The Mancubus (plural: Mancubi) is a monster introduced in Doom II MAP07: Dead Simple, where the player is forced to fight a group of them to break through a fortified area controlled by the enemy.
Notes
- 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's face is very similar to that found in the megasphere.
- A fitting explanation for the name of the monster seems to be a bastardized combination of the termination of the medieval demon names succubus and incubus preceded by the syllable man-, possibly refering to the Latin verb manducāre, which means "to chew" or "to devour". Manducus is also the Latin word for glutton (the syllable man- is also the beginning of the Latin word mancus, meaning "maimed" or "with a crippled or missing limb", alluding to the fact that the monster has flamethrowers instead of arms).
- 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 its blood pours out.
- The Mancubus, like the Arch-vile and the Pain Elemental, are the only monsters who has its own unique pain sound clips. In this case, the Mancubus makes a low grunt during its pain state.
- The Mancubus also shares its presence sound clips with the Zombieman.
- In a ZDoom-based source port, if the player is killed by a Mancubus (monster is credited with delivering the blow that reduces player's health to 0%), an obituary message is displayed at the top of the screen: "[player name] was squashed by a Mancubus".
- The Mancubus can be used by level designers to trigger Tag 666 in MAP07 of any Doom II-based or Final Doom-based megawad (sectors assigned this tag will lower when all Mancubi on the level are killed).
- In Brutal Doom, Mancubi fireballs can deal small radius damage upon close impact, like rockets. Their cannons now have a firing sound similar to a deep air pump and can be acquired by mutilating/destroying the monster via chainsaw or rocket launcher and pressing key 8 (key 9 from v18 onwards), similarly to the Revenant's hellish shoulder missile launchers. Also the cannons leave leftover flames which can cause damage if the player walks over them. Starting in v20, the monster also has a short-to-medium range flamethrower attack. The Mancubus' contribution to monster-monster battles is excellent, since the flamethrower attack can damage a lot of enemies at the same time.
Doom RPG
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.
Mighty DOOM
The Mancubus appears in Mighty Doom exclusively as a boss. The Mancubus attacks with its twin arm flamethrowers in either one of two ways: a) it either fires a continuous stream of flames from both cannons to sweep around the immediate area in a more close-quarters approach, or b) launches a salvo of fireballs that inflict fire damage and the Burning debuff. Due to its fiery attacks, it is vulnerable to ice damage.
Trivia
- It was clarified on September 2012, that the creator of the Doom series John Romero told us what the Mancubus actually says when it attacks in Doom II. Shouting out "MENABLANAHBLAH!"
- There are many origins to the name of the Mancubus. It is derived from two medieval demons. "Succubus", a female demon appearing in the dreams of men, and "Incubus", a male demon who would prey upon women who were alseep. "Manducare", Latin for chewing, devouring, or eating and lastly "Mancus", referring to being crippled or missing limbs.
- The reason for the Mancubus in Doom Eternal resembling their original 2D sprite, rather than the variant from Doom (2016), is possibly because these are the adult version. The Mancubi encountered on Mars were likely the larval stage of this demon. This could explain why their armor is carapace-like, along with the size-difference between both games (the 2016 version appears shorter in height).