Mirage (DC Comics)

Mirage is the name of two fictional characters appearing in American comic books published by DC Comics. The first was a minor villain of Batman. The second is a heroine affiliated with the Teen Titans.

Mike
The first Mirage was a man named Mike (also referred to as "Kerry Austin") and appeared in Detective Comics #511 (February 1982). He uses a gem that causes people to see elaborate illusions. He commits crimes while his victims are occupied fighting against these illusions. This crime wave brings him to the attention of Batman. Batman faces Mirage several times before coming up with a strategy to beat him. During the encounter, Mirage's gem is destroyed. Batman is able to defeat him and send him to jail.

Mirage was revealed to have been a graduate of the Academy of Crime.

While in jail, Mirage manages to create contact lenses from fragments of his jewel. He proceeds to create the illusion of himself in jail and escapes to the circus he once worked for. Starting another crime wave, Batman is once again alerted to his actions. This time, Batman easily beats him and sends him back to prison. Mirage also fought Manhunter once using his illusions so successfully, he nearly killed the bounty hunter.

Following the Infinite Crisis, Mirage is freed from prison again. He is killed in 52 #25 (2006) by Bruno Mannheim. Mannheim bashes Mirage's head into the "Crime Bible" and sends his body to the kitchen to be prepared for Mannheim to eat, revealing Mannheim is a cannibal.

Miriam Delgado
Mirage was originally one of the Teen Titans who came from the future to kill Donna Troy before she could give birth to her son, who, in Mirage's future, became the evil dictator Lord Chaos.

After Donna sacrificed her powers to prevent that future from becoming real, Mirage and the other Team Titans relocated to Donna's farm in New Jersey. She had to deal with Killowat's intense crush on her and the more malicious intents of another man. Mirage was raped by her former lover Deathwing and became pregnant with his child. For a while she deceived her friends, using her powers to make it seem as if she had lost the child.

Mirage is part of the honor guard that escorts Superman's body to his tomb.

During Zero Hour: Crisis in Time!, Mirage learns that she was a street urchin from Brazil who the Time Trapper had kidnapped and implanted with false memories. Mirage remained a member of Arsenal's Titans team, during which she lost control of her powers.

Eventually, she gave birth to a daughter named Julienne and left the Titans to spend time with her.

She helps the Titans to save former Titan Cyborg in the Technis Imperative storyline. During a confrontation with the Justice League during this incident, she tricks the Martian Manhunter with an image of his dead wife and is violently subdued. She reappears again, alongside other former Titans, to help the new incarnation of the Titans defeat Doctor Light in the Lights Out storyline.

During the Infinite Crisis event, Mirage was one of the former Titans that came to aid the Teen Titans in the battle between Superboy-Prime.

Powers and abilities
Mike can create believable illusions in the minds of the people around him by using a gem of unknown origin. The gem projects both optical and audio stimuli.

Miriam Delgado can also create illusions and use them to disguise her appearance.

Other versions
An alternate universe incarnation of Miriam Delgado / Mirage appears in Team Titans Annual #2.

In other media

 * An original incarnation of Mirage named Miranda appears in the Static Shock episode "Brother-Sister Act", voiced by Gavin Turek. This version is a Bang Baby who, alongside her brother Byron, was exposed to mutagen amidst a clean-up effort following the Big Bang, with Miranda acquiring photokinesis that allows her to create illusions while Byron acquired a loudspeaker in his chest capable of firing powerful sound waves. Taking the name "Boom", Byron forces Miranda into helping him steal valuables. Realizing he had become corrupted by the mutagen, Miranda helps Static defeat him. Afterwards, she is taken by child protective services and returns the favor by creating an illusion to protect Static's secret identity from his sister Sharon.
 * The Miriam Delgado incarnation of Mirage appears as a character summon in Scribblenauts Unmasked: A DC Comics Adventure.
 * An unidentified, alternate universe variant of Mirage inspired by Raven appears in Teen Titans Go! #48 as a member of her version of the Teen Titans.