Mirage (The Incredibles)

Mirage
File:Miarge-incredibles.jpg Close-up of Mirage
Publication information
Publisher	Dark Horse Comics/Pixar Animation Studios
First appearance	The Incredibles
Created by	Brad Bird
In-story information
Full name	Unknown
Supporting character of	Incredible Family (formerly Syndrome)
Abilities	None known, perhaps super-intelligence

Mirage is a fictional character, an ex-villainess featured in the film The Incredibles, produced by Pixar and Disney, first released on November 5, 2004. She also appears in the comic book version of The Incredibles, where she reenacts her role from the movie. Mirage is an assistant to the evil scientist, Syndrome. She tricks the superhero, Mr. Incredible, into doing work for her boss, which in reality involves battling a robot (the Omnidroid 9000) specifically designed to kill him. Mirage is the liaison between Mr. Incredible and Syndrome, preventing Mr. Incredible from learning the true identity of his employer.

Though she apparently has no superpowers, or at least none exhibited on screen, Mirage appears to have extensive computing and espionage skills^[1] and she claims her identity is kept a secret by the government, implicating she may be a "super" too. However, given her background, it is likely that her claim is false.

The voice of Mirage was provided by Elizabeth Peña.

Movie

Template:Spoiler In the movie The Incredibles, Mirage's boss, Syndrome, uses her to locate and hire former superheroes to test his Omnidroids; he wishes to develop an unstoppable Omnidroid that he can use to obtain revenge on Mr. Incredible, a former superhero who had crushed his dreams in the past. Mirage later finds Mr. Incredible with his friend, Frozone, listening to police scanners. At first, she's only after Frozone and she follows the two in her car. However, once she realises that Frozone's companion is indeed Mr. Incredible, she convinces her supervisor that a change of target is absolutely necessary.

Later, Mirage slips into Mr. Incredible's office when he is absent and places a message for him in his briefcase. In the message, Mirage tells Mr. Incredible that she is need of his services because a robot working for their secret government facility has gone haywire on their remote island. She promises him three times his annual salary to accept the assignment and ends the message by telling him to call the number on her business card. Mr. Incredible, eager to resume superhero work, tells Mirage that he wants the job.

When he arrives, Mirage tells him about the robot, the Omnidroid 9000. She tells him that it was developed with artificial intelligence and eventually became too intelligent to take orders from them. It is now rampaging across the island, forcing the evacuation of the island. Mirage explains that it is a "learning" robot, becoming more difficult to defeat the longer it is fought; she requests that the Omnidroid be shut down without destroying it.

When Mr. Incredible manages to deactivate the Omnidroid without destroying it (completely), she invites him for dinner. As Mirage is waiting for him, Syndrome (hiding in shadows) tells her to make Mr. Incredible feel that his service is needed and to boost his ego. Mirage then catches sight of Mr. Incredible listening and quickly invites him into the room. Mr. Incredible is a little suspicious of why Mirage lives on a volcano island, but she manages to conceal her true purpose before sending him home.

After several weeks, Mirage brings Mr. Incredible back to the island for a briefing in the facility's meeting room, on the pretense that she has a "new assignment" for him. However, the meeting is a trap, and Mr. Incredible is attacked by the latest prototype Omnidroid and Syndrome. Mr. Incredible escapes this trap, but is caught again in the Operation Kronos computer room when his presence is betrayed by the homing device Edna Mode built into his super suit. After placing Mr. Incredible in an electronic containment device, Mirage and Syndrome hear over the radio that Elastigirl (Mr. Incredible's wife) is flying to their island on an aircraft. Syndrome launches an attack on the plane with heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles; Mirage appears shocked when Helen yells "There are children aboard!" and Syndrome pursues his attack, destroying the plane.

Believing that Syndrome and Mirage have just killed his family, Mr. Incredible attempts to grab Syndrome, but Mirage pushes him out of the way, and instead he grabs her. He threatens to kill her, but Syndrome appears not to care (it is implied on the DVD Director's Commentary that he is schizophrenic) and, because he believes Mr. Incredible is bluffing, tells Mr. Incredible to kill her. Unable to violate his personal moral code, even with such extreme provocation, Mr. Incredible relents; Mirage appears shocked that Syndrome would gamble her life to call a bluff. After this incident, Syndrome, noticing Mirage is angry, tells her that he knew Mr. Incredible couldn't do it, but Mirage retorts that valuing another person's life is not a weakness and walks away, saying, "Next time you gamble, bet your own life!"

Later on, she frees Mr. Incredible and is about to tell him that his family survived when he begins to strangle her. However, she manages to choke out that his family had survived the explosion and in relief, Mr. Incredible embraces her. At that moment, Elastigirl comes in and knocks Mirage out (before Mirage can finish addressing Elastigirl as Mrs. Incredible), thinking he was having an affair with her. As the couple starts to make up, Mirage recuperates and informs them that their children had triggered an alarm in the forest.

Mirage is last seen giving the Incredibles the new password so that they can use a rocket to escape. Her ultimate fate remains undisclosed.

Personality

Mirage is clearly a calm, decisive, intellectual who thrives upon power. ^[2] For, upon answering Mr. Incredible's inquiry to why Syndrome's base is in the center of a volcano, she said, "He is attracted to power... so am I. It's a weakness we [she and Syndrome] share." Mirage's decisions seem to focus on control, and the drive behind obtaining it. (A different sort of control than Syndrome, for example, strives for.) To support this, take note of the scene in which she and Syndrome's relationship crumbles because he is in control of her well-being. In order to make up for this loss, she has to take drastic measures to regain her composure, and re-affirm her position of power, and so she grants the Incredibles with the password for a rocket.

Mirage's motivations in the film are never quite made clear. While an operative of Syndrome, she presumably was involved in the deaths of several superheroes and had full knowledge of his plan to wreak havoc upon the city. Yet, Mirage is appalled at the thought of killing innocent children. For instance, she doesn't show any objections to blowing up the aircraft until she hears Helen (Elastigirl) screaming over the radio "There are children aboard!" Mirage seems to feel that the other Supers (first of all, adults, and second of all, having consented to working on Nomansian Island) had a fighting chance, whereas Helen and the children were simply innocent victims.

Mirage respected Syndrome at first, as a boss and as a person, but she did not like the sportsmanship he portrayed in his decisions to gamble first the lives of innocents and her own life, when he, for the moment, had complete control of the situation. Template:Endspoiler

Relationships

Buddy Pine/"Syndrome": Mirage and Syndrome are the yin and yang of 'The Incredibles' universe. She is neat; he is disorganized. She knows who she is; he questions himself on a daily basis. However, they seem to fit perfectly with each other, not in love, but sharing something that transcends all stereotypes of a working relationship. They, first and foremost (unlike Bob and Helen) do not stand firm within gender roles and guidelines. They respect each other equally, and neither's voice is lost in the relationship for the sake of "being together." Although in the film neither of them vocally expresses sexual or even friendly attraction to the other, it is apparent in their movements, and conversations. Mirage seems to be the only employee who can access the files in the Kronos computer database. Mirage is the employee who scouts out the supers. Syndrome's fleeting attempt to kiss Mirage in their last scene together is much too ridden with previous experience to be shrugged off as simple "a boss making a pass."

Robert Parr/"Mr. Incredible": Mirage does not have any sexual feelings toward Robert Parr. She sees him as a totally different man than Syndrome, and a man she would never be involved with, but a good man all the same. She finds his love for his family remarkable, although she has nothing that quite compares, nor does she wish to.

See also

• The Incredibles

Trivia

• In addition to Elizabeth Peña, Mirage is voiced by the following actresses:
  • Barbara Schöneberger in the German version
  • Esther Arroyo in the Castilian Spanish version
  • Radó Denise in the Hungarian version
  • Emanuela Rossi in the Italian version
  • Misa Watanabe in the Japanese version
  • Danuta Stenka in the Polish version
  • Andrea Morucci in the Brazilian Portuguese version

• It is debated whether Mirage is a super or not. In the message to Mr. Incredible, she said "We have something in common: according to the government, neither of us exists," hinting that she probably is a super. If that is true then, her powers are unknown at this time or she may have tried to gain his trust. However, given Syndrome's delight in killing Supers, it is unlikely that he would keep one in his employ. If she is a Super, Mirage would be the only one working for Syndrome, as the rest of his staff is comprised of 'henchmen'.

Notes and references

1. ^ ^ ^ Adaptionsmovie.com. "Mirage's personality and possible attraction to Mr. Incredible". Retrieved March 25. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
2. ^ darkhorse.com. "Mirage's possible attraction to Syndrome". Retrieved April 03. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)

External links

• Official website of the Incredibles