Prisoners of War: Mirage
Featured Cartoon Appearances: "More Than Meets the Eye", "The Ultimate Doom"
Featured Comic Appearances: #2, #4
Featured Fanfic Appearances: There's got to be some out there...
Note: I haven't seen "Traitor" for years so, in the hopes that this will be a somewhat reasonable character study, I'm going to study other facets of him rather than speculate on a episode I can barely remember.
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With Transformer, and its multiple continuities, often times we'll see the same character acting remarkably different in two different "universes." Megatron comes to mind, as does Shockwave. But sometimes, these multiple looks at a character enhances them. They aren't the same characters, but they aren't really all that different either. Maybe one media gives you a different angle that the other didn't explore. One such character is, you guessed it, Mirage.
With both the comic and the cartoon, one could walk away with the same general idea of Mirage's character. He seems to be a bit of a free-thinker. He doesn't talk all that much and he kind of keeps to himself at times. He's also been shown to be a pretty darn good warrior in both media as well. It's displayed in fight scenes of both the comic and the cartoon. Plus, Optimus Prime wouldn't have picked him in that last stand in the comic if he didn't trust Mirage's abilities as a warrior. But after this initial look, the character starts to drift a bit between the comic and the cartoon. He's never radically different, but his role in the war and how he feels about his duties are slightly different.
I'll start with the comic. He makes it clear in the mickey-mouse-rollcall that he isn't especially fond of the Autobots or their mission and would rather be on Cybertron. One could surmise that he went on the asteroid clearing mission mostly to protect Cybertron than because it's what Autobots do. He also doesn't have very fond feelings about the humans. On two instances, he is shown siding away from the humans (issues #2 and #4) and, in one case, going as far as wondering if he was on the wrong side of the war. But that's all the further it goes. Somewhere, deep down, are the feelings that finally surfaced in "The Last Stand." In that issue, he realizes that the only way he will see his planet again how he believes it to be is it he fights unwaveringly for the Autobots. Mirage comes to realize his sense of duty and acts on it. In a way, he grew up. He shed a more selfish, yet understandable, viewpoint for a greater cause.
Things don't quite happen that way in the cartoon. We never hear Mirage say "It's all clear now" or anything and his actions throughout the series can be interpreted as him remaining the grudging warrior. If one listened only to his lines of dialogue, one could think of him as a homesick puppy. In "More Than Meets the Eye," he says something to the effect that he'd rather forget the Decepticons on Earth and focus on Cybertron. Later in that episode, he expresses an honest joy at the thought that the Autobots might have the fuel resources available to go back to Cybertron (this happened just before Ravage "escaped"). But Mirage's actions in this and other episodes speak volumes about Mirage's inner conflict, a conflict that springs from being a natural fighter without the mentality.
In the last part of "The Ultimate Doom," the members of the Autobot command circle are trying to find a way to reach the Decepticons without harming the humans in the way. Before any orders were brought down, Mirage stood and started walking towards the Decepticon ship. The tone of his voice as he said "I'll see what I can do" was the tone that seemed to say something like "I'm the only one who was a chance to do it." Mirage's knows where his talents lie, and being the free-thinker that he is, he doesn't even bother to wait for an order to do it. And this is the second time that he's done this. The first was in MTMTE, when he single-handedly brought down the Decepticon ship. He saw that the battle wasn't going well for the Autobots and he didn't wait for the orders; he acted on his own, knowing his abilities lend well to such a covert operation and having confidence in his own abilities to do the job himself. In the same episode, there is another scene that sticks out. At Sherman Dam, Mirage rushes Thundercracker and Skywarp and is promptly thrown off of a balcony. Being the skilled warrior that he is, he catches the railing, flips back up and takes out both of these guys. As Cliffjumper said after this little exchange, "for somebody who doesn't like to fight, you're not bad, Mirage."
I'd imagine that such a comment would stick with Mirage for a while. Here is a warrior and spy who doesn't like to fight, yet he still does. He has all of the natural skills a fighter should be blessed with, yet I imagine he likes nothing less. His dialogue seems to hint that one thought pervades his thoughts: Cybertron. It was not long after Cliffjumper made his comment that he told Prime he thought they should go back to Cybertron. He doesn't like being on Earth; he'd rather defend his home than someone else's. A part of him probably wonders what the point of being on Earth is, but he most likely knows the answer to that question. Megatron and many skilled fighters are on Earth. If they get back to Cybertron, especially with piles of energon, Mirage doubtlessly believes that nothing good could come of it.
That is why he still fights, even if it goes against everything he believes. Two of his most stunning scenes came in the attempt to stop the Decepticons from returning to Cybertron with a buttload of energon. And he did both of these without direct orders and, in the case of MTMTE, without even a hint of his plans. He seems to understand his place in the Autobot hierarchy: as an intelligence agent and warrior. But he also knows who gives the orders that matter to him: Cybertron.