Mancubus

From DoomWiki.org

A gathering of mancubi in MAP07: Dead Simple, in Doom II.
This article is about the monster in the classic Doom series. For other games, see:

The mancubus (plural: mancubi) is a large and formidable monster shambling about on sturdy, stumpy elephant-like legs, glaring at opponents through hateful green eyes, while dribbling the remains of its victims from a lusting mouth, displaying sharp yellow fangs. To make things worse, its arms have been replaced by huge flamethrowers capable of spouting a rapid series of scathing bursts of flame, which are powered by a pair of fuel tanks grafted onto the obese monster's back. The game manual describes the mancubus as follows: "The only good thing about fatso is that he's a nice wide target. Good thing, because it takes a lot of hits to puncture him. He pumps out fireballs like there was no tomorrow.".

This monstrous creature makes its first appearance in MAP07: Dead Simple of Doom II, where the player is forced to fight them to break through a fortified area controlled by the enemy.

Tactical analysis[edit]

A mancubus will make a gurgling/snorting sound that crescendos into a monstrous tiger-like roar when spotting a player. The mancubus is a dangerous opponent, but has a number of exploitable weaknesses. It is slow and makes a large target, so is easy to kill with rapid-fire weapons. The rocket launcher is possibly the most effective weapon against the mancubus. Furthermore, because it will pause briefly before attacking, giving out a distinctive battle cry before firing, it is easy to prevent the attacking using slower weapons to stun, even the super shotgun. When a mancubus does attack, it is helpful to attempt to keep one's distance. Otherwise, the player might take two fireballs instead of just one. When dodging from a greater distance, it is important to avoid over-dodging. With the first two attacks from the mancubus, one fireball will go straight toward the player while the other will fly off diagonally to the other side (to the player's right, then to the player's left); in the third volley, one will go left and one right. This pattern can be figured out and used to avoid mancubus attacks.

Once a mancubus has begun to attack its target, it continues to fire (if it remains unhurt while firing) until all three bursts have been discharged, even if the target has moved out of its sight. This characteristic of their attack can be abused to cause monster infighting.

When killed, it lets out a low-pitched exhale of air as its head is split in two. Its body then begins to slowly divide in half, unleashing deluges of blood, until all that remains are folds of ripped flesh, bloody ribs, and its eyes spilling out onto two disembodied fireball launchers. This is quite possibly the goriest death sequence of any regular, non-gibbed enemy.

Notes[edit]

  • The latex model of the monster used as a base for the sprite, seen here, has three pairs of nipples. The extra nipples are not really distinguishable in the in-game representation, where only the upper "normal" ones are seen, although their intended locations can still be seen.
  • The mancubus' face is also found in the megasphere.
  • The mancubus, along with the demon, spiderdemon, and cyberdemon are the only monsters whose dying sound clips includes noise other than the monsters' vocals; in this case, there is an audible gurgling as the mancubus' blood pours out.
  • John Romero once joked that the mancubus says "Menablanablah!!!" before firing.[1] The actual source of the sound effect is a slowed-down pig's squeal.
  • The sprite name for the revenant's missiles is FATB, and is grouped directly under the mancubus sprites (FATT). The graphics for these missiles may have at one point been intended for the mancubus projectiles earlier in Doom II's development.

Inspiration and development[edit]

A "behind the scene" promotional poster for The Day Time Ended which inspired the design of the mancubus.

According to Sandy Petersen, the mancubus' name was directly derived from the Latin word incubus, combined with English "man" as a prefix.[2] Gregor Punchatz, who modeled the mancubus, revealed that the visual design of the monster was inspired by one "behind the scene" picture from the movie The Day Time Ended.[3][4]

In early versions of Doom II the mancubus fired the same projectile as the baron of Hell and Hell knight. As a comment in the Doom source code states that mancubi fire "bruisers" in three directions, this may have been an initial actual idea for the monster and not simply a placeholder, but either way it was eventually changed. The monster's final projectile uses the sprite of the lost soul as the basis for a new fireball sprite, and the maximum damage of each shot was reduced from 80 to 64.

Various ideas were tested for the mancubus' death animation. In one discarded series of frames, the mancubus suffers an escalating series of internal explosions within its fuel lines, arm cannons, and upper abdomen, resulting in the monster being completely dismembered. In another unfinished series of frames, the mancubus would simply fall over backward in a manner similar to the demon's death frames, without any gore present. These alternate death concepts were included in the vault feature of the Doom + Doom II release and were previously unknown to the public.

Pre-release gallery[edit]

  • D2DS DOOM19.png
  • D2DS DOOM20.png

  • Model

Data[edit]

Damage done by a full fireball volley
Blows needed to kill1 Mean Standard
deviation 		Min Max
Player (100%
health, no armor)		 3.37 0.88 2 6
Player (100%
health, security armor)		 4.78 1.04 3 8
Player (200%
health, combat armor)		 11.68 1.70 8 16
Barrel 1.27 0.51 1 3
Trooper 1.27 0.51 1 3
Sergeant 1.44 0.60 1 4
Wolfenstein SS 2.04 0.77 1 5
Imp 2.25 0.76 1 5
Chaingunner 2.56 0.73 2 5
Lost soul 3.37 0.88 2 6
Commander Keen 3.37 0.88 2 6
Demon 4.78 1.04 3 8
Spectre 4.78 1.04 3 8
Romero's head2 7.66 1.32 5 11
Revenant 9.04 1.46 6 13
Cacodemon 11.68 1.70 8 16
Pain elemental 11.68 1.70 8 16
Hell knight 14.55 1.88 10 19
Arachnotron 14.55 1.88 10 19
Mancubus3
Arch-vile 20.10 2.11 14 25
Baron of Hell 28.43 2.43 23 34
Spiderdemon 84.14 2.60 79 93
Cyberdemon 112.12 2.48 107 117

  1. This table assumes that all calls to P_Random for damage, pain chance, impact animations, and backfire checks are consecutive. In real play, this is never the case: counterattacks and AI pathfinding must be handled, and of course the map may contain additional moving monsters and other randomized phenomena (such as flickering lights). Any resulting errors are probably toward the single-shot average, as they introduce noise into the correlation between the indices of "consecutive" calls.
  2. Assumes that direct hits are possible, which does not occur in any stock map.
  3. Hardcoded exception to infighting negates damage (excepting indirect damage caused by exploding barrels).

Appearance statistics[edit]

In the IWADs the mancubus is first encountered on these maps per skill level:

The IWADs contain the following numbers of mancubi per skill level:

Of the maps covered on the Doom Wiki, the following have the highest numbers of mancubi in single-player:

Map Count
MAP05: Cosmogenesis (Cosmogenesis) 1476
Holy Hell Revealed 1259
MAP99: Sunset Configuration (Hardfest 2) 1116
Holy Hell MAP05 898
MAP27: Decimal Error (Slaughterfest 2012) 688

This data was last verified on March 13, 2024.

Other games[edit]

Doom 64[edit]

Doom 64's mancubus in MAP09: Even Simpler

While their function in Doom 64 is unchanged, their appearance is greatly altered. They have less fat and a more bear-like face, have horns, are taller and wear a metal body harness. Their fireballs are smaller and appear more like fiery brimstone.

This type of mancubus appears on the cover of an issue of Nintendo Power featuring a spread of Doom 64, including a two-page poster that features it in conjunction with other demons.

Doom RPG[edit]

In Doom RPG, the mancubus appears as a class of monster. There are three variations, identified by color:

  • Behemoth (blue with red eyes)
  • Mancubus (normal colors)
  • Druj (red)

This monster class is weak against rockets.

  • Behemoth

  • Mancubus

  • Druj

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ↑ @romero: "Menablanablah!!!" on Twitter
  2. ↑ Petersen, Sandy (23 September 2020). "Correcting errors. I read on the Doom Wiki that the 'Mancubus' is a combination of incubus and the Latin 'manducare'. But it's not. I named the mancubus and just combined the English word "man" with -cubus from incubus. Pathetic I know." Twitter. Retrieved 23 September 2020.
  3. ↑ @Gregor Punchatz: Here is some Doom trivia... on Facebook
  4. ↑ doom_collector: Gregor Punchatz tells #Doomzine on Instagram
Monsters from Classic Doom
  • v · 
  • t · 
  • e
Doom: Baron of Hell • Cacodemon • Cyberdemon • Demon • Imp • Lost soul • Shotgun guy • Spectre • Spiderdemon • Zombieman
Doom II: Arachnotron • Arch-vile • Commander Keen • Heavy weapon dude • Hell knight • Mancubus • Pain elemental • Revenant • Wolfenstein SS • Final boss
Legacy of Rust: Banshee • Ghoul • Mindweaver • Shocktrooper • Tyrant • Vassago
Console games: Doom 64:  Marine • Mother demon • Nightmare imp   •   Sony PlayStation:  Nightmare spectre
Mobile games: Doom RPG:  Hellhound • Kronos   •   Doom II RPG:  Pinkynator • Sawcubus • VIOS • Watcher • Zombie
Miscellaneous: Blob • Doom cover art demon • Fast monsters • Ghost monsters • Nightmare monsters • Hissy
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