Creation
The name of the Mancubus monster seems to be a bastardized combination of the names of the succubus and incubus demons, preceded by the syllable man-, possibly referring to the Latin verb manducare, which means “to chew” or “to devour.” Manducus is also the Latin word for glutton, which fits well with the Mancubus’ corpulent appearance. The syllable man- could also refer to the Latin word mancus, meaning “maimed” or “with a crippled or missing limb,” alluding to how the Mancubus has flamethrower cannons in place of its arms.
Overview
Doom II
The Mancubus is a horrendously large, cybernetic humanoid monster that shambles about on sturdy, stumpy elephant-like legs, glaring at opponents through hateful green eyes, while dribbling the remains of devoured victims from its lusting mouth. Its arms are equipped with huge flamethrowers capable of spouting a rapid series of scathing fireballs, powered by a pair of fuel tanks grafted directly onto the obese monster’s back. The Doom II manual describes the Mancubus as “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.”
Doom 3
The Mancubus is one of the few monsters in Doom 3 that remains faithful to its original design. It’s colored differently, but is still a large, fat demon with a fireball launcher for each arm, although it no longer fires these simultaneously like in Doom II, but instead fires each in turn.
The most evident change in the Doom 3 Mancubus is the addition of a strange Cthulhu-like headpiece that it now sports. According to the game designers, the center tube of this apparatus is a breathing tube with tiny holes along its sides. The tentacles on the opposite sides of the breathing tube are feeding tools that behave like the mouth of an octopus. These tentacles were originally meant to be tusks to give the Mancubus a more elephant-like appearance, but a graphical and model design glitch reduced them instead to feeding tools.
Powers & Abilities
The Mancubs’ main strength is its ability to bombard opponents with a rapid succession of fireballs, simultaneously firing both of its cannons to release a series of six shots in three volleys. These fireballs also have a fair amount of splash damage. While they can take a lot of damage, Mancubi are quite slow though, and as the Doom II manual states, make a “nice wide target.”
In Doom 3, the Mancubus no longer fires both cannons in only three volleys, but instead unleashes a steady barrage of powerful fireballs from each cannon, one after the other. It’s still quite slow, but also a fair amount tougher. Finally, it now possesses a powerful melee attack where it attempts to crush the player by using its cannons as hammers, the power of which is second only to the stomp of the Cyberdemon.