand Of God appears from the sky and activates the warhead, killing all of Flagg's followers, Larry Underwood, Ralph Brettner, Trachcan Man, and Lloyd Henried.
