Throughout the decades, Mario has continued to be one of the biggest icons in video games. First appearing in the arcade classic Donkey Kong, the Italian plumber would go on to star in a record-breaking franchise of gaming hits. Besides a brief stint as an antagonist in Donkey Kong, Jr., the hero of the Mushroom Kingdom has always been portrayed as just that.A recent tweet, however, sheds new light on the character via obscure merchandise. Sent by Twitter user Supper Mario Broth, this image reveals a villainous version of several Mushroom Kingdom cast members, including Mario himself! With evil features and an apparently occult background, this version of Mario easily gives Bowser a run for his money.
Occult in the Mushroom Kingdom
The tweet showcased an image of three figures from the 1986 Super Mario Bros. capsule figurines from Japan. Part of this series of gachapon toys was the "Mysterious Occult Super Mario Bros." line. As the name would suggest, these characters had an almost demonic design to them. Their ranks included villainous versions of Mario, Lakitu, and Toad. Their designs fit this villainous motif, with "Mario" fanged, dried out, and carrying what could be an equally evil version of either a Super Mushroom or a Goomba. Toad has a nose of all things, along with a deformed eye and skulls around his cap that make him resemble the later design for the Poison Mushrooms in the SNES version of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels. The Lakitu actually resembles the later character of Roy Koopa and is recognizable namely through his signature cloud. It's worth noting that Lakitus are logically already evil, with the Spiny throwing Koopas first appearing in level 4-1 of the original game to signify its increasing difficulty.
The tweet also has a link where the incredibly rare figures can be purchased, though their asking price of over $800 is likely a bit much for even the most ardent of Mario fans. To be fair, said price isn't entirely unreasonable, if only for how obscure the items are. There's pretty much no information on this set, let alone any fiction from the games backing up their existence. Given that this was a mere year after the original Super Mario Bros. released, the franchise's mythology was far more apocryphal at the time. Due to this, there was a lot more room for weird experimental concepts like this that didn't necessarily reflect the games' universe.
Villainous Palette Swaps
Though this incredibly evil-looking Mario doppelganger has no real basis in the games, the plumber would eventually get a few evil twins. The first of these was a vile rival named Wario, whose over-the-top appearance was an exaggeratedly warped version of Mario's own. First appearing in Super Mario Land 2: Six Golden Coins, Wario would star in his own successful franchise of spinoff platformers and mini-game compilations, WarioWare.
Waluigi, Wario's equivalent to Luigi, would debut in the Nintendo 64 game Mario Tennis, though he's yet to make it into the main series yet. Another evil Mario was Shadow Mario, a liquified disguise used by new Koopaling Bowser Jr. in Super Mario Sunshine. Though still resembling Mario outside of color scheme, this form's distorted coloration somewhat recalls the Occult Villainous Mario figurine.
Nintendo is no stranger to evil twins in other franchises, as well. Metroid, The Legend of Zelda, and Kid Icarus all feature evil doppelgangers to their respective heroes, some of whom are their franchise's most popular characters. It's unlikely that Nintendo will ever include these nightmare-fuel figurines in the official franchise canon, which, given their appearance, might be a good thing.