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In Doom 2016, there were 26 "Collectibles" to be found, basically stylized vinyl figures of Doomguy in different decorations, like somebody had scattered Funko POP!s around the halls of Mars. This was expanded for Doom Eternal, with this time "Figurines" being just one of nine types of collectibles. There were 31 of them, and only one represented Doomguy; the rest were all enemies. They all had cute, stylized designs that were just begging to become real toys. Thankfully, in 2021 a company called Numskull stepped up to deliver. One of the first toys they released was the Cacodemon.
Boasting one Hell of a big mouth, the floating monstrosities known as the Cacodemon belch balls of lightning and toast any foe that comes their way.
As you can tell by the name, the Cacodemon is made from rough, semi-processed cocoa beans with a strongly bitter flavor.
Wait, no, that would be a Cacaodemon. A Cacodemon is literally a "bad spirit," with the word "demon" coming from the Greek daimon, which didn't have any positive or negative connotation in its original language and was just any supernatural agent. So, like, the personification of luck, who gamblers hope is on their side, would be a good demon, not a bad demon. But in modern usage "demon" is always bad, so adding the ancient Greek "kakos" (which you probably know best today from its place in "kakistocracy") to the front here is just a stylistic choice to make the monster sound more exotic.
Pinky may be the most iconic Doom enemy, but the Cacodemon is right up there - in part because it looks like a Beholder (or at least something D&D). It's a big flying meatball tomato [the "meatball" is the Pain Elemental --ed.] with fangs on fangs on fangs and a single green eye right in the center of its head. It's been in every game, though you can tell this is the modern version, because having dangly little legs under its belly is a feature introduced in the reboot.
Numskull's Cacodemon is about 5¼" tall, or roughly the size of a shot put or Magic 8-Ball. In-game, the Doomguy collectible seems to be about 9" tall; Doomguy has never had an official height released, but the ThreeA 1:6 scale toy was over 13", which if accurate would
make him about 6'8"; a lifesize statue was 205cm tall, which works out nearly the same, but that was counting the deep base the statue stands on, which seems to be at least seven inches thick. So for the sake of convenience, let's say the statue is more accurate than the toy, and Doomguy is 6' tall. (The Doom Wiki disagrees, but their math is all over the place and is based on unsourced assumptions.) A six-foot-tall guy turned into a nine-inch-tall toy would be a 1:8 scale, give or take.
The original Doom measured its sprites and levels in "map units," with Doomwald J. Guyington himself being 56 map units tall;
Tom Hall, creative director of the company behind the original Doom, once referred to the 128-unit wall blocks as being eight feet, suggesting 16 map units equal one foot; but that would make Doomguy three and a half feet tall, which can in no way be right. The fact is, the setting of Doom isn't meant to have realistic measurements, so trying to math it out is pointless. However, looking at the data for Doom 1, we do know that the original Cacodemon had a height of 56 units and a width of 62 units - in other words, about Doomguy size in every direction, meaning this toy is about half the size it would need to be (and that's before it got doubled for the new games). The point is, given the exaggerated sizes and style, this thing will work equally well with McFarlane's figures or the Mystery Mini. Yes, this entire two-paragraph digression was about which other toys you can use this with, and the answer is "eh, whatever you feel like."
Presumably Numskull had the digital game files to work from when making these toys, so it's no surprise the Cacodemon figure
looks like it did in the game. Its legs curl beneath it to form a base for it to stand without rolling over, and the spikes on its cheeks or shoulders or whatever are surprisingly sharp! The ones over the top of the head are rounder, as are the teeth, but you don't want to just grab this blindly. Or have someone toss it to you. The mouth is hollow, but the fangs are large enough that you shouldn't really expect to have it bite another figure's arm or anything.
The bulk of the body is a pale pink, with the "armored" sections being more of the red traditionally associated with Doom's Cacodemons. The spines are a bone-colored, with darker airbrushing at the base of the ones on the shoulders. The eye is a sickly green, with a lighter pupil, and the interor of the mouth is dark brown. The pupil is accomplished via masking the airbrushed highlights, rather than being sculpted in any way, which may explain why mine is slightly crooked.
This is, ultimately, just a vinyl display piece, a glotified POP! with a different kind of stylization. Some of the others in the line have articulation, but the Cacodemon's design doesn't support that. It's okay though, because the design is cool and he looks wonderfully creepy. Unfortunately, no stores carried these figures. Hot Topic may have an entire wall of POP!s, but we're well past the days when they'd take a chance on other kids of action figures, you know? GameStop may carry Numskull's branded Tubbz rubber duckies, but they never did the Doom toys. So the only way you could buy these was if you already knew you could buy them, which isn't a winning prospect. I'm not reviewing this three years after its release because I chose to, I'm reviewing it three years after its release because I just found out it's a thing and got one immediately. It might have been nice if he had a base to make him hover, but this is still a ton of fun just the way it is, and I'm really glad I picked him up on a whim.
-- 10/23/24
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