Man in a powered suit has long been a powerful theme of SF writers and readers alike.  The two most notable examples that I am familiar with are Robert Heinlein’s award winning novel (definitely not the awful movie) Starship Troopers and Joe Haldeman’s award winning novel The Forever War. 

 In both stories, humanity is involved in a long interstellar struggle against aliens we barely understand (the Bugs/Arachnids in Starship Troopers and the bug eyed/no necked Taurans of The Forever War.)  Both novels are a reflection of their times and at polar opposites despite being written 15 years apart..  Starship Troopers is more of a philosophical discussion on civic duty against the backdrop of the threat of communism whereas The Forever War, is a Vietnam allegory and the SF equivalent of All’s Quiet on the Western Front.  In both cases, the suits themselves were only background to the wider themes of philosophy, civic duty, war, and peace.  However, as it seems to be with many SF fans, the fighting suits were what they remembered the most.

Wave is a Japanese kit maker that specializes in figures, particular SF robot and fighting suit figures for the Japanese market.  The kit is based on a fighting suit from Kow Yokoyama's "Maschinen Krieger," a manga comic book series that was introduced in the late 1980s.

 The 1/20 scale snap together kit consists of four grey green styrene, one german grey of vinyl and one clear styrene part gates for a total of 77 parts.  It is what one would expect from a Japanese model maker and would not look out of place if it were in a Hasegawa or Tamiya box.  The detail is very well done and virtually free of flash.

 The decal sheet contains stencils and numbers of individual soldiers.

This kit caught my eye as I was browsing Starshipmodeler for the Fine Molds Y-Wing kit.  I think it will be a nice change of pace from the planes and spaceships that I usually make.  I hope it won’t tax my meager figure painting skills as I only have to paint the face (my hope is that I won’t make the face look like Raggedy Andy as painted with a spastic hand as is my typical result with figurine faces.)

 It is my intent to build this suit with the fictional markings of William Mandella, the hero of the Forever War.

Dan Lee

August 2007

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