Doom At 30: The 1996 Doom comic book is an over-the-top masterwork

"Consider yourself warned! This book contains scenes of graphic violence!" These are the words that adorn the Doom comic book, which was originally released for promotional purposes during 1996's E3 by GT Interactive and Marvel Comics. "Knee-deep in the dead!" is the next bit of text below the logo, referencing the name of the first shareware Doom episode and beautifully describing the blood-soaked cover illustration by Tom Grindberg, who was apparently tickled enough at the thought of drawing this monstrosity to take time away from working on 2000 AD.

The cover is an accurate peek at the gore and demonic entrails that lie within this epic work of sequential storytelling, which required the writing skills of not one, but two gentlemen - Steve "Body Bag" Behling and Michael "Splatter" Stewart. Both Behling and Stewart have a decent body of work between them at Marvel, where they've penned more civilised fare starring the likes of Ant-Man and The Hulk. The Doom comic, in comparison, seems to have been a thing that was written in a fever dream, and DoomWorld, which lovingly hosts scans of this brisk read to this day, describes it appropriately: "Some time in 1996 a couple of guys got together and smoked what was apparently a large amount of crack and then injected pure heroin into their eyes and then proceeded to create what is now known only as 'the Doom comic.'"

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