“We are the Mushroom Kingdom’s plumbers extraordinaire!
The Super Mario Brothers, what a pair!
Do you have problems with your pipes?
Is your water running right?
Are all the fittings screwed down tight?
If they aren’t, don’t despair!
The super plumbers will be there!
And there’s no pipe we can’t repair!”
- Mario and Luigi, singing
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| The cover of the 1993 trade paperback (TPB) collection |
The Facts
Release Date: January-December 1992 (magazine serialization), July 1993 (trade paperback collection)
Serialized In: Nintendo Power magazine (US), CoroCoro Comic (Japan)
Writer: Kentaro Takekuma (story), Leslie Swan (copywriter)
Artist: Tamakichi Sakura (as Charlie Nozawa)
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| If you've never read this...oh man, you're in for a good time |
What's the Deal
Super Mario Adventures: Mario and Luigi are working on the Mushroom Castle’s plumbing when Bowser appears and announces (through rapping) his intention to force Princess Toadstool to marry him. She rushes off to deal with him herself, but is captured. The Mario Bros. go to follow her, and wind up in what seems to be Dinosaur Land. All sorts of fun shenanigans follow as Mario, Luigi, and their new friend Yoshi try to save the Mushroom Kingdom by preventing Bowser’s wedding.
Mario vs. Wario: Mario gets a letter from his childhood friend, Wario, inviting him to hang out after twenty years, not realizing that this invitation is actually a way to get revenge on Mario inadvertently bullying Wario as a kid. Mario faces off against all of Wario’s henchmen on his way to the reunion, not realizing he’s being attacked.
Mario vs. Wario: The Birthday Bash: It’s Princess Toadstool’s birthday, and she has her eye on a Samus Aran doll. Mario and Wario compete to be the one to get it for her.
Background/Development
Early on in Nintendo Power, the magazine had some recurring comic segments, particularly Howard & Nester, where Nester, the magazine’s mascot, butted heads with Howard Phillips, a prominent figure of Nintendo of America.
At the start of 1992, the magazine began serializing short comics based on the two most significant games for the then-new Super NES: The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, and Super Mario World.
The Mario comic was titled Super Mario Adventures, and was written by Kentaro Takekuma (best known for being a co-creator of the hilarious, but very adult, satire Even a Monkey Can Draw Manga), with the copywriting (and I presume the English translation) being done by NoA localizer Leslie Swan.
The art was provided by Tamakichi Sakura (under the pen name Charlie Nozawa), who is best known for the manga Shiawase no Katachi, and Oyaji no Wakusei, as well as providing character design for games like Sansara Naga, and Pikiinya!.
Not only did Super Mario Adventures begin with this issue, but it had my favorite Castlevania as the cover story!
In January 1993, a one-shot chapter loosely adapting Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, titled Mario vs. Wario, appeared in the magazine, with a sequel story (Mario vs. Wario: The Birthday Bash) appearing in the January 1994 issue.
In July 1993, all 12 chapters of Super Mario Adventures, as well as the first Mario vs. Wario story, were compiled into a single trade paperback.
The North American website for Wario Land 4, in 2001, had Mario vs. Wario available as a downloadable PDF.
In 2016, twenty-three years after the trade paperback release, VIZ Media released a reprint of it.
VIZ’s release was pretty much a straight reprint of the 1993 book, leaving The Birthday Bash, as the only Super Mario comic by this creative team to have never been reprinted in TPB/graphic novel format.
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| 2016 Edition |
My History With It
Found the 1993 TPB in a store when I was about eight or nine years old, and was amazed by the existence of a Super Mario comic.
I bought it and read it repeatedly, even using it as an excuse to dress as Mario for an elementary school event where students were encouraged to dress as their favorite characters from books.
Interestingly enough, I got this book shortly after I got my copy of Super Mario Land 2, so I was able to recognize what the backup story was based on.
Unfortunately, my much younger brother and cousin found the book at one point, and absolutely destroyed it.
When I got back into Super Mario as a teenager, I remember searching the internet up and down for someone selling a used copy, to no avail.
You better believe that learning of the VIZ Media reprint had me extremely hyped, and I ordered a copy as soon as I got the chance.
As much as I love the Super Show! and the Nintendo Comics System series from 1990...this might be my favorite non-game Super Mario thing ever.
General Thoughts
Unlike the cartoons from DiC, and the aforementioned comics (by Valiant), one of the first things one notices about this comic is that the characters look a LOT more like their depictions in the promotional art for the games at the time: Mario and Luigi’s outfits are correctly colored (with blue overalls), the villain is clearly Bowser from the games (and not the “King Koopa” amalgamation), and enemies are drawn very much on-model.
Nozawa’s artwork is perfect for this. The environments look great, the characters are very expressive and animated, Princess Toadstool is possibly the cutest she’s ever been, the comedic timing is spot-on, and a lot of it is very detailed without losing that cartoony simplicity (the way he draws the characters hurt or tired by adding a few small lines here and there on their skin or clothing is especially effective, and is something I’ve taken to doing in my own cartooning).
To be blunt, this comic’s version of Princess Toadstool is SUCH a badass. She pursues Bowser on her own, escapes from his clutches through a combination of stealth, quick thinking, and combat. She’s only subdued in the second half of the story due to a Magikoopa hypnotizing her.
She's just SO cool! As far as original characters go, the only one really of note is Friendly Floyd, a traveling salesman who keeps popping up. He rips off Mario and Luigi by selling them a Yoshi translation book, and they later use his makeup kit and stock of bombs to get out of a jam in the story’s most memorable act. He’s a lot of fun.
Also, the bit where he’s selling lipstick to a Piranha Plant is weirdly cute. I really appreciate the story’s sense of humor. This is a very funny book. Lots of alliteration and other assorted wordplay, fourth wall breaks, and cartoony slapstick all over the place.
One gag that always sticks with me is Bowser turning a group of screaming Toads into stone...along with the text in their word balloon.
A detail I noticed is that the Toad that notifies Mario and Luigi that the Princess has been kidnapped has a mustache...until he doesn’t. It just disappears between chapters.
Lots of fun twists with this tale to keep the story going. Princess Toadstool is captured, but she escapes, only for Mario to get captured instead. Luigi disguises himself as the princess, and she shows up with dozens of bombs (and in Luigi’s outfit) to save the day. Mario is freed, but Toadstool is captured again.
- The Bros. end up in a Ghost House at one point, and Mario disguises himself as a psychologist and diagnoses the Boos’ neuroses to get directions to Bowser’s Castle in order to crash the wedding. Just one highly entertaining turn after another!
As a big fan of Dr. Mario, I appreciated his disguise there.
Are you hearing this music, too? Honestly, this plot wouldn’t be out of place in one of the Mario RPGs.
The comic takes most of its inspiration from Super Mario World, with Yoshi being a main character, Toadstool using a yellow cape to escape, Bowser’s army consisting entirely of enemies from SMW, the subplot about Yoshi’s friends being trapped in eggs, a Koopaling’s tower being blown up, ect.
Though, among the guests as Bowser’s wedding are Shy Guys, Snifits, and Flurries from Super Mario Bros. 2, as well as a Para-Goomba from Super Mario Bros. 3, and even the Blue Virus from Dr. Mario, which is a nice touch.
Mario vs Wario is a fun little story that...draws from a game we haven’t covered on this blog yet.
My favorite part is how Mario accidentally defeats all the bosses from Super Mario Land 2 without even realizing that’s he’s under attack.
A big theme is that Mario is oblivious to a lot. He’s unaware that these monsters are acting with ill intention, and doesn’t realize how his actions as a kid have traumatized Wario, twenty years later.
The whiplash of Mario wishing to make it up to Wario, and Wario being ready to bury the hatchet...and then the revelation of how Mario tries to make it up setting Wario off again is hilarious.
The Birthday Bash is interesting in how Wario is the main focus, plotting to switch out the jack-in-the-box he got for Toadstool with what he assumes is the Samus doll Mario bought her.
Things get so heated that Mario and Wario actually get into a fistfight over it.
It’s also fun to see Metroid be referenced in this, by way of the Samus doll. Perhaps foreshadowing the Super Metroid comic that began in the next issue?
And, of course, the resolution is a fun twist.
Trivia
Luigi disguising himself as Princess Peach happens again in the RPG Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. He also disguises himself as a bride for a volcano god in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.
The Paper Mario instance is amusing in that Luigi describes himself as “one hot sacrifice”, while his partner, Jerry the Bob-Omb, was mentally scarred by seeing him in that outfit.
The copywriter (and I assume translator) of these comics, Leslie Swan, went on to voice Princess Peach in Super Mario 64.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that VIZ Media had to track down a copy of the original TPB release in order to make theirs, explaining why The Birthday Bash isn’t included...even though I’m fairly certain that it’d be possible to find high enough quality scans of the Nintendo Power issue that featured it.
Conclusion
I absolutely love this comic.
Super Mario Adventures in particular is my all-time favorite Super Mario story in pretty much any medium.
I’ve always felt that a Super Mario movie should use this comic’s plot as the framework to build on. Almost everything in it has some basis in the games, and there’s very little original to the comic...but it’s all utilized in fresh, interesting ways.
The comic (as well as the two Mario vs Wario stories) depict the Mushroom Kingdom as being an actual, lived-in world, so to speak, instead of simply a setting to justify the gameplay elements.
The characters’ personalities are developed further than the games had at that point, while never seeming out-of-character for anyone.
Bowser’s characterization in particular, of being a goofy dad, but still legitimately threatening, seems to have stuck.
Usually whenever Super Mario and The Legend of Zelda get adapted, the Zelda work tends to be more action-fantasy (perhaps with some light slapstick or romantic comedy elements), while the Mario work leans a lot more into being a straight-up comedy (with some action elements), and these Nintendo Power comics are no different: A Link to the Past is an exciting, fun adventure story, while Super Mario Adventures is really, really funny adventure story.
For some reason, this bit always gets a laugh out of me
The two Mario vs Wario chapters are fun little skits.
The first one does with Super Mario Land 2 what Adventures does with Super Mario World, while the second one is more of a cute little bonus.
What I find really interesting is how Mario is characterized in these chapters:
In the first one, he’s very cheery and happy-go-lucky, clearly excited to see Wario again, despite being oblivious to the monsters attacking him and how insensitive he’s being to Wario at the end.
Well, aside from this case, where, judging by his nervous fleeing in the last panel, I think he knows exactly what he (accidentally) did.
In The Birthday Bash, he’s shown to have an active rivalry with Wario, even being a little catty in his interactions with him, like sticking his tongue out at him when Princess Toadstool asks Wario for his help.
Look, outside of the games themselves, this is as good as it gets, man. Highly recommended.
“I’ll show him who makes a better sheriff...and it’s not some nerdly plumber!.”
- Wario
Next time: Y’know that “Wario” guy I kept mentioning? Well, it’s about time we officially met him, eh? Pick up that Game Boy, because we’re gonna go to Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins!
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