Samus and Halo’s Master Chief deserve more than their Who Would Win video

Although the internet is fond of arguing about which side would win in fictional battles, sometimes the argument can be even more entertaining than the actual battle. The internet’s favorite duo, Samus and Master Chief are just two examples. It all starts with a video.

One eternal question spans all of pop culture: “Who would win?” That’s why we’re dedicating an entire week to debates that have shaped comics, movies, TV, and games, for better and worse. Prepare yourself for Polygon’s Who Would Win Week..

For two reasons, metal suit and gun. People love to compare SamusAran with the Spartan Master Chief Petty officer John-117. That’s it. They’re both beefy badasses who blast their way through a sci-fi setting, while obscuring their faces behind a metal power suit.

This feud between Master Chief Chief and Samus has its roots in an important bit of internet history. A fan animation “Haloid,” created by Monty Oum and posted to YouTube in 2007, imagined the two in intense battle — but with a twist that made a lasting impression. In the end, Master Chief and Samus became one among the most loved, passionately debated, fictional feuds.

Let’s take a step back to see what they look like.

Haloid

The 2007 cult classic video “Haloid” had a chokehold on the internet in the early 2000s.

The video is exactly what the title suggests — a mashup of Halo and Metroid, which starts with Master Chief bashing on a group of Covenant. Half machinima, half animated, Master Chief dunks on the Covenant in far flashier fashion than we’re used to, complete with early 2000s Matrix moves. Samus then arrives to confront the Spartan after the Covenant has been cleared by the super soldier. In a key moment, her armor gets shredded — but she continues to dart through the air, wielding her weapon, which looks equal parts whip and lightsaber.

After several minutes of cool, well-animated combat between our heroes, the Covenant return to interrupt the couple’s fight. To survive, the two must then work together. Master Chief uses the energy sword to slash Samus, while Samus cuts a Banshee in half with her weapon. Samus fires her Zero Suit pistol and blasts away as the Covenant crowd in. Master Chief then takes his chest piece off and transforms it into a bomb. As Samus flies Master Chief to safety, the screen fades to black, with the words: “I thought I was the only girl in armor … with the weight of the world on my shoulders.”

What’s this? What’s this? Master Chief can also be a woman. In the final scene, Samus removes Master Chief’s helmet, and the two of them embrace in a semi-erotic way, then the video rolls to credits.

Mounty Oum

It’s about the Most early internet video a video can be — complete with simple animation and extremely unexpected fan-service. It’s also badass, and highlights the peak reasons fans love to imagine a battle between video games’ favorite metal titans.

Sadly, we can’t ask Haloid creator Monty Oum what led him to animate Haloid or showcase the fan war between Samus and Master Chief. Oum was diagnosed with severe allergic reactions in Austin, Texas where he had worked.

We reached out to his former co-workers at Rooster Teeth, the studio behind Red vs. Blue (which Oum eventually animated on) and RWBY (which Oum created), to get a glimpse into Oum’s process and what made Haloid so special.

“We definitely became fans of Monty because of the Haloid video,” said Matt Hullum, chief content officer at Rooster Teeth. “That just blew up everywhere because it had so many fresh ideas and such a unique style. In that work, you can see all the things that make Monty one of a kind — his amazing command of action, his innate narrative skill, and his talent for peppering in fun, funny surprises.”

“Monty’s workflow was truly something unique and special,” said Kerry Shawcross, a writer and director on RWBY. “He would often start with key moments, whether it was a cool combo he had thought of or a dramatic beat he wanted, and then fill in between. It was a very organic process.”

Hullum elaborated further on Oum’s style saying: “He always said that his animation process was like cooking stir fry. Oum wanted to be able mix and match ingredients as much as possible, rather than following any recipe. Not many people have the talent to work like that and not get burned occasionally, but somehow he served up something great every time.”

Mounty Oum

Haloid is a good example of this style, as sequences bounce back and forth from Chief to Samus. While one section begins with the Morph Ball, another section is about rockets or plasma grenades. It’s a style Oum took with him when we went on to animate key action sequences in Red vs. Blue.

Haloid helped to increase the mythos surrounding the Samus/Master Chief war. The duo eventually leaves the battlefield together, regardless of all their asskicking. Oum sets up the question “who would win?” and then intentionally doesn’t give fans an answer.

So 15 years later, we’re going to answer “who would win” ourselves: Samus from Metroid or Master Chief from Halo?

Who would actually win?

Image: 343 Industries/Xbox Game Studios

We must first consider where Master Chief and Samus came from in order to determine which one of these heroes will win.

Halo is harder science-fiction. It’s not without silly aliens and big globs of talking zombie goop, but the fights are with physical bullets, as well as UNSC spaceships, aircraft, and weaponry that appears more realistic to human engineering. It’s a story about a humanity that’s far enough in the future to have space flight but not far enough to be beyond war or gunpowder. When it blends militaristic sci-fi, silly aliens and their futuristic tech, Halo is truly amazing.

Metroid on the other side is far more unbelievable. Samus Aran seems to be the one and only human in this universe. She shoots lasers from her suit’s giant gun arm that’s attached to her like Mega Man, she folds into a ball using what can only be magic, and she was raised by bird people. Her nemeses are a purple dragon that’s somehow smart enough to be captain of the “space pirates,” and a giant dinosaur that shoots thumbs out of his three unique belly buttons.

Samus, throughout history, has always been armed with the best weapons: tools to freeze and decompose giant brains. Master Chief’s primary tool is improvisation on the battlefield, which translates into the ability to turn most battles in his favor. That’s great, and it makes for some extremely cool moments in the Halo series. But he doesn’t have anything to match a Hyper Beam.

Image: MercurySteam/Nintendo

Samus, in short, is dealing at a technologically superior level to Master Chief. Samus is the winner in every war between Master chief and Samus.

Even if we were to take the most contemporary versions of these characters and pit them against one another, Master Chief’s biggest innovation would be a grappling hook. Samus? She’s a straight-up Metroid hybrid lady with an unstoppable cannon. It’s not a fair fight.

Haloid actually gives us the ultimate clue on which side would win in this old war. Oum animates Master Chief doing silly, ridiculous things that we’ve never seen him do before. It’s clearly over the top, and intentionally doesn’t fit the Halo-era action. Samus, however? Her moves aren’t as unfamiliar. She’s not drop kicking enemies with Pelicans; she’s using her grappling beam, her arm cannon, her power bombs. Samus was operating at 100%. Master Chief had to be bumped up to 2000% by Oum in order to make them clash in an exciting way.

Two people aren’t necessarily a good fit to fight each other, just because they both wear full-body armor. Samus and Master Chief are from very different places and levels of fiction. It’s like asking who would win in a battle between Captain Jean-Luc Picard and Chewbacca just because they both work on the bridges of spaceships in franchises that start with “Star.”

It’s time to let Samus and Master Chief rest until we can give them each a battle they deserve.