Religion: not determined yet
Name: Mirage
Alter Ego: Miriam Delgado
Classification:
hero
Publisher(s): 
First Appearance: The New Titans #79 (Sep. 1991): "Prelude"
Creators: Marv Wolfman, Tom Grummett, Paris Cullins, Curt Swan, Al Vey
Super? (Has Super Powers/Special Abilities/Technology): Yes
Number of Appearances: 83
Teams/Affiliations: The Teen Titans
Race: Hispanic
Gender: female
Details from now-defunct web page at http://www.titanstower.com/source/whoswho/mirage.html:
Mirage Quick Bio: Brazilian Miriam Delgado became the illusion-casting Mirage to repel Lord Chaos' brutal armies. Believing she was from an alternate future, Miri later learned she was implanted with false memories. Mirage left the Titans when she gave birth to her daughter, Julienne.
Future Origins
Mirage's story began 10 years in the future; Or, rather, the false future where Lord Chaos reigned and a force known as the Team Titans struggled to overthrow his tyranny. In turn, Lord Chaos sought to destroy the rebels known as the Team Titans.
Miriam Delgado had a very traumatic childhood. She was abused as a child and killed her own father. Miriam joined the rebellion at an early age. Her shape-shifting abilities gave her an advantage. Eventually, she was captured by Lord Chaos, who sought to exploit her abilities for his own needs. Chaos brainwashed Mirage - as he now dubbed her - and subjected her to a number of abuses, both mental and physical.
Chaos' brainwashing of Mirage was successful. He used her as a member of the Force Elite and she was perfect for spy missions due to her abilities. On one mission, she infiltrated a rebellion camp, and her brainwashing began to fade. She fought Chaos' control and escaped to rejoin the rebellion.
It was at this time that she joined the Team Titans and met the future version of Nightwing, who trained the Teamers. Mirage fell in love with Nightwing and they entered into a relationship.
Team Titans: Back to the Past
Shortly thereafter, the Team Titans leader gave the team a mission: travel 10 years into the past to stop Chaos from ever being born. To accomplish this, the Teamers were assigned to kill Donna Troy before she would give birth to the child who would become Lord Chaos. The Teamers successfully traveled to the past and came into conflict with the Titans. As a way to get close to the Titans, Mirage impersonated Starfire. During this time, she met the younger version of Nightwing, the man she loved in the future. Mirage took advantage of the disguise and shared a night of passion with Nightwing.
Donna gave birth to her son before the Teamers could intervene. However, the Titans and the Team Titans were able to stop Chaos and spare Donna's life at the same time. Mirage constantly made advances toward Nightwing, which angered Starfire.
After this, the Teamers found themselves stranded in the past, unable to return to their future. With nowhere else to go, they resided at Donna Troy's New Jersey farmhouse. The Teamers tried to find a place in this new world.
Shortly after that, the future version of Nightwing entered this timeline. Mirage was reunited with her lover only briefly. A dark version of Raven attacked the future Nightwing and corrupted him by planting a Trigon-seed within him. Nightwing now renamed himself Deathwing, and became violent and brutal. Deathwing visited Mirage, where he attacked and raped her. Mirage then learned she was pregnant with Deathwing's child.
Soon, the Teamers lives were disrupted by the time crisis known as Zero Hour. It was then revealed that the Team Titans leader in the future was the villainous Monarch - who created a false future world so he could train meta-humans (The Team Titans) to act as sleeper agent assassins. He knew of the impending time crisis, and wanted a super-powered army at his command. The time-villain Extant commanded all the Team Titans to attack the heroes who were trying to unravel this time crisis. His plan was thwarted; the heroes contained the Teamers. Time continued to collapse, erasing the false timelines that had emerged. As a result, all the Team Titans were erased from existence.
Arsenal's New Titans Team
Strangely enough, three people remained unscathed from Monarch's false timeline: Tara Markov (Terra II), Miriam Delgado (Mirage) and Deathwing (who was believed to be a future Dick Grayson). Terra and Mirage remained members of a new Titans team, led by Arsenal. Shortly after the team was reformed, a strange orb appeared, with messages for Mirage and Terra.
The orb was sent by the Time Trapper, who revealed that Mirage, Deathwing and Terra were from this timeline, not an alternate timeline, as they had thought - which is why they survived the time crisis. Mirage was actually a runaway street urchin from Brazil. Mirage had been implanted with false memories by the Time Trapper and turned into a "sleeper agent" who would fight the villainous Monarch in the coming Zero Hour event.
The Titans then encountered their old foe, Psimon, after reforming the team. Psimon revealed that Mirage had much untapped power, including psionic abilities. These abilities have surfaced on a few occasions, but Mirage has yet to explore the full extent of them.
The Titans eventually came into conflict with Raven once again, now reborn as an evil avatar of Trigon. During this conflict, Mirage was captured by Deathwing, who took a sadistic interest in his unborn child. During the ensuing battle where the dark version of Raven was at last expunged, it appeared that Mirage had a miscarriage.
In truth, Mirage was still pregnant and used her illusion abilities to make it appear otherwise. While a Titan, Mirage began to develop romantic feeling for Arsenal, but he appeared oblivious to her flirtations. Mirage eventually went into labor while the Titans were off-world on another mission. She gave birth to a baby girl, who she named Julienne. Mirage then elected to spend time with her baby, and shortly after that, the Titans disbanded.
Mirage aided the Titans again during the Technis Imperative conflict, which involved the Justice League as well as all Titans, past and present. The two teams eventually worked together to save the earth and former Titans teammate, Victor Stone (Cyborg). Mirage aids the Titans when needed, but devotes much of her time as a mother to Julienne.
After Superboy's tragic death during the Infinite Crisis, the Teen Titans faced a year of heartache and turmoil. Mirage joined the team for a short time, but later quit. The group remained in constant upheaval until Robin returned and reorganized the Titans into a team.
Powers / Weapons
Mirage has the ability to alter her appearance by casting illusions. She has used these abilities mostly for subterfuge, but has also learned she can project illusions from a distance as well - an ability she is still learning to control. Mirage's powers have great unrealized potential; During a conflict with Psimon, some new psionic abilities were unlocked. This psionic abilities have yet to be fully catalogued.
Mirage has fought as a soldier in Lord Chaos' army and has also been trained by Battalion. She is a superb hand-to-hand combatant.
Sources for this entry: DC Who's Who Binder Series, DC Secret Files, supplemented by titanstower.com
Essential Reading
New Titans #79 [1991]: A mysterious group of teenagers try to track down Donna Troy in an attempt to kill her. This issue features the first appearance of the Team Titans. Story continued in New Titans Annual #7 [which establishes the back story of the Team Titans].
New Titans Annual #7 and New Titans #80 [1991]: Waverider leaves an unconscious Nightwing to meet Joe Wilson, while in the future, the mysterious leader details his plans to the Team Titans on how they will go back in time to eliminate Donna Troy before she can give birth to her son, who will turn out to be Lord Chaos.
Total Chaos: New Titans #90-92, Team Titans #1-3, Deathstroke #14-16 [1992]: The Team Titans have been sent to the past to kill the pregnant Troia before she gives birth to her son, who could become a god-powered dictator named Lord Chaos in the future. The Team is defeated, and Troia, having lost her powers, gives birth to a normal baby boy. Mirage of the Team Titans kidnaps Starfire and impersonates her so that she can date Nightwing. Team Titans #1 is released in five different versions, but unlike variant cover gimmicks, all five are double-sized while selling for the regular price. Although all contain a common story, each also includes a different full-length origin story for a group member [Origins of Mirage, Terra II, Nightrider, Redwing and Killowat].
Team Titans #6 [1993]: The Team Titans celebrate the holidays, by going in search of their pasts, here In the present. Phantasm eases Terra's and Mirage's pains. Both Titans teams unite for a holiday gathering.
Team Titans #7 [1993]: The future-Nightwing emerges in the past and is reunited with the Teamers.
Team Titans #8 [1993]: The future-Nightwing has been attacked by the mysterious figure [later revealed to be a transformed Raven, having corrupted future-Nightwing with a 'Trigon seed']. This triggers startling changes in him, as he adopts the name Deathwing. Later, as Deathwing is reunited with an amorous Mirage, he plans on attacking her.
Team Titans #9-10 [1993]: After a night of passion, Deathwing savagely attacks Mirage, leaving her devastated.
New Titans #116-117, Green Lantern #57 [1994]: Psimon attacks the Titans, and psychologically tortures each of them, while also unwittingly unlocking new abilities in the Titan, Mirage.
New Titans #119-121 [1995]: Deathwing captures Mirage and takes a sadistic interest in his unborn child. The Titans defeat Raven and her thralls [including Deathwing]. Later, Mirage seemingly has a miscarriage in issue #121.
New Titans Annual #11 [1995]: A YEAR ONE tale featuring Arsenal's Titans team. The Time Trapper reveals Mirage, Deathwing and Terra are all from this timeline. Mirage learns she is a street urchin from Brazil.
New Titans #127-130 [1995]: Mirage goes into labor and reveals she had been concealing her pregnancy. Mirage has her baby [mistakenly referred to as her 'son' when it is established as a daughter later on] in issue #130. Raven is cleansed of evil and given a new golden body in issue #130. Chronologically, the Titans appear next in Titans Secret Files #1, where the dissolution of Arsenal's team is told.
X-Force-Fitting The Team Titans
Jeff Jensen and Phil Jimenez co-wrote the book starting with #13 until its cancellation with #24 [1994]. The last few issues of the book featured art by Terry Dodson.
The book seemed to be conceived as an answer to Marvel's popular X-Force, with its teenage warriors and tough drill sergeant mentor/leader (Battalion subbing for X-Force's Cable). The concept never caught on with readers and the book was ultimately canceled. The Team Titans' fate was revealed in Zero Hour, where their timeline collapsed, thus erasing all the characters from existence (except Terra, Mirage and Deathwing).
Jimenez later reflected of his Team Titans tenure on an AOL chat: "I signed on to do a particular kind of self-aware, kitschy project while the higher ups wanted the new X-Force - and everything we had planned got screwed up by Zero Hour - none of which were particularly good for the team, DC Comics, or my career. We had originally intended to explore various things with the Team; Mirage's psycho pregnancy; Killowat's subtle racism, the possibility that Terra was a lesbian earth elemental. Kole was Marv's doing, not mine and we had to explain her away. In our original plan, the Team Titans were from an alternate time line and Terra was that time line's Earth elemental and she was going to be a lesbian."
"Mirage was going to go nuts during her pregnancy, and try to shape change it out of existence and it would be invulnerable to that, and she'd eventually kill herself. Mirage was never a favorite. But I found the drama of her after-rape period ripe with possibilities."
"We were going to explore the Joker's Daughter angle. We were going to find out that the Joker's Daughter was insane - that her memories of the Titans (now non-continuity) were just ravings in her head. She was going to steal the Time Commander's hourglass and reshape Manhattan into the island that she remembered, recreating a 70's world of heroes, villains, and icons that the Titans would find themselves in."
Mirage's Strange Pregnancy
Mirage's pregnancy and subsequent birth was filled with all sorts of ups and downs and twists and turns. But it wasn't a result of clever writing, just confusing storytelling. Witness the story of Mirage's Strange Pregnancy...
TEAM TITANS #6-7: The so-called future version of Nightwing entered this timeline. Mirage was reunited with her lover only briefly. A dark version of Raven attacked the future Nightwing and corrupted him by planting a Trigon-seed within him. Nightwing now renamed himself Deathwing, and became violent and brutal. Deathwing visited Mirage, where he attacked and raped her.
TEAM TITANS # 14: Mirage took a home pregnancy test and learned she was pregnant with Deathwing's child.
NEW TITANS # 119-121: The Titans eventually came into conflict with Raven once again. During this conflict, Mirage was captured by Deathwing. Deathwing took a sadistic interest in his unborn child. During the ensuing battle where the dark version of Raven was at last expunged, it appeared that Mirage had a miscarriage. As a matter of fact, STAR Labs confirmed this. Mirage seems genuinely distraught. It appears this sub-plot is put to rest.
THE NEW TITANS # 127: Mirage goes into labor. So much for that miscarriage! In truth, we are told, Mirage was still pregnant and used her illusion abilities to make it appear otherwise [she was supposedly embarrassed]. This seems to make little sense, especially since the series was slated for cancellation in three issues. It is unknown why the creators chose to revisit this subplot
THE NEW TITANS # 130: Mirage goes through labor while the Titans were off-world on another mission. She gave birth to a baby boy, we are told. Mirage then elected to spend time with her baby, and shortly after that, the Titans disbanded.
JLA/TITANS #3: Mirage introduces us to her baby GIRL, who she named Julienne. Yes, GIRL.
Pregnant, then not pregnant, then pregnant again. A baby boy that turns into a baby girl.
That's gotta turn out to be one weird kid.
Armageddon 2001 #2 (Oct. 1991): "Conclusion"
Deathstroke, the TerminatorThe New Titans #79 (Sep. 1991): "Prelude"Wonder Woman (vol. 2) #175 (Dec. 2001): "The Witch and the Warrior, Part Two: Girl Frenzy"
Suggested links for further research about this character:
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirage_(DC_Comics)#Miriam_Delgado
- http://www.comicvine.com/mirage/29-3587/