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BJ Blazkowicz Starts The Id Family Tree As The Great-Grandfather Of The Doom Marine
The co-founders of id Software, John Romero and Tom Hall, joked back and forth on Twitter today after confirming a bit of long-rumored piece of lore: Wolfenstein's BJ Blazkowicz is the grandfather of Commander Keen, and Keen himself the father of the Doom Marine, or DoomGuy.
The discussion started in December, when John Romero posted an innocuous tweet saying that BJ was based on Commander Keen, the star of the early 90s space-faring sidescrollers starring youngster Billy Blaze as he defends Earth from aliens. A fan caught that tweet and took the question to id co-founder Tom Hall asking if this lineage extends all the way to id's other favorite son, the Doom Marine.
Hall was fairly clear: "The lineage isn't a theory. Fact."
Romero and Hall then had a bit of back and forth over the revelation, establishing a backstory for the missing generation between William and his grandson. Hall explained that Keen's father was "an awesome, heroic...newscaster" who went by the stage name of Billy Blaze, explaining where the younger Keen got his new last name from.
So that explains it, id's heroes are actually just one big family that is really, really good at killing things.
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