General Information:
Release Year: July 2007
Retailer: Botcon 2007 Exclusive
Price: Free to Botcon 2007 attendees
Accessories: Gun
Images:
Mirage is a rather unusual convention exclusive, and as such will be getting an unusual review. You'll get my opinions of the figure and its aesthetics, mechanics and so on in the Classics Mirage review, this will be a brief review of the figure and some of the ideas behind it.
The concept behind Mirage was to create a version where he is transitioning from his "solid" form to his invisible form. It is not an entirely original idea. Versions of this have been done before such as the non-transforming clear Choro-Q Mirage car and the Car Robots clear exclusive of (who we knew in the US as) Skid-Z. This was the first time however that such a figure was being released in the US.
The other inspiration was to up the ante on the free figure we would give out with the 2007 set. Fans will remember in previous years we gave free Scout Class/Basic sized figures. However we felt strongly that offering a deluxe would be very cool and give fans more bang for their buck when attending the show. Mirage was one of the few sculpts we did not tap for the rest of the Botcon 2007 toys, so he fit into this slot perfectly.
As one would expect, Mirage is cast in translucent blue plastic. We did consider using clear plastic very briefly, but it would have looked pretty bad, especially when you consider some parts had to remain solid colors due to the way the mold tree is set up. Those solid parts (mostly smaller joints, the tailpipes etc.) are cast in solid blue. There were discussions about somehow overlaying the graphics from the Classics figure onto this, but there was no way to really "fade" those graphics and make them look right (at least from our perspective) so they were left out, our rationale being that such details would become invisible pretty quickly as he faded out from view.
When Mirage is in vehicle mode, he is condensed so the translucent effect is barely noticable. However once you transform him and put him up against a light source, he looks fantastic - just like he is fading away into invisibility.
All of Mirage's parts are nice and tight and he transforms just fine.
Final Thoughts:
What makes Mirage an interesting exclusive is that he is not a new character nor is he meant to "replace" an existing Transformers toy. Instead he is another version of an existing toy, so in many ways he is a complement to your collection, not just an addition. Mirage thus far has averaged about $50 or less on ebay following the convention. I'd say if you are a completist or really dig the concept then go for it, otherwise you may want to skip it. This is not to say I don't like this figure a lot, but some people probably don't want to pay too much for something that is a clear version of an existing toy.
