The identity of the Doom marine has finally been revealed

So who is the model on the cover of the original Doom video game? Was this even a question we were asking ourselves?

Regardless of your interest level, we now have an answer, and it’s kind of a neat story.

Legendary game developer Brenda Romero’s husband John Romero said that the model they had hired for the photo shoot for the cover art just wasn’t understanding what they were looking for. So he took matters into his own ... pecs.

“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!” Romero wrote. “Defeated, he deferred. I aimed the gun in a slightly different direction and told Don, ‘This is what I'm talking about!’”

So there you go, that’s the genesis of the art’s design. Luckily, everyone else seemed keen on it as well.

“Don took several pictures,” Romero stated. “I moved the gun some, the demon grabbed my leg, other arm, etc. At the end of it we all decided the arm-grabbing pose was going to be the best.”

The rest is history. Sweet, violent history. And now we know that John Romero isn’t just Brenda Romero’s long-haired arm candy, but a talented developer in his own right ... and the model for the original Doom guy!