Doom (comic)

The Doom comic is a sixteen-page comic book, written in 1996 by Steve Behling and Michael Stewart, with art and color design by Tom Grindberg, all credited with purposely gory nicknames for the occasion. It was produced by Dana Moreshead, for Marvel Comics, as a giveaway for a video game convention.

The story is based on that of Doom and Doom II (it is set on Earth, though it uses the name of the first episode of Doom), and revolves around a marine (without a helmet, wearing armor similar to the Doom II cover's marine) searching for powerful weaponry in order to defeat a cyberdemon. The strip includes many well-known Doom monsters, including zombies, Imps, Demons, Cacodemons, and Spectres. Several of the weapons from Doom and Doom 2 are featured, including the chainsaw, the Super Shotgun, the chaingun, the Plasma gun and the BFG9000. In the comic, the Super Shotgun replaces the original shotgun. It does not appear to be sawed-off as it does in the game.

The comic was not originally very well received, and was quietly forgotten for nearly five years after its release. However, it gained a large amount of attention in 2001 when Richard "Lowtax" Kyanka reviewed the comic on PlanetQuake, and later received exposure again in the 10 Years of Doom special at Doomworld in December 2003, where it was published online. Original art from the project was put up for auction on eBay in April 2004. The over-the-top character of the Doom comic has made it rather notorious within the fan community.

Most of the Marine's lines in the comic were later used as Achievement titles in the Xbox Live Arcade rerelease of Doom II.

Printings
There are two known printings of the comic. The first is the original giveaway printing and the second a set that was produced for the id Anthology collection. When compared to the better-known id Anthology version, the giveaway printing features the following differences:
 * It is printed on whiter paper than the id Anthology copy, which gives it more contrast.
 * The front cover looks somewhat paler.
 * The issue number is italicised and the warning text is not.
 * The advertisements are different; Hexen for PlayStation on the inside front cover, PlayStation Plus on the inside back cover and Final Doom for PlayStation on the back cover.

Fan tributes

 * A dramatic audio rendition of the Doom comic, released in September 2005
 * A video version of the Doom comic, incorporating scans and the dramatic rendition audio