MIRAGE

Dani's mutant powers first emerged at puberty, when she could not control her ability to create visible images of people's greatest fears. One night she created a symbolic vision of her parents' deaths. Shortly thereafter, her parents disappeared during a trip to the mountains. Moonstar believed them to have been killed, and her dreams were haunted thereafter by a vision of a demonic bear, which she believed to be responsible for their deaths. In fact, Moonstar's parents had been transformed into the demonic bear. The bear would have worked the same transformation upon Moonstar, but her grandfather, the chief and shaman Black Eagle, used spells to keep the bear away from her.

Dani then fled to the mountains, where she was raised over the next few years by Black Eagle. Eventually, Black Eagle sent a letter to Professor Charles Xavier, who had become a friend of Danielle's father, William, when they were in the army together. Black Eagle believed that Xavier could provide Dani with the training she needed to utilize her powers best, and asked him in his letter to do so.

Xavier agreed to come meet Moonstar and become her teacher. Black Eagle ordered her to go with Xavier and she reluctantly agreed, nervous about entering the white man's world. But before Xavier arrived, Black Eagle was murdered by Donald Pierce, a member of the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club. Pierce was determined to kill Xavier as well as other superhuman mutants.

Dani vowed to take vengeance for her grandfather's death. She soon found herself hunted by Pierce's agents, but she was saved by the mutant Karma, who arrived along with Xavier. Xavier told Moonstar about Pierce, and she said she would work with Xavier to get her revenge. After Moonstar helped Xavier and several other young mutants he had enlisted in defeating Pierce, they became members of his new team, the New Mutants. Under Xavier's guidance Dani learned how to keep her powers under control, and eventually she and her fellow student Cannonball became the team's leaders. She originally took the code name Psyche but later changed it to Mirage after the illusions she creates.

With Black Eagle dead, the demon bear was no longer prevented from seeking out Moonstar. She fought the bear outside Xavier's mansion and it crippled Dani, forcing her into a wheelchair for a period of a several months. The New Mutants, using Magik's soulsword, were able to defeat the bear, freeing Dani's parents and returning them to their human forms. Mirage was reunited with her parents, and she eventually recovered completely from her injuries, thanks to the Morlock Healer.

Later, The Enchantress kidnapped the New Mutants to Asgard, the extradimensional home of the Norse gods. While she was there, Dani rescued a winged horse from hunters. Mirage had an immediate psychic rapport with the horse, which she named Brightwind after her pony on Earth, and the horse selected her to be his rider. Brightwind was one of the herd of flying horses that are ridden by the female warriors, the Valkyries. The bonding between Moonstar and Brightwind bestowed part of their power upon Dani, and she gained the Valkyries' ability to perceive the coming of death. When the New Mutants returned to Earth, Brightwind came with them.

Dani continued on as leader of the New Mutants until the New Mutants returned to Asgard. There, Dani was possessed by Hela, Goddess of Death, and became an evil demon. With the help of the New Mutants, Dani escaped Hela's control and was able to defeat the Death Goddess. However, when the New Mutants once again returned to Earth, Dani shocked her friends by electing to stay behind in Asgard with her Valkryian sisters. This was the last that Dani was seen in the pages of The New Mutants.

During her days with the New Mutants, Dani possessed a unique power. She could telepathically pull images of people's greatest fears or their heart's desire out of their heads and project them as 3-D images for all to see. Originally, Dani had no control over what kind of images she pulled from people's heads, but during her time at Xavier's, she was able to gain a reasonable control of her powers.

Dani could also establish a quasi-telepathic rapport with higher animals, including primates, canines, felines, birds, and her Asgardian winged horse Brightwind, enabling her to sense their emotions and perceive images in their minds. This came in extremely handy with fellow New Mutant Wolfsbane. When Rahne would shift to her transitional half-lupine form or full wolf form, she and Dani shared a psychic rapport, and could communicate telepathically.

In Asgard, Dani gained the Valkyrie power to perceive and sense the coming of death. She could view a "deathglow" surrounding a person in serious danger of dying. She could also perceive Death incarnate as a conceptual being and even do physical battle with Death, which she did on several occasions to save her injured teammates. She also possessed a Valkryie horse, Brightwind, who had wings and could carry Dani and other passengers aloft.

What happened to Dani after she elected to stay in Asgard is still not known. At some point, she was "cast out" of the Norse realm and returned to Earth. Along with her was a demonic black steed called Darkwind, and whether this was Brightwind transformed or an entirely new animal was not revealed.

Dani was found on Earth by the mutant terrorist Reignfire, who had recently reorganized the terrorist group called the Mutant Liberation Front. Dani agreed to join the Front, secretly intending to betray the group from within. At some point she secretly joined the international law enforcement agency S.H.I.E.L.D. Hence, she was functioning as a deep cover S.H.I.E.L.D. operative within the Mutant Liberation Front.

To maintain her cover Moonstar was forced to battle X-Force alongside other members of the Front. However, she later allied herself with X-Force against the Gamesmaster and the Upstarts, and finally revealed to X-Force that she had been an undercover agent. She then joined X-Force and remained a team member for some time.

After Pete Wisdom took over the team, Dani quit X-Force and decided to attend college.  She also became a reserve X-Man, assisting the senior team when called upon.

Dani's powers have also undergone significant changes. When she first resurfaced, her power seemed to have changed to allow her to fire blasts of psionic energy from a bow she carried.  At one point, she became involved with the sorceress Jennifer Kale, and gained the ability channel a powerful energy that allowed her do most anything.  Dani was then split into several versions of herself, and when she was restored, her powers reverted to their original form.