Gaming's baldest space marines

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Strong. Silent. Hairless. And almost too numerous to count

Matt Hazard

From: Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

To paraphrase Nietszche: when making fun of monsters, be careful not to become a monster yourself.

Indrick Boreale

From: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War

Bald space marines are a pretty common sight in the Warhammer 40,000 universe; hell, the franchise’s grim, monstrously huge human warriors practically invented the template for what a space marine should be, minimalist hairstyles and all. One, however, has caught our eye for exceptional baldness. Indrick Boreale – one of the human commanders players control in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – isn’t just severe, shouty and bulging; he’s also bald in a bizarre way.

Not quite a Mohawk, Boreale’s high-and-tight looks like nothing so much as reverse male-pattern baldness, in that his hair’s fallen out everywhere except the top of his head. True, the patch of hair on top could be left intentionally visible, while the rest is religiously shaved, but we like our version better.

Boreale’s also noteworthy for his decidedly odd accent, which spawned the minor “SPESS MEHREENS” meme on YouTube. Dawn of Awesome is one of our favorite things to have come out of it:

Dick

From: Grand Theft Auto IV

Dick may be a “game character” only in the loosest sense – that is, he’s a character who happens to appear in a game – but he’s inarguably a bald space marine (or space “ranger,” whatever). Not only that, but he’s the baldest of a trio of bald space marines, created to simultaneously lampoon bald space marines and the more thuggish aspects of the Bush administration.

So while his lack of hair and bristling mustache give the impression of an old-veteran soldier, Dick is actually nothing more or less than a stupid, bellowing goon who yells a lot and shoots things with little or no provocation. In other words, your average bald space marine.

Max Balding

From: Bet On Soldier: Blood of Sahara

Max Balding isn’t a marine. He also isn’t from space, instead inhabiting a very terrestrial game in which war has consumed human civilization, and the most popular form of entertainment is televised one-on-one deathmatches between super-elites. Most damningly, he’s not even bald. Not really. Certainly not in the sense that most of the other characters on this list are.


Above: Well, patches of him kind of are

So why’d he make the list? Well, aside from the fact that his power armor, scars and mutilated buzz cut are hallmarks of space marines no matter what their actual setting, his name. Is. Max. Balding.


Above: BALDING TO THE MAX, DUDE

Superfly Johnson

From: Daikatana

OK, sure.

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Mikel Reparaz
Mikel Reparaz
After graduating from college in 2000 with a BA in journalism, I worked for five years as a copy editor, page designer and videogame-review columnist at a couple of mid-sized newspapers you've never heard of. My column eventually got me a freelancing gig with GMR magazine, which folded a few months later. I was hired on full-time by GamesRadar in late 2005, and have since been paid actual money to write silly articles about lovable blobs.