Mysteries around the DOOM cover

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/doom/images/9/91/TITLEPIC.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140323153207

1 - Why in-game cover is different of the normal cover?

2 - Who is the guy behind of the Marine in the cover?

3 - The gun that marine is firing not appear in any moment.


Sorry for my english.

2. She's Donna. She is bringing coffee to the rescue.

(I have no idea.)

People have theorized that the guy behind the marine is actually you and the guy front and center is some other guy who is killed by the time you arrive. Because there are no other people when you get there, you're completely alone and surrounded by hell spawn.

The Doomguy is in front, striking his famous pose while Anthony Carmine is in the background running up because his gun jammed. He gets killed soon after while the Doomguy is doing more interesting things.

The Doomguy is never aware of his existence.

And that's why we all think we were alone in Doom 1.

A better question is did the imp find the Doomguy's heart rate to be at an acceptable level?

1- so that it fit the screen and portrayed the main character to look cool.

2- a Marine who is trying desperately to catch up with Doomguy
- a Marine who is trying to rescue Doomguy from the Barons
- a rookie who survived and is teamed up with Doomguy
- a Marine who is yelling "NOOOOO!" while running in slow motion.

3- it WAS in the alpha and beta versions.

We see John Stalvern shootating his gun at the baron of the hell, with cernel Jonsoon runned behind he to tell he was now zombie.

It's your coop partner duh. There are two more marines hiding behind the scenes just in case.

It's pity that, despite the cover depicts a baron with a gun instead of the arm, we don't get to see this monster in the game. This variant of baron would perfectly fit in the niche between regular baron and the cyberdemon.

Your image is missing something: The guy at the bottom holding a weapon in a first person perspective. I recall someone theorizing he was the real Doomguy.

Zed said:

Your image is missing something: The guy at the bottom holding a weapon in a first person perspective. I recall someone theorizing he was the real Doomguy.

That's interesting, I never even noticed the gun at the bottom until now.

Looks just like the gun the other demon has.

MetroidJunkie said:

Looks just like the gun the other demon has.

Ah, good point. So that gun at the bottom would belong to another demon, rather than being a space marine.

I don't know, they appear to be similar (not identical, IMO), but so does the gun the guy is firing. It could also be a third, different weapon.

If demons having guns for their left hand is common, such as the other one in the picture, then it would make sense that the right hand immediately to the right of the gun in question would belong to the same demon as said gun.

The shotgun is present in the game's titlescreen to show off the main weapon you'll be using. Additionally, especially back in the 256 days, the red backdrop against the green marine really 'popped'. I think it's pretty cool that there's two different renditions of the cover.

That bottom gun is tbe Barons.
1- the two weird spike things on the top.
2- the gun is left handed, and there is another hand next to it(right hand).

Always thought the gun the cover marine was firing into the horde was the chaingun.

A mystery I think is the design of the DOOM font and the colors used. Metal music aside, the lower half always looked like pyramids to me and they sort of have hieroglyphics. The top half looks like a sky, but it's very technological looking. What it says to me is the clash of technology with ancient civilization. If you take Doom 3's story into the fact it makes more sense. And the unearthing of ancient evil with this new-found technology from above (the stars).

EduXYZ said:

1 - Why in-game cover is different of the normal cover?

Doom's graphics are all restricted to a limited 256 color palette. Lots of Doom's artwork came from stuff that was digitally scanned in to the computer, but the limited palette meant that heavy editing was necessary afterwards to bring it to an acceptable quality.

Well the Baron looking towards us is named Chuck, and we are seeing the entire picture from the perspective of another Baron named Barry. We see his cybernetic prosthetic and other hand. Chuck is turning to face us, Barry, the viewer, and is about to say.

"Barry, we better get the fuck out of here. That human is a one man army!"

"Fuck Chuck, grow a spine! You want to end up being crucified like those other guys back at the Tower of Babel?"

Cyanosis said:

Always thought the gun the cover marine was firing into the horde was the chaingun.

Or it's the chaingun's stand-in from the Doom novels, the "AB-10 machine pistol". It doesn't look anything like the in-game chaingun.

I still find Zero Punctuation's theory about the demon putting in his eye contacts (Since he couldn't reel back that fast after having just gotten shot) to be pretty amusing. XD

So we got Chuck and Berry deciding to go AWOL, one demon being murdered while he puts in contacts, and another checking the Doomguy's pulse to make sure he's not in danger of a heart attack while he blasts demons... Is anyone starting to think the Doomguy is just Rambo on shrooms visiting a hospital?

the guy in the back is some random marine. btw he is dead
http://vignette4.wikia.nocookie.net/doom/images/4/4b/Doom-1-.gif/revision/latest?cb=20080630083507

look at the bottom left corner

Ah but what about the marine being gibbed in the lower right corner? Great mystery!

To be fair, that looks a bit ambiguous since the guy's being gibbed and it's colored red. Could easily be infighting a Former Human. And it'd be accurate since demons can actually gib former humans.

Well in that case the baron is really just giving the other marine a buddy hug from behind as his pose for the picture and the marine was either startled or is just really excited about the open bar.

That Cacodemon oddly seems out of place, he's even getting in the way of the title. What an asshole. Cacodemons are so self centered.

Piper Maru said:

That Cacodemon oddly seems out of place, he's even getting in the way of the title. What an asshole. Cacodemons are so self centered.

THAT'S A NICE TITLE SCREEN YOU HAVE THERE

SHAME IF ANYTHING WERE TO HAPPEN TO IT

Piper Maru said:

Ah but what about the marine being gibbed in the lower right corner? Great mystery!

It's a former human. Mystery solved.

Look, the real answer here is that Don Ivan Punchatz was a legendary sci-fi and fantasy artist. I don't know if y'all know this, but vintage sci-fi art -- which the Doom box art most certainly is -- is very much its own kind of thing.

He did a pretty good job of bringing to life the Space Marine design. The cover isn't exactly what you'd find in the game, but it doesn't need to be -- it's still more or less an accurate depiction, just filtered through the lens of a guy who did covers for Heavy Metal.

It's a masterwork of sci-fi art, really, but it's also very much a classic composition, with a central figure (the assumed hero) besieged by a ravenous, inhuman enemy, firing his weapon into the crowd, and a secondary character in the background. It could've been made at any point in the late 70s or the 80s.

(For comparision, Fallout 1 had several loading screens done in a vintage comic book style, true to its retro sci-fi roots.)