Transformers: Siege Decepticon Mirage is Something That Exists

 

The 1984 Mirage toy

Now, I freely admit that a lot of my purchases as a collector come down to "because it was cheap". I'm not a completionist these days, and I make periodic attempts to be financially responsible. I do like a bargain though, and I will happily roll the dice on something if I've not tried it before. Hence today's subject, a repaint nobody asked for that I found for less than retail at a Toy Fair.

The 1990 Barricade toy

So, who is Mirage? Or possibly, whom? He's of an old money background and possibly a closet centrist. Mirage is one of those tier 2 Autobots that kinda faded into the background of the cartoon & other media. He's definitely been around, as there is demand for a dude who can turn invisible or some such, is kinda shifty, and is also a F1 car. He's the sort of fellow they go to when they are doing an assortment and they want a bit of variety, and the obvious go-to for high end race cars. If you've got a F1-themed Transformers toy it would be weird if it wasn't called Mirage at some point. Not a great character, I feel, basically a "that guy" at the end of the day, but he could be more. As to why he's a Decepticon in this case, what the thought pattern was here, I'm unsure. The rather bland Netflix cartoon, it's not an anime, don't be daft, justified this as a disguise he used in one scene, as well as the basis for a few crowd fillers. The wiki points out a similarity to IDW's take on the Micromaster Barricade, although that entire situation is a bit confused. Purple is the Decepticon colour, so the logic may be as simple as that, but calling him Decepticon Mirage is so massively uninspired as to make me think it was a placeholder that stuck. Even if we assume Dragstrip, Barricade, and such were off the table, there had to be a better name somewhere. As such, I will now refer to this toy as "MorBot", which certainly was not the intention, but I think is valid given how out of the box Legacy has been of late. 

 

The 2016 Rescue Bots Rescan MorBot toy

I've just realised that this is the third Netflix Siege toy I have A) written about and B) been markedly discounted. Bloody hell. I'm not sure if that's vindication of the line or not. 

 

Anyways, the vehicle mode. I'm gonna make two observations here that I've made before, in that it's not an especially alien alt mode, and it's doing some legitimately good work here with the paint. None of the purple or blue-gray on MorBot is actually plastic, it's all paint and I'm still surprised they go that far. It's the same basic idea I use when painting Ork vehicles, go dark and dull for the basecoat, and you avoid the edges when painting a brighter colour to suggest wear. This is a marked contrast to the previous two uses of the mould which did not attempt battle damage at all. While clearly a good-if-subdued paint job, the effect is undermined by the back end, which stuffs the arms under the rear spoiler, above a cheating robot mode chestplate. It's kinda hard to avoid looking there TBH, it gives the impression of a car with two front ends, and it's got the only Decepticon badge. Otherwise, the car form is pretty functional, rolling well and featuring the Siege era focus on weapon ports. There's only two ports, buts it's exactly what it needs, and they are well placed. It fulfils the brief, and generally looks great as long as you don't stare at the bum end. There has been 5 iterations of this mould so far, BTW, and so far none of them have swapped out that chest plate for something less dumb. It seems like an obvious thing to do... 

 

Transforming to robot mode is a game of two halves, with the upper body being very simple due to how the arms store, but there's a lot going on with the legs. It's a somewhat finicky process, but MorBot side steps the problems of his predecessors by not using any translucent plastic in his construction. As alluded to above, the scheme is completely different from G1 Mirage, even as the faux kibble chest and head sculpt try to evoke that version. As for the robot mode? Well, I'm not gonna mince words, that head is gorgeous. The paint work is really nice, and, yes the general look screams "Decepticon". Whereas the vehicle mode was built for speed, this robot tends towards the wide & powerful. The transformation also reveals a few more 5mm ports, so he can make good use of his three weapons and maybe combine with Brunt. On the downside though, the lower legs end up messy from behind, as most of the vehicle form is crammed in there, also meaning there's not that much you can do with the feet. With the play pattern being strong, but the transformation being on the weak side, I'm inclined to say this mould itself probably sits on the mediocre end of Siege, although I wouldn't be surprised if MorBot ended up being the best iteration of it. Between paintwork and the abandonment of translucent plastics, it's a quality makeover. 

 

My point? Only that Decepticon Mirage is something that exists. And that his name is dumb.