Mirrors have been a featured prop to tell stories as long as we have been telling stories.

Perhaps the earliest memory of a mirror readers have today occurs in Disney’s full-length animated feature Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs, first shown in 1937, a tale based on the fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm from 1812.

Who can forget the vain horror: “Magic mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest one of all?” — which we inexplicably often wrongly remember to be, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the fairest of them all?” Perhaps because the latter has a better rhythm and cadence. Nevertheless, when the mirror reveals that Snow White is the fairest, the queen plots to murder Snow White.

Or perhaps we recall Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass (1871) — “looking glass” being an antiquated way of saying “mirror” — by which Alice is again transported to a fantastical realm. Another horror story full of violent, scary scenes not really suitable for children.

Mirrors have long had magical powers for storytellers and audiences alike. They provide a means to see one as they really are. Traditional vampires have no soul, and thus no reflection. Mirrors reveal the truth, the drunk or monster we try to keep hidden inside. Mirrors have often played such important roles in monster movies.

Though a mirror in comics can be any surface, not just the traditional dresser-mounted or wall-hung looking glass, we have limited this gallery to primarly just such traditional contrivances, for they often contain the true horror and monsters we find within ourselves.

We do not post reflections which occur in eyeglasses or sunglasses or weapons in this gallery. Those covers are best reserved for other galleries, such as The Incredible Hulk #340.

Sources: Wikipedia (“Through the Looking Glass“; Wikipedia (“Snow White & the Seven Dwarfs“); Insider.com (“Movie Quotes You’re Getting Wrong“)