3 out of 5 ain't bad. But yes, it is a post about Mirage. More specifically this Mirage, as it is the one I've been using the most, and I was just using this guy in my recent little team as the artillery man. (Or, Bazooka man, anti-tank man, etc.)As you can see above, I have 3 of the 5 Mirage figures ever produced. Back in the GvC days, you probably remember, Mirage, along with Big Ben, was one of the most available figures that most collectors couldn't get rid of. If you search long enough on the internet, you may find old forums or something where one might see the lament of excess Mirage and Big Ben figures.
And this is all because of that "army building" bug that got many of us, and Hasbro got us good with the "versus" double pack. Myself, I was never an "army builder," but after seeing Vipers available in the pack (and these were double figure packs, no way around it!) and me digging Vipers, I ended up buying six. Yep, so I had a squad of 6 Vipers. Here they are now:
I haven't altered these Vipers. And Yes, only 5 of these guys in the picture is what I have now, along with the five Mirages that accompanied them. The sixth Viper at that time came with the Mirage below that I have been using as my "main" Mirage. The sixth Viper was traded early on.Really, that's a lot of Mirage figures! I remember some collectors at the time were making these excess Mirage figures "green shirts" for their GIJOE army. Even after getting an actual "green shirt" generic GIJOE army builder set available, I found that generic soldier concept didn't work for me and my collection. I'm much more drawn to the unique characters, and I have enough character figures to make for a very interesting army. Although, don't get me wrong, I did try the "green shirt" concept out, and I even tried to advance that into a "B-team" inductee training thing, which sort of led to them being tapped for "Allied Nation Forces" use under the codename: "Street fighter." But that's another story.....
Right now, we're still looking at Mirage, and here's my "main" Mirage:
I picked this Mirage, as he was the more unique of the six Mirage figures, but also, I liked the two greens. The lighter green on top doesn't seem as visually heavy as it does on the other GvC figures. And he's not invisible! The Winter Ops Mirage has to be one of the more literal takes on a figures codename, ever. The figure looks cool, but I still don't really have a use for it, so therefore it sits in a box being cool. (anybody want to trade something for this figure?)
I picked out Sonic Fighter Zaps double-barreled bazooka, or as I see it now that I think of it a little more, a recoil-less cannon. Much like what is on top of the AWE striker. I think this would be a fairly effective weapon for the guy.
Something I kind of like about more modern O-ring Joes is they didn't have their unique accessories with them, so I had to re-arm them with something. Mirage is a figure that I don't think has ever really had a good compliment of accessories, though.
Consider the file cards:
He started out as a Bio-artillery expert. Essentially from his file card, I see he is meant to lay down suppressive fire and launch rockets. Primary MOS is Rocket Fire assaults, and secondary is Heavy Artillery. That's the original, and really it seems VERY open ended as to what he does.
That's probably why he became a Weapons Expert in the GvC days. The file text expands into his expertise on crew served weapons and anti-armor systems.
But then the figure that has to be more on the rare side, is the Hoverstrike Mirage, where now he is a Rocket Fire Assault specialist. But the rest of his file doesn't add anything new to the mix. Although, for some reason, he is the pilot of the Hoverstrike. I would have chosen Cutter, myself.
Also, consider the weapons and accessories that this guy has gotten through his variations. None of them really add to the character, in my opinion. Perhaps the bio-armor from the Mega Marines original, and its spring fired missile launcher is the closest to unique accessories as it gets.
Either way, from what I can put together with the information, is this guy can shoot anything effectively, but does really well with shooting rockets.
So, what do you think? Is Mirage an effective replacement for Zap or Heavy Duty? How do you use Mirage? What weapons does your Mirage carry? Did you forget you had these figures in a bin in the back of a basement closet?
