Doom's protagonists

A rendition of the protagonist on the Doom cover art

Doom's protagonist (Our Hero Space Marine, Doom Marine/DOOM Marine or Doom Slayer, but often called Doomguy by fans, or just "Marine") represents the player's characters of Doom and its sequels or offshoots, who are also referred to as the Doom marine or the Marine (the latter especially in Doom 3), as well as our hero at the end of Doom II. In all the games (sans Doom II RPG), these protagonists are futuristic marines that are never specifically referred to by name. In Chinese, the character is known literally as "Doom Warrior" or "Doom Fighter" (Simplified Chinese: 毁灭战士; Pinyin: huǐ mìe zhàn shì), which is also the release name of Doom itself in China.

A different way of referring to each protagonist is as the "player," although this is a technical denomination similar to that of the player character in role-playing games. And so, the player knows the player isn't the only marine and will see a bunch of other marines that were killed on their missions.

The Doom Marine of the classic Doom series originally had no actual name because, according to John Romero, The protagonist is supposed to be the person playing Doom. The only game to give the traditional armored male marine a name is the Doom RPG series (in the second however the player can select one of three people, two marines, and a scientist). Tom Hall and John Romero have since confirmed that he is actually one of the Blazkowicz clan, descended from B.J. Blazkowicz. Doom RPG series assigned at least two members to the Blazkowicz clan as well, one who was the original Doom Marine, and another named Stan.

Doom II may or may not be the same character or a separate character from the Doom I character depending on different manuals and websites. His backstory differs from that of the original Doom character in that he fought on UAC Mars Base and escaped in a drop ship. Whereas as original Doom character fought in Phobos and Mars and in both original Doom and Ultimate Doom reaches earth via transporter gateways.

It should be noted that the Marine in Doom RPG (whose name is apparently B.J. Blazkowicz (Doom RPG), and Stan Blazkowicz are two separate individuals (apparent clones or relatives) this is made more clear by the Doom II RPG comic in which it refers to the Mars Incident, and that there were no known survivors (at least no known that UAC was willing to divulge), and Stan Blazkowicz had not previously encountered the demons. The Doom RPG website states, however, that the Marine in the game is the same one from Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3. There are allusions/predictions of future events on the Phobos moon of Mars, and Earth as well in the Doom RPG series which may suggest a possible prequel.

There are other Marine characters introduced in some of the Expansion Packs as well. Including the Marine Engineer (of Resurrection of Evil) and the one Bravo Marines (Lost Mission).

In the literature, the Marine of Doom novels (Flynn Taggart) and Doom 3 Novels (John Kane) are inspired by the Doom Marine character from their respective games but are given different past histories, and events do not follow exactly like the games, including many different outcomes. Taggart story merged details from both Doom and loosely inspired by Doom II (taking a different route from the game ultimately Deimos is in hyperspace rather than Hell, with much different set of events and no Daisy, and Demons are actually aliens from another planet).

In the Quake series the classic marine is given the code-name Doom (character), and battles alongside and against female marine Crash, and fellow marine Phobos (character) (the latter possibly inspired by one of the four co-op doom sprite skins colors). The Doom and Crash characters were later commissioned by ID Software as Doom 20th Anniversary toy figures by Symbiote Studios as a set reflecting both Doom Space Marine character, and Phobos (including each's link to the Doom and Quake series) each with the BFG 9000/BFG 10000 and helmet.

Skills

The Doom Marines have rather impressive acrobatic and dexterous skills. They can run at a whopping 57 miles per hour (92 km/h) without losing stamina, fall from great heights without getting hurt, and carry a large supply of rockets and other ammunition without being weighed down (possibly from a portal-like device, like an infinitely large backpack). In addition, they lack the need to reload their weapons (with the exception of the Super Shotgun), as they are capable of firing non-stop until ammunition has been completely depleted.

The introduction of "jump" and "duck" controls in source ports such as ZDoom and Skulltag, although not canon, seem to quash the widespread rumors of the 1990s that the Doom marine was a paraplegic transporting himself by a rocket-powered wheelchair.

In the first two Doom games, the protagonist appears to be left-handed. In addition to gripping his weapons left-handed, he punches with his left fist. However, this is contradicted by the cover of Ultimate Doom, where he is firing his gun with his right hand while clutching the air with his left. Oddly, the in-game version of the cover shows a near-exact copy of the physical cover but has the Doom marine holding a weapon in his left hand as well. More likely the marine is ambidextrous as he's seen operating the shotgun weapons with his right hand on the trigger. In Doom 3, the marine is right-handed, with all the weapons appearing on the right side of the screen. This could have been due to the fact that most shooters have right-handed players, and having a left-handed character could have been disorienting to gamers.

Name

In the original series, the protagonist is only ever referred to as "Our Hero" in the game ending, and strategy guides. While the manuals indicate that he is a Marine.

Understandably, many arguments have been made over the proper name for the player characters, or as to whether names would be appropriate at all. The original story and in-game text screens by id Software are composed in the second person, suggesting that there is no definable "Doom guy" and that the character simply stands for whoever is incidentally playing the game. John Romero has pointed out the main reason for the lack of a name for the game character by stating the following: The less you know about him, the more likely you as the player will feel free to invent your own personality for him. There was never a name for the DOOM marine because it's supposed to be YOU.

In the early Doom Bible, a character named Buddy Dacote is described in a way that, of all the characters described, makes him most similar to the game's eventual protagonist. The Doom Bible notes that Dacote stands for Dies at conclusion of this episode, and correspondingly the marine in the finished game seems to die or to be close to dying at the very end of Doom's first episode, Knee Deep in the Dead, as a result of the final ambush in the dark room after taking the anomaly's demonic teleporter. According to Tom Hall, Buddy was meant to be the character that foreshadowed bad things ahead through fuzzy HUD transmissions for the player, and occasionally telling what to do. The player was supposed to try and to get to him, and when they did, the boss at the end of the episode shredded Dacote in half. In some ways his role was similar to that given to the character Sarge in Doom III.

Other products that extend the Doom franchise to provide a name for the main character. The Doom novels roughly based on the classic games give the marine the name of Flynn Taggart. This name was re-used in the famous Call of Duty series, where the main character was just called "Taggart" for short. In the Doom movie, the name of the protagonist is John Grimm, nicknamed Reaper. Another game from id Software, Quake 3, includes a playable character named Doom that is presented as an incarnation of the Doom Marine (as well as a female version named Crash, and another male marine named Phobos). In Doom, RPG material it is confirmed that the Marine is the same Marine from Dooms I through III, and it's implied in-game that his name could be B.J. Blazkowicz like his ancestor (who fought in WW2 and defeated the Harbinger of Doom, and it was predicted that in Wolfenstein RPG that B.J.'s ancestor/s would end up fighting the creature again. The Cyberdemon reconstructed by Kronos appears at the end of Doom RPG). In Doom II RPG the playable marine character is named Stan Blazkowicz, who is a descendant of William "B.J." Blazkowicz of Wolfenstein 3D. Stan also fights the Harbinger of Doom, but although as a boss, there is no direct plot point to his appearance (unlike in the original game).

John Kane is the marine of the Doom 3 novels (and perhaps not coincidentally, the protagonist of Quake 4 is named Matthew Kane).

According to John Romero and Tom Hall, the B.J. Blazkowicz, Commander Keen, and Doom Marine from the classic ID series (not the later MachineGames reboots) are all connected in the same timeline. B.J. is the grandfather of Keen, and Keen is the father or grandfather of Doom Guy and is, therefore, a Blazkowicz as confirmed in the RPG series.

The mobile version of Commander Keen ties into the MachineGames universe (the Keen Twins are son of Billy Blaze, and great-grand children of Terror Billy from the MachineGames universe), and could imply that a version of Doom events might occur in the MachienGames universe as well in the distant future (which the Keens might own Doom Marine descendent). If its the same universe established in Doom 2016 (were cultists run the UAC) or another is not known.

Game versions

There are a few possible different protagonists in all Doom games.

It's very important to note that there is little or no official information which states that these protagonists live in the same universe — although some cutscenes in Doom RPG and Doom II RPG imply that all Doom games happen in the same universe. The website for Doom RPG definitely states that the "Doom Marine" in Doom RPG, is the same character from Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3.

Tom Hall has confirmed that Wolfenstein, Commander Keen and Doom all occur in the same universe all following the Blazkowicz family.

Some evidence, such as the resemblance of Doom Marine (B.J. Blazkowicz) and Stan Blazkowicz with the original Doom's protagonist support the theory that they are, in fact, the same person living in the same universe or clones/relatives of each other (the classic Doom protagonist, therefore, is the same person in the RPG'S), which coincidentally also has the Mars base from Doom 3 (However, Mars City and Mars Outpost are two different facilities on Mars).

Similarly the Doom 3 BFG Edition manual suggests that the characters from several games are the same individual, and they represent his adventures:

"Step into the boots of DOOM Marine and experience his adventures for the first time, or all over again. Featuring enhanced versions of DOOM 3, DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil and the all new DOOM 3: The Lost Mission, plus the classics DOOM and DOOM II, DOOM 3 BFG Edition is the consummate DOOM experience."

― Doom 3 BFG Edition Manual

Interestingly the introduction seems to go as far to possibly suggest that the marine in Resurrection of Evil is the same marine as from Doom 3. This would mean that he knows more about the previous incident than he first seams to (it is possible that his curiosity of the previous incident Is referring to what happened with the Martians, rather than the invasion a years ago). However, it also seems to imply that the Bravo Marine in Lost Mission is the same marine, but this is impossible as its timing overlaps with events of Doom 3 (only 6 hours into the invasion, presumably around the time that the Marine witnesses Bravo Team get destroyed). One possible way to explain this is that the marine was included into bravo team during Doom 3 and The Lost Mission actually takes place after Doom 3 or between his fight with the cyberdemon and his rescue, while the cutscene in the beginning is a flashback. This is a stretch though. However it is supported by Resurrection Of Evil as it mentions that there was only one survivor of the previous incident. This would however beg the question of why Richard Myers wasn't counted. But its possible that with is position being so top secret that his whereabouts were kept from public knowledge.

However, backstory for Doom II would imply that he is at least a separate individual than the one from original Doom as each reach earth by different methods. Both endings of Doom put the original marine as having reached earth by gateways/teleporters, and Doom II marine was a survivor of an invasion on Mars who escaped by drop ship. However it is also possible that the marine returned to Mars after returning from Hell. This is most likely true as most official sources seam to say that they are the same.

SPOILER WARNING: Plot details follow.

Classic Doom

Classic Doom originally followed the story of a Marine or Marines (Doom II has a different backstory) stopping invasions throughout the Solar System around the year 2022 (though this was apparently retconned to the 22nd century with later releases (Doom RPG most noteably)).

(NOTE: Following text contains details as stated in each game's respective manuals)

Doom/Ultimate Doom

The Doom Marine is the son or grandson of Commander Keen, and descendent of WWII's B.J. Blazkowicz. Notably he has no given rank (but presumed to be Corporal or less, as he's left behind by his commanding officers, and Sergeants to communicate back with base). The official guide states former sergeants are those he once knew and hated (possibly in reference to the superior officer he left in a body bag), and it implies they are ranked above him.

The original box art portrays the protagonist as a rather muscular man wearing green armor as well as a light brown space helmet that partially conceals his facial features (yet his facial appearance is still revealed from the very start of the game as the status bar face). The player's in-game avatar, as seen in multiplayer mode and in the ending to Doom II, is based on this depiction.

Doom Marine's face

The Marine's face is seen in the game's status bar, where he is shown as having light brown hair and a crew cut. The protagonist also appears with his head uncovered in the title screen for Doom II and in the final screen for The Ultimate Doom, but in both cases displaying a more unusual haircut and wearing armor and pants of a darker hue of green. The character's personality is never examined to any extent in the game, though he appears to have a strong moral compass, as it was his refusal to fire upon civilians and subsequent assault against his commanding officer who gave the order, that got him stationed on Mars in the first place. Also, it could be said he is passionate about battling Hell's hordes as, after a new weapon is picked up, the

Doom Marine in battle at the main hangar on Phobos

protagonist grins devilishly, and also grits his teeth intensely when firing a weapon continually. When taking damage, the marine similarly clenches his teeth in anger and pain, and otherwise his eyes are constantly and alertly darting to and fro. In these classic games, he has a 100% pain chance, meaning he freezes/cringes in pain when taking damage at any time. At the end of The Ultimate Doom there is a jocose tidbit about our hero, saying that the severed rabbit head

Doom Marine fighting The Spider Mastermind

shown at the end of the third episode, Inferno, is the protagonist's pet rabbit, Daisy. After completing the fourth episode, Thy Flesh Consumed, a battered Marine is shown outside of a burning city on Earth, a not too seemly look of vengeful defiance on his face, with the rabbit's head clenched in his fist by the ears, and ready to wreak yet more violence on the Hellish invaders (foreshadowing the plot of Doom II).

In both 'endings' of Doom and Ultimate Doom, it is explained that the Marine reached earth through gateways/teleporters from Hell dimensions he was stuck in.

Doom II

See Marine (Doom II)...

In Doom II, the Marine (Corporal) was a survivor of a parallel invasion of the UAC Mars Base on Mars. He escaped in a drop ship back to earth, only to discover it had come under attack. Those who issue orders to him are Staff Sergeant, Sergeant Workman, and Sergeant Swann (back on Earth). He is often considered to be the same marine as the one from Doom, however this creates a plothole because the marine from Doom 2 returned to Earth from an invasion on Mars while the marine from Doom teleported back to Earth from Hell. Its possible if they are the same marine that he was called back to Mars to deal with the invasion and while there the invasion on Earth started. This would mean that Thy Flesh Consumed took place after his return from Mars rather than right after Inferno.

He joins other marine troops to stop the invasion on Earth. When the remnant population of Earth and their ships are trapped on the starport controlled by demon, the Marine and other soldiers goes there to deactivate the force field which contains the last spaceships. Since he had other Hell encounters in the past, the Marine is the only one who survives on the starport. After he reaches a demon outpost, he manages to free the spaceships on MAP11: 'O' of Destruction, thus becoming the only human left on Earth. After this, the Marine seems to accept his fate and wait for death.

After the spaceship's sensors locate the center of the invasion, which is located on the Marine's hometown, he abandon his suicidal waiting and goes there to stop Hell on Earth forever. However, after he reaches the main gateway on MAP20: Gotcha!, he learns that the only way to close it is on the other side, going to Hell again. This Hell is slightly different from the one on the original Doom, since it has some demonic urban building - probably part of Earth inside Hell dimension. There, he discovers the Icon of Sin, the biggest demon he has ever seen, who is capable of creating demons and possibly the leader of Hell. After the destruction of Icon of Sin, the Marine returns to Earth to help rebuilding it, and Hell is left in ruins.

Doom PSX/Saturn Doom

In this versions, the PSX manual refers to the character as the "Soldier". His adventure is a mix of Doom 1 and Doom 2, as one giant campaign. Some enemies from Doom II can be found in Ultimate Doom campaign (except the Arch-Vile), along with a couple of new enemies.

SNES Doom and PSX doom share a few connections as well such as the DOOMNL manual, although it lacks the Doom II enemies.

Final Doom

However, in TNT Evilution, we learn that a Marine (now promoted to "Marine Commander) continued to work on the UAC, now as a sergeant of marine troops on one of Jupiter's moons. There, the UAC is conducting experiments to close the link between our universe and Hell, and after some successful tests, the base is invaded by an enormous demon ship, which invades the base and kills all personnel, with the exception of the Marine. He, once again, manages to go to Hell and destroys the Icon of Sin again.

A year later, in the The Plutonia Experiment, its learned that the UAC finally found a way with the quantum accelerator to close all the seven gateways between Earth and Hell. But when the Icon Of Sin returns once again, he leads yet another demon horde and manages to keep one gateway open, he began a full scale Earth invasion. The Marine, who was on vacation, is called to contain the invasion on the UAC base and prevent another Hell on Earth. The Marine manages both to recover the quantum accelerator prototype and to destroy the Icon Of Sin, which leads them to believe that Hell would be back as the place that only the bad people go when they die.

Doom 64

The Doom 64 Marine.

However, years later Hell tries once again to reach our universe in Doom 64 by using one of the old bases invaded by demons (it's never specified which, although there is a reference to 'planetary' twice which could indicate UAC Mars Base from Doom II, but if it was not meant to be taken literally could be reference to Phobos or Deimos), but now they are led by the Mother Demon. The Marine is recommissioned to fight again. In this version he looks almost identical to the Doom I and Doom II marines, except that his armor is black instead of being of the same green as his clothes, his boots and helmet are black too instead of grayish beige, and his visor is blue rather than gray. Also, his helmet features a radio antenna on the side in a way somewhat reminiscent of Boba Fett's helmet in The Empire Strikes Back. His face is never shown in Doom 64 since there is no status bar (though it may appear in the Soul Sphere graphic). It is unknown if he is the same marine, however, the game's background story text implies that he is, in fact, the same person from the original games, denoting him as "the only experienced survivor of the DOOM episode" and "the only Marine to endure the slaughter."

According to Doom 64 (2020): "Welcome, to DOOM 64! The cult classic returns, 22 years after its 64-bit debut. In this follow up to DOOM II, you'll fight through demonic hordes, hunt down the Mother of Demons, and stop Hell's invasion as you battle more than 30 action-packed levels!"  Thus Doom 64 apparently takes place directly after "Doom II" (and thus may make the events of Final Doom take place with different character, or characters "Marine Commander").

In the end of Doom 64, the Marine once again goes to Hell and manages to kill the Mother Demon. After this, the Marine accepts his fate of eternal confrontation with demons and decides to close the gateway between Hell and our universe from inside, thereby staying in Hell forever to prevent any further invasions once and for all.

Some fans speculate that Doomguy, in the 2016 reboot, became Doom Slayer after the events of Doom 64, the background information given for "Doom Slayer" in Quake Champions may further support this theory. The developers have further said that The Lost Levels campaign is meant to further link Doom 64 with Doom 2016. The ending of Lost Levels quotes the Slayer Codex indicating that he is the one who will become the Slayer, and tear up hell for millenia. Doom Eternal also has cutscenes and codex entries showing Doom Marine being captured by the Night Sentinels and being trained into the Slayer.

Doom 3

The Doom 3 protagonist

In Doom 3, the Marine's (aka Marine Transfer, Marine Security, and Corporal (ID# 381 9X-22)) appearance is roughly consistent with the classic games, except that his facial features are not concealed, since he does not wear a helmet. His physique is also somewhat less powerful looking, although he is still very muscular. He has black hair and appears to be in his late twenties to early thirties. He is first seen arriving to Mars with Elliot Swann and his bodyguard from a Phantom Class Dropship.

You are a marine, one of Earth's toughest, hardened in combat and trained for action. Shortly after reporting for duty at the Union Aerospace Corporation's Mars research facility, a massive demonic invasion overwhelms the base, leaving chaos, horror and uncertainty in its wake. As one of only a few survivors, you must use overwhelming firepower and all of your combat skill to battle through the demon hordes, find out what went wrong and prevent the evil from spreading. Only you stand between Hell and Earth.

His background remains a mystery although he appears to have a rank of a "Corporal", as heard from a member of the rescue team in the final cutscene. He also recently arrived on Mars as a replacement for "Corporal Allen", who was shipped back to Earth for psyche problems.

Unlike in the original series, the player can "talk" to various people. Most of them do not say much - other than that they are busy and the UAC base is a frightening place, but a few, such as Sergeant Kelly, give the player some briefing regarding his mission, especially after the the forces of hell invade the UAC base. Even on these "chatting" occasions, however, the player character is addressed simply as "Marine" and remains silent, either because most of the discussion is about his orders (this is a similarity to the Half-Life series), or due to the silent protagonist narrative. Although the marine never truly speaks, he utters grunts of pain when injured or a scream when killed and he coughs when in contact with poisonous gas.

The Marine is depicted as tough and fearless in the game's cut scenes. He rarely shows any fear or panic, despite the increasingly horrific events occurring around him, including several bizarre and disturbing psychic visions. Throughout his entire ordeal, he is only seen once showing a brief moment of fear, (stepping back slightly and appearing to mouth a curse) when he first encounters the towering Cyberdemon.

The manual for Doom 3 BFG Edition went as far to suggest that the "DOOM Marine" was the same character throughout all previous Dooms (including Expansion Packs and the classic games) who had multiple adventures.

Doom RPG (B.J. Blazkowicz)

The website for Doom RPG does state that the player in Doom RPG is the same character from Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3. "you reprise the role of the Doom Marine made famous in the groundbreaking id Software titles Doom, Doom II, and Doom 3." (though he may be a 'clone' of the original character) Although its unclear which order they fit if part of a single timeline. Perhaps Doom 3 is roughly the prequel. But how Doom I and II fit into its not known (they were originally chronologically set a century before). This seems to ignore the backstory to Doom II which had the marine a survivor of an invasion of Mars Base (but Doom RPG actually mirrors that backstory as well as Doom III)

The Marine in Doom RPG is the same "nameless" marine (though a log may indicate his name is B.J. Blazkowicz, and another that he's a clone), and he is said to be the same protagonist of the original Doom from the classics and Doom 3 (according to the Doom RPG website). It is strongly implied by background story and UAC website that it probably takes place after events of Doom 3. It is his return to Mars after recovering on Earth.

Although they use the same HUD bar, it is not the Doom II RPG's Marine (as that prologue of that game makes it clear that they are sent to investigate the Mars Incident as there were no known survivors, before having their own issues during a stopover on the Moon). In Doom RPG, the Marine use the same weapons as on the original Doom game, with the additional axe and fire extinguisher. On the game, he manages to stop the Hell invasion by killing Kronos and the Cyberdemon.

While his rank is not given, one of the end game score nicknames lists him as "Sarge" (assuming he gets a promotion after stopping the hell portal)..

Doom (2016) & Doom Eternal

In the 2016 reboot of Doom, rather than the character being a direct representation of the player, the protagonist is an ancient/superhuman warrior called the "Doom Slayer" that was either banished to hell or chose to stay there (possibly a reference to Doom 64's ending. Another possible reference, could be the Martian Hero mentioned in Doom 3.), in which he was captured by hell's forces and sealed in a tomb. He was later retrieved by the UAC where he was "held captive" and studied, until hell invades the base, which then he escapes and arms himself with a pistol, and his Praetor Suit.

Unlike some of the other protagonists, the Doom Slayer shows a little more emotion, evident when he angrily destroys the communication panels that Samuel Hayden tries using to ask for assistance from the marine. Noteworthy, the Doom Marine is not persuaded by Hayden's excuses when the chairman justifies the risk in mining Argent plasma from Hell, as it is clear the consequences took the lives of many UAC personnel. He also demonstrates this during the penultimate mission, when he decides to take a back-up of VEGA's code before destroying it in order for the AI to continue existing, despite not being asked to do it.

The Slayer's face is obscured, however the jawline and general structure of his face resembles B.J Blazkowicz from Wolfenstein: The New Order to some extent. This may be a reference to how the original Doom and Wolfenstein player models were very alike, also having been told to be related somehow. His full face is shown finally in Doom Eternal. He has dark hair somewhat like the Doom 3 marine (rather than reddish brown of the classic games).

While nothing was confirmed (until Doom Eternal), it had been speculated that this is in fact the same marine from the Classic Doom games, as in game documents found in Hell say the Doom Marine has traveled through "Worlds and Time" and was described as being extremely powerful and dangerous. The texts also say that the demons have been plagued by him for "eons of time", during which he would have became a legend in their world. Interestingly enough, the Praetor Suit has many similarities to the Marine Armor Doomguy wears in the classic Doom games, even so far as to have company logos, and production numbers located on the armor. This is all despite the fact that the suit is told to have been made in Hell for the Doom Slayer to better fight the demon hordes. A scripture can be picked up and read and on this scripture shows the Doom Marine from the classic Doom games wearing the classic Doom Armor while talking about The Doom Slayer, meaning that the armor could have originally been made on Earth, but later altered in Hell with the remains of his original Marine Armor into the Praetor Suit

Furthermore, the Doom Slayer is shown to be somehow connected to an order of "knights" of the Argent D'Nur world, called the Night Sentinels in-game. While the Doom Marine has their symbol on his armor, his armor itself is far different, having a futuristic and military look, whereas the knights have armor closely resembling that of medieval European civilization. Strangely, the Doom Slayer fully comprehends English, which would make no sense if he were to be from Argent D'Nur, an "alien planet" where such a language would not exist. It is possible that the Doom Slayer is not actually from this world, but rather came there from a different time in the human universe, or from an alternate version of this, to the alien world. It can be assumed he would then have assisted the alien civilization to fight of the demons, which were apparently invading.

Classic Doom Marine can be see in the Super Turbo Turkey Puncher 3 and Demon Destruction mini games, as well as if the character is killed in one of the classic doom levels.

In Doom Eternal though it is finally confirmed that the Doomslayer is indeed the original Doom protagonist.

Below is a vague timeline of events based on the "combined Doom universe theory" where the Doomslayer is the original classic era Doomguy (which is confirmed in Quake Champions, which also includes details of events of Doom 3, but its placement is not clear):

BEFORE DOOM

An ancient group of warriors called the Sentinels exist to combat the forces of Hell. They are betrayed by one of their own and the demons gain the upper hand.

DOOM 1

Doomguy is taken out of normal duty and shipped to Mars to assist the UAC after assaulting a senior officer for ordering him to engage civilians. Teleportation experiments go wrong and hell breaks loose on Mars' moons. A team including Doomguy go to check it out, everyone but Doomguy dies, and it's up to him to take care of business. Doomguy takes the fight through a portal to hell where he defeats the Spider Mastermind and returns to Earth.

DOOM 2

Upon returning to Earth, Doomguy finds it already ravaged by demons. The survivors plan to flee the planet, but the only remaining functional spaceport is under Hell's control. He fights to take back the spaceport and the remaining humans succeed in fleeing to space. Doomguy then travels to the Demons' entry portal on Earth to close it and succeeds after killing the Icon of Sin. Humanity returns to rebuild.

DOOM 64

Something survived on Mars' moon, however. The Motherdemon works to resurrect the fallen armies of hell. Doomguy returns to Mars to take out the trash, journeys into hell again and kills the Motherdemon. This time however he closes the portal from the inside. He has decided to remain in Hell to keep the demons from ever escaping it.

BETWEEN GAMES

While there, an entity known only as "The Wretch" supplies him with the Praetor suit to better survive in Hell with inhuman powers. He joins forces with a group called the Sentinels, who exist to fight the demons but lost their fight long ago. As time may flow differently in this dimension, the Doomslayer torments Hell for "thousands of years". The demons, unable to defeat him, devise a way to contain him. He is captured by the forces of Hell and trapped in a sarcophagus, sealed by demonic power. The Sentinels are later all killed.

DOOM 2016

The demonic forces again escape onto Mars and the UAC (possibly an alternate Mars across worlds and time sharing some elements from Doom 3 but also very different business structure and history) retrieve Doomguy from Hell to dig them out of their own mess. He is released from the sarcophagus, supplied his Praetor suit and sent to work. He journeys between worlds, destroying the Gore Nests that serve as Hell's links to the Doom world.

Quake Champions/Quake Arena series

In the Arena Eternal the Doom Slayer (codename: "Doom") is brought once more to fight champions from across time and space, and parallel earths and worlds.

Other Marines

Resurrection of Evil

The Resurrection of Evil protagonist

In the Doom 3 expansion pack Resurrection of Evil the main character is a different Marine. This Marine is a combat engineer (Marine Engineer), and thus is trained to operate a remote manipulation device known as the grabber. He has black shaved hair, wears blue armor, and appears to be somewhat older than the one in Doom 3, based on his heavily weathered facial features.

It has been almost 2 years since the mysterious incident shut down the UAC base on Mars. Several months ago, one of the UAC satellites still monitoring the red planet detected a beacon originating from Site 1. This early research facility was long forgotten, even before the invasion. Now, you're a Marine combat engineer, part of the massive research and security team lead by Dr. Elizabeth McNeil. Your team is being sent back to Mars in an attempt to find and investigate the source of this strange signal. What you'll find, nobody knows, but hopefully it will offer new insight into the ancient civilization that once inhabited Mars.

As your transport nears the surface, you cannot help but wonder what type of "accident" could have killed so many years ago... and could it happen again?

The game presents very little information on his background, only that he is part of a detachment of Space Marines under the command of Dr. Elizabeth McNeil, sent to investigate the UAC facility in the aftermath of the demon invasion. While investigating the Martian ruins he finds and touches the Heart of Hell artifact, which releases a wave of energy that disintegrates the rest of his squad and opens another portal to hell underneath the UAC base. Some sources claim that he is the same marine as the one from Doom 3. This seems to conflict with the fact that he seams unsure of what the previous incident was (as it says in the quote above). It is interesting to note though that he said years while the incident in Doom 3 only took place two years ago (which seams a rather short amount of time to call years in such a way). It is possible that he is referring to the Martians when the artifact was active in the past (with the artifact added to the demonic invasion of Mars it is possible that the Martins were killed in much greater quantities, thus creating a death count that even the normal demonic invasion could not explain).

The Marine in Resurrection of Evil appears to be more anti-hero in outlook than the Doom 3 protagonist, as he seems to enjoy using the Heart of Hell, which uses human souls as a source of power and also ends up killing almost everyone else at the base. Though it is never explained whether or not the artifact truly consumes souls or if it simply is powered by them being present and he doesn't appear to intentionally kill his fellow humans. He also shows brief bursts of anger throughout the game, especially toward the Hell Hunters and Maledict. However, one could say he has more "personality," than the Marine in Doom 3. As he has better interactions with the characters, on occasion, he smiles, and even shows intrigue at one point.

Some fans believe his name is John Kane, the protagonist of the Doom 3 novel. However, they have nothing in common, and novel character's events mirror that of Doom 3 events with a few changes in details. One of the important details being that the Marine Engineer was not a survivor of Doom 3's events and did not know what happened during those events, as it had been classified.

The Lost Mission

In Doom 3: BFG Edition, the extra solo mission "The Lost Mission", the player assumes the role of the last surviving Marine from the ill-fated Bravo Team (November 15, 2145). After witnessing the carnage of his team, this wounded Marine escapes in a ventilation shaft, armed with a pistol, before dealing with a pair of Wraiths. The Bravo Marine is guided by Dr. Richard Meyers as he fights his way through to reconnect the dimension gateway to get help from Earth.

Doom Resurrection

In the iPhone game Doom Resurrection, which happens before Doom 3, the protagonist is a normal marine from the a Bravo Team in June, 2145 (six months before the events of Doom 3). After his survival from the outbreak, the Marine has to fight the remaining demons on the Mars base to escape the facility and warn Earth of the threat.

Doom II RPG

In Doom II RPG one of the three playable marine characters, named Stan Blazkowicz, bears a striking resemblance to the protagonist of the original Doom. In the game's storyline he is a descendent of William "B.J." Blazkowicz, the Wolfenstein 3D hero. He is apparently the cousin of the Doom RPG hero. There is a connection between Doom II RPG and Doom Resurrection as Sam exists in both games (with Sam's remains found in the RPG).

Novel Versions

Classic Doom Novels

In the Doom novels, Doom Marine was given a personality that was shunned by many fans and members of the Doom community. His name is Flynn Taggart, or "Fly" for short. The novels describe him as somewhat cocky, rather intelligent, well-worded, mechanically gifted, loyal, and in some ways, arrogant. He is a faithful, yet long-suffering Catholic with a strong belief in God, having attended four years of Catholic school. He ended up joining the Marines as a result of a strong belief in honor, and also because of his father, a person he held much disdain towards, a petty criminal who was frequently at odds with the law. Flynn's father never understood the concept of honor, as Flynn sees it, and also never understood why Flynn joined the Marines in the first place (nor did Flynn admit that he was one of the main reasons he did so; to not end up like him). He is also shown to have an aversion/hatred to officers.

Doom Knee Deep In Dead cover with Fly on it

In the novels he is given the rank of Corporal in "Fox Company" and is best friends with another Marine named Arlene Sanders, Fox Company's best scout. In the prologue, his CO Lieutenant Weem orders his company to shoot monks, believing them to be enemy soldiers incognito. However, Flynn tries to reason with him and, when he is unable to, he tries to punch him out in order to prevent the upcoming slaughter (echoing the beginning of the PC title's original story.) He is sent to Phobos to stand trial for assaulting a superior officer, but as he arrives, a distress message was sent from scientists working on the Two Gates, and Fox Company was sent to investigate sans Flynn, who was forced to stay behind. He was still able to incapacitate his two guards, "Ron and Ron 2", and make his way through the Phobos compounds alone.

The way Flynn's appearance is described in the Doom novels is identical to the original Doom games, though at times he removes his helmet.

Doom 3 Novels

On the Doom 3 novels Worlds on Fire and Maelstorm, which has similar Doom 3 storyline with few modifications (when John Kane came to Mars is different, and the outbreak occurs earlier in the year than in the game, and the ending and Kane's escape is very different), the name of the protagonist is John Kane, who has a somewhat similar backstory of military indiscretion as the original marine (Original Doom), though instead of attacking his commander, he was the commander and disobeyed an order to save his fellow marines.

Movie Version

Doom (2005 movie)

John "Reaper" Grimm (played by Karl Urban) is the son of UAC scientists who were killed in an accident during the early excavation of the Martian dig site. Reaper abandoned his scientific heritage and joined the military to forget about this personal tragedy, eventually becoming a member of the elite Rapid Response Tactical Squad (RRTS). Grimm, his commanding officer nicknamed Sarge, and the other members of the RRTS are dispatched to the UAC Mars Facility to investigate the disappearance of several scientists, which ultimately pits them in a confrontation against genetically engineered monsters created by an ancient Martian retrovirus released by the UAC. Grimm also differs from the protagonists in the games due to having an actual name and interacting with other characters via his own dialogue.

Grimm's personality can be seen as rather angsty, as he is still dealing with his guilt over his parents' deaths and his concern for his sister, Dr. Samantha Grimm (also known as Sam), a researcher at the UAC Mars Facility. However, like his computer-game renditions, he has no problem killing multiple demons and even his own commanding officer, Sarge, after the latter begins to murder unarmed civilians in order to contain the outbreak.

Notably, at the end of the film, Grimm is injected with the Martian genetic material. Instead of turning into a monster, he instead gains superhuman strength, reflexes, and regenerative abilities. These powers allow him to stride through the infested base singlehandedly mowing down a small horde of demons including many zombies, several imps, a hell knight, and a demon (all seen by the audience in the game's classic first person perspective). This plot device is apparently the film's way of incorporating the berserk powerups in the games (see Berserk pack and Berserker).

Spoilers end here.

Doom: Annihilation

See Joan Dark and William J. Blazkowicz (Doom: Annihilation).

Technical information

See Player for details on the character entity from a technical perspective.

Trivia

• In Quake III Arena the Doom Marine is a playable character, referred to simply as Doom. He is 6ft (1.83 m) tall and weighs 180 lb (80 kg), according to the character description from the game. He is the second to last opponent in single-player.
• Almost every installments depict the Doom Marine wielding either the shotgun or super shotgun as his primary weapon.
  • Ending of Thy Flesh Consumed shows the Marine wielding a shotgun while holding the severed head of Daisy.
  • Doom II's end cast features "our hero" firing what sounds like a Super Shotgun (minus the reloading sound).
  • Doom 3's Marine wields a Shotgun in official artworks and most cutscenes of the game.
  • Doom (2016)'s main box art depicts the Doom Slayer wielding a Super Shotgun.
  • Doom Eternal's Super Shotgun is reputed by VEGA to be the Doom Slayer's relic of his past and his property.

Other media with references to the marine

Games

• Duke Nukem 3D
• Quake III Arena / Quake Live
• Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 3 (featured in the PC version as a secret skater)
• quake:Quake Champions

Gallery

Doomguy as he appears in Quake III Arena

DOOM 3

Doom 3: Resurrection of Evil

See also

• Player
• Models

Sources

This page uses content from Wikipedia. The original article was at Doom's protagonists. As with Doom Wiki, the text of Wikipedia is available under the GNU Free Documentation License.

• Interview with John Romero and Sandy Petersen in Jonathan Mendoza's The Official Doom Survivor's Strategies & Secrets (Sybex, 1994).