John Romero finally reveals who the original Doom Guy really is

The cover for the original Doom is one of the most iconic pieces of videogame box art ever created. It's simple, stark, and perfectly evocative of the game experience: One man, unbowed and heavily armed, fighting off a horde of rampaging demons. But who is he? That's a question that, to be perfectly honest, I had never even considered before now. After all, it's just a drawing, right? 

Wrong. John Romero, one of the original Masters of Doom, revealed today on his blog that the cover art was actually based on a "male body model" who was photographed as a reference by illustrator Don Punchatz. And it's someone you know—and if you don't want the mystery spoiled forever, I suggest you stop reading now. 

"This scene took place in the art room where Adrian and Kevin spent their days creating the STARTAN tech base texture set, clay modeling characters, digitizing them with the NeXTCube workstation, scanning hospital slides for bloody walls, and listening to the screams from the dentist's office next door," Romero wrote. "The body model took his shirt off and started posing with our plasma gun toy. Don asked us for suggestions so I started telling him that the Marine was going to be attacked by an infinite amount of demons. It would be cool if he was on a hill and firing down into them. The model was holding the gun in various positions and none of them were interesting to me." 

This went on for about ten minutes, but nothing cool enough for the cover leapt out. Romero said he kept telling the model what he wanted, but the model "couldn't see the scene in his mind," and so he couldn't get the look they wanted. Finally, Romero had enough! 

"Frustrated, I threw my shirt off and told him to give me the gun and get on the floor – grab my arm as one of the demons! Defeated, he deferred. I aimed the gun in a slightly different direction and told Don, 'This is what I'm talking about!' Don took several pictures. I moved the gun some, the demon grabbed my leg, other arm, etc," he wrote. "At the end of it we all decided the arm-grabbing pose was going to be the best." 

"I AM THE DOOMGUY. (at least on the cover)" 

It's just a guess, but my bet is that the massive biceps and six-pack abs are a bit of what you might call an artistic exaggeration.   

Romero (part of him, anyway) also made an Easter Egg appearance in Doom 2, although it's a well-known bit of Doom trivia by now: "Romero's Head" is the hidden boss in the game's 30th and final map, Icon of Sin.
 
 

TOPICS
Andy Chalk
US News Lead

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.

Latest in FPS
spectre divide
Spectre Divide and its studio are shutting down after just six months: 'The industry is in a tough spot right now'
Masked Counter-Terrorist in helmet in forefront with sunglasses and beret-wearing CT in background touching headset
There's hope yet for Classic Offensive after its Steam rejection: The team behind the Counter-Strike 1.6 revival mod is in touch with Valve about its 'concerns'
Destiny 2 Rite of the Nine: The Emissary, massive, ominously standing at the edge of a water basin.
Oops! Bungie rolled out Destiny 2's Rite of the Nine event three weeks early, and new loot is already dropping
A soldier looks out over the Verdansk map, as a single tear rolls down his cheek.
The original Verdansk map is returning to Call of Duty: Warzone, to celebrate which we get a soldier crying to Nat King Cole
FragPunk codes - A close-up shot of a mercenary wearing a mask with glowing eyes.
All FragPunk codes and how to redeem them
An evil-looking demon with red eyes and horns
You can theoretically beat Doom: The Dark Ages without using a gun, but 'You'd have a hard time, that's for sure,' says the game's director
Latest in News
Nvidia RTX 5090 Founders Edition graphics card on different backgrounds
AI will be crammed in more of the graphics pipeline as Nvidia and Microsoft are bringing AI shading to a DirectX preview next month
Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics cards alongside an RTX 4090
Nvidia says it's sold twice as many RTX 50-series cards as RTX 40-series in the first 5 weeks. I'd bloody well hope so given there was essentially just the RTX 4090 for competition
AMD Radeon RX 9070/9070 XT graphics cards with artistic renders of reference design cards circled
Looks like a reference design AMD RX 9070 XT card has shown up in China, but let's not get carried away with thoughts of MBA cards just yet
Concept art of WoW's upcoming player housing system, showing a warm homestead with a welcoming figure in shade.
WoW flexes its MMO player housing system in a new blog post, and it really might just beat FF14's dated furniture placement into the dirt
spectre divide
Spectre Divide and its studio are shutting down after just six months: 'The industry is in a tough spot right now'
Naoe looking at the wrist blade in Assassin's Creed Shadows
Ubisoft backflips, says Assassin's Creed Shadows will support Steam Deck at launch, but I doubt I'll actually want to play it there