4 Heroic SPACE MARINES: HALO's Master Chief & More

4 Heroic SPACE MARINES: HALO & More CREDIT: View full size image

If you're a video game fan, you probably heard this already, but Halo: Reach is out today. The game had two world class premieres, in New York City and Microsoft's homebase of Seattle. It has been greeted with great reviews, getting perfect scores from many sites (you can read our review of Halo: Reach here).

While Master Chief, the star of the first three Halo games, isn't the star of this prequel, he definitely comes to mind when you think of "Space Marines," a group of intergalactic soldiers that have permeated multimedia for years. Here's some info about Master Chief and 3 of our other favorites.

The Marine: Ellen Ripley

Found in: The Alien Movies, Aliens Comics, Games and Novels

What Makes Them Cool: This is one bad-ass lady. Ripley is without a doubt the leader of these films. She's the only survivor of the first movie, takes a squad of space marines under her wing in the second, and becomes a lone survivor AGAIN in the third. If you've seen Sigourney Weaver holding that gun, you know that nothing in the universe can stop Ellen Ripley

Memorable Moment: With Bishop torn in half, Ripley dons the exosuit and goes one-on-one with the Alien Queen.

The Marine: Juan Rico

Found in: Starship Troopers Novel, movies, TV series, game

What Makes Them Cool: This is as close to the original as you're going to get. While Creator of the Space Marine Robert Heinlein used the term in a couple of stories prior to this one, this is where they took center stage and became the template for all those that would follow. Juan used powered armor, was a bit of a loose canon, and went from rookie nobody to seasoned leader.

Memorable Moment: "If you don't do your job, I'll kill you myself."

The Marine: Nameless Space Marine

Found in: DOOM Video Game Series (let's forget the movie)

What Makes Them Cool: This guy made First Person Shooters cool. Stepping into this nameless, faceless protagonist's skin, countless kids and adults fragged demons on the moons of Mars before going down… WAY down, into Hell.

Memorable Moment: I have 3 letters and a number for you. BFG 9000.

The Marine: Master Chief aka John aka Spartan-117

Found in: Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, numerous Novels and Comics, Halo: Legends animated shorts

What Makes Them Cool: He's the last of his kind, a lone super soldier fighting for not just a military unit, or even for one planet, but for the future of the whole human race. You can step in his shoes and show aliens like The Covenant and The Flood why they should fear human scientific experimenting and training.

Memorable Moments: For this one, we turned to you, the fans. Here's what some of you told us:

"Betcha can't Stick it" (Cortana to Master Chief)

"Master Chief jumps out of a spaceship"

"The realization that my son looks at Master Chief the same way I looked at Batman or Spider-Man growing up. That's his HERO."

"Sir, finishing this fight."

"when Chief takes the covenant bomb back to one of their main ships at the begininng of Halo 2."

"Cortana: what if we miss? Master Chief: I won't."