Energon Mirage

Prelude: Mirage is the figure from which Dreadwing was repainted, a figure I've already reviewed. It's been nearly five years, though, and Mirage is the original anyway. So he gets his own complete review.

Robot Mode: Mirage is one of the scariest-looking robots in all of Transformer history. He is very tall, very thin, with an almost regal look. The panels sticking out behind his back look almost like a cape and his head resembles the Decepticon logo, making it look as if he's wearing a crown. There is no mistaking Mirage for a good guy. He just looks scary and evil, more like an evil overlord than the minion he actually is. Originally I thought him a bit too colorful, but now I've grown to like his combination of black, orange, grey and purple.

At first look Mirage seems a bit akward in terms of posability, but looks can be deveiving. He is fully posable and his various kibble can fold away in whatever direction you need to stay out of the way. This goes for the panels on his back and his forearms. Despite being a bit top-heavy he has no balance issues and if all else fails you can use the back panels as additional stabilizers. So no complaints on this front.

Weapon-wise Mirage carries four missile launchers. Two on his arms and two more on his back, which can flip over his shoulders in his so-called 'Hyper Mode'. Additionally one can imagine the fins on his forearms as cutting blades. So no complaints in terms of armaments, either. Which in total makes for a pretty good-looking robot mode with nothing to complain about at all.

Alternate Mode: Mirage transforms into a kind of futuristic-looking speed boat. I don't think he's based on any sort of existing model. The boat is every bit as sleek and lean as the robot and for the most part everything fits together very nicely (though it does take a rather complicated transformation to get there). I say for the most part because the boat's rear assembly, formed from Mirage's arms, doesn't quite fit together seamlessly. It's not a big thing, no points deduction, but it does diminish an otherwise flawlessly designed vehicle mode.

The detailing on the ship is pretty good, especially around the 'bridge' area. All four of Mirage's missile launchers can be brought to bear int his mode as well, of course. Two lie flat on the boat's bow, the other two are set near the stern. A Hyper-Mode is possible here as well, as the front missile launchers can flip up and the rear ones flip out to the sides, which serves the double purpose of giving the boat additional stabilizers. All in all Mirage's alternate mode looks good, sleek, and dangerous. What more do you want? Besides, there aren't enough naval alternate modes to begin with.

Remarks: In the Energon cartoon series Mirage was the new form of Tidal Wave. He was reformatted into this new, smaller shell and did actually seem to get a bit smarter in the process, though most of the time he was too busy sucking up to Megatron to actually do anything. The Energon dub did its best to disguise the fact that in the original Superlink cartoon Shockfleet (the Japanese name of Mirage) was pretty much openly gay for Megatron. Well, it worked somewhat. But Energon was still a lousy cartoon.

I originally preferred Dreadwing over Mirage because Mirage seemed too colorful to me. Looking at him now, though, the colors are just right and the mold itself is pretty awesome. It has some minor issues, but nothing really bothersome, and the look is pure bad-ass. Mirage got repainted again for the 2009 Botcon convention, becoming Banzai-Tron. The bottom line is, every Transformers fan should own at least one version of this excellent figure and from the two I own (Mirage and Dreadwing) I prefer Mirage by a slight margin.

Rating: A