Doom (1996)

Doom (1996), "written" by Steve Behling and Michael Stewart, art by Tom Grindberg, based on Doom by Id Software 

No, not the game. A comic book. Made in 1996. I'm guessing as an advertisement for the game. If you read the information segment of this post, you might have noticed I placed quotations around the writers, as I question how much actual writing went into this. I'm guessing none, as there's no actual story, just a jumbled mess of words, which are supposed to form some style of gallows humour. 

"Dynamite!" the berserker Doom Guy yells while punching an imps spine through its back. His internal dialogue flows in a poetic manner: "Who's a man and a half? I'm a man and a half! Berserker packin' man and a half!". He's cooking with gas, Doom Guy utters to a pile of rip apart bodies. He's clearly insane, maybe because of the Berserker Pack or because he's just turned insane on the count of demons trying to kill him. Who knows, or cares? The writers didn't, that much is clear. 

Uttering a terrible knock-knock joke to amuse no one but himself, the Doom Guy kicks in a door. He punches a humongous Cyber Demon into its gut, but alas, the Berserker Pack has run out. He's a mere mortal again. Crazy, but just a mortal now. Cyber Demon doesn't shift an inch, so a bigger gun is what is needed now. Preferably something really, really big. Like a big gosh darned gun, if you pardon my French. 

Zombies with guns are what the Doom Guy stumbles upon, but lo and behold! There's a chainsaw on the ground. And we all know what chainsaws are good for. Cutting trees, obviously, but with a stretch of the imagination, a motorized forestry tool can also cut through zombies like a hot knife cuts butter. "Ahhh! Chainsaw! The great communicator!", he yells and communicates his desires for bigger guns while slicing and dicing zombies.

He needs a bigger one. A much bigger one. A double-barreled shotgun is nice, but not as nice as it could be. Not enough power, dammit. Doom Guy ends in a dark room and decides to light it up with a couple of shotgun blasts. Again, he is in a room filled with corpses, splattered around by his shots. The crazy man feels healthy and deep respect towards his boomstick, which he then discards after falling in love with a chaingun.

Still feeling underequipped, Doom Guy splatters through some imps and other demons. He runs around peppering all he sees only to end up snatched by a Pinky demon, which pushes him to green sludge. Here's the first sensible thing Doom Guy utters "Who do you suppose left all that radioactive waste down there? And why?".  It's a legit question. Doom has always been very liberal with toxic waste. Then again, considering that the scientists of UAC opened a portal to Hell, workplace safety is just another set of strange words in the Doom universe.

The chaingun is now empty. Discarding it, Doom Guy steps through a teleporter, ending up in a room full of Cacodemons. There's a sweet, sweet plasma gun there too, so dodging the Cacodemon fireballs, green armoured lunatic leaps towards it. "The sugar-sweet kiss of heavy ordinance.", Doom Guy states while immolating Cacodemons with plasma. He's cooking with plasma now.

One invisible demon in a room filled with explosive barrels later, our man finally arrives in a room filled with slaughter. Demons are ripping UAC personnel apart, though that's not what catches Doom Guy's longing gaze. There it is, The Gun. That big, beautiful son of a bitch, the big fucking gun itself. "Papa's got a brand new bag!"

Tears in his eyes, Doom Guy embraces his new love. He has found what he was looking for and now it's time to return to the big bastard, whose guts he couldn't punch through earlier. Cyber Demon soon ends on the floor, riddled with bullet(?) holes from Doom Guy's new love cannon. "Righteousness - and superior firepower -  has triumphed! Amen to that."  

So ends the love story of a crazy man and his new gun. I feel tears swelling in my eyes. Not since Titanic have I witnessed such a tale of longing and desire. But in Doom, the lovers don't let go in the end. I feel Doom Guy won't let go of his love now that he has it. Unless he finds something bigger. He's always on the lookout for something bigger.

Doom comic is 16-pages of nonsensical violence. It's all about showcasing the various ways Doom Guy can spread his enemies all over the scenery. The writing plays a second fiddle, really, and isn't meant to be taken seriously. Still, it could be much better. Making nonsense doesn't mean the writer shouldn't try to write as good as he can. Or they can, as there are two writers for this tale of hard to reach love. I don't know why there was a need for two writers, the whole comic feels it really didn't warrant even one. Perhaps one of them knew how to read and the other was the reader. Who knows.  But what I do know is, that the writing is so hard trying to be hardcore, that it is almost adorable.  

If the writing misses the mark, so does the art as well. Tom Grindberg wasn't a novice artist. He had already been doing stuff for DC and Marvel since the 1980s, yet that doesn't really change the lazy nature of the quality of the illustrations presented here. I'm guessing the Doom comic was merely a quick paycheck for him. His other stuff is far better. That's all I have to say about that, really.

Doom comic isn't a spectacular piece by any means. Those who want to read it themselves can find it easily enough from the dark recesses of the internet. I can't say it's a waste of time, as it takes very little time to skim through the crude 16-pages it consists of. While it proudly portrays #1 on its cover, there were no other Doom comics done at least not to continue the epic tale portrayed here. And that is all fine with me.