Doom Has A Reference To A Comic Book Meme From 1996

Doom Has A Reference To A Comic Book Meme From 1996

Doom was a cultural phenomenon in the ’90s, which meant movie deals, action figures, novelisations and comic books. A line from the comics has become a meme over the years, and it’s slyly referenced in the new game.

Image Credit: Doomworld

The new Doom opens with an ominous demonic symbol and voice over:

They are rage, brutal, without mercy. But you. You will be worse. Rip and tear, until it is done.

The first level of the game is also called Rip & Tear. It’d be easy to imagine such a phrase is merely setting the tone for a violent, brutal game, and while that’s true, it’s also pulled straight from that comic released in 1996!

The premise involves the ubiquitous Doom Marine, referred to as Flynn “Fly” Taggart in the spin-off books but not in the games themselves, quickly slaying a series of demons with the aid of the berserker item. In Doom, the berserker makes the player incredibly powerful, allowing them to demolish — or, say, rip and tear — enemies using only their fists.

Doom Has A Reference To A Comic Book Meme From 1996
Image Credit: Doomworld

Image Credit: Doomworld

It’s a terrible comic, and was apparently never sold at retail; it was given out as a promotional item at some game convention. (It’s not clear which one, maybe E3?) But Doomworld makes it sound like a hilarious read:

One of my most favourite parts in the comic is when the marine inadvertently falls into some radioactive sludge and suddenly, in the middle of a massive killing spree, starts to preach about how humans are ruining the environment and how we’ll be leaving a destroyed planet to our children and our children’s children. The whole panel is such a random segment from the rest of the comic, which provides wholesome family fun (in the form of killing shit) and then goes off on a tangential environmental crusade, albeit a pretty half-assed one.

If you wanna read it for yourself, the comic is available at Doomworld.


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