Damsels: Lt. Carmen Ibanez – Starship Troopers

In honor of the November 7th, 1997 release date of Starship Troopers, allow me to introduce you to my favorite alien-killing LT., Carmen Ibanez.

I guess I’ve always had a love-hate relationship with Lt. Carmen Ibanez. The love I suppose could be more attributed to lust. She is smokin’ hot and this is right before she gave the world a raging boner in Wild Things and The World is Not Enough. I don’t think anyone will ever forgive the producers of that 007 installment as the thought of Denise Richards as a nuclear physicist is about as laughable as Mark Wahlberg as a scientist. The hate comes from the way she treated poor Johnny Rico. The man was a wounded war hero and didn’t deserve to be pitched away like a carton of spoiled milk. I mean, can you have a douchier name than Zander?? I don’t know if they designed that character to be so easily hate-able but let’s just say that I was very pleased when he got brained at the end by the giant vagina-looking bug.

Carmen was hot enough for Rico to not only join the Federation as a mobile infantryman but also hot enough for him to risk death when he went tunneling to find her at the end captured by the bugs. Luckily for her Rico doesn’t hold a grudge like me and didn’t just laugh as she was torn to pieces by a bunch of arachnid creatures. It was, however, getting caught in the first place that allowed Ms. Ibanez to become a damsel in distress, and for that we salute her!