It wasn’t pretty, and it wasn’t mil-spec, but Ripley led the way for women in powered armor in her fight with the alien queen.
(Source: © 1986 Twentieth Century Fox. All Rights Reserved)
There was a time when women in revealing bits of chain mail and armor graced the covers of fantasy novels was all the rage, but that was fantasy. Science fiction’s take on armor has always been more both more male and more practical, going back to Kimball Kinnison’s assault on Helmuth’s fortress (Galactic Patrol, E.E. Smith, 1950) perhaps, but forever defined by the opening sequence of Heinlein’s Starship Troopers (1959) when he defines both orbital drop troops and powered armor in one breathtaking, hard sf, swoop. Though the movie made for Starship Troopers missed the critical signature element, the game and novel universe of Halo has done an excellent job with both armor and orbital insertion, in their ODST (Obrital Drop Shock Troops) and Spartans.
Of course, armor is a natural for fictional male characters, because it allows illustrators to bulk up their physiques with more muscular shapes, while female characters need to keep their curves to draw the eye. Fortunately, it’s not always the boys that get the shiny toys.
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