Super Mario Adventures

USA paperback, first edition.

Super Mario Adventures is a graphic novel compilation published in 2016-10-11. The comics were originally published serially in Nintendo Power from January 1992 to January 1993 in the USA, and in CoroCoro Comic under the title マリオの大冒険 [Mario no daiboken], Mario's Big Adventure in Japan. The story was written by Kentaro Takekuma and the art was by Charlie Nozawa. The story is set in the world of Super Mario World, but it is a completely unique story not covering any of the events of the game. In the book, Bowser kidnaps Princess Toadstool to try and force her to marry him and Mario and Luigi try to save her, but things quickly go awry. The compilation ends with the final comic which introduced Wario and showcases some of the bosses of Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.

Minor changes to the dialogue were made from the original comics to the compilation book. This comic ran in Nintendo Power at the same time as The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which is also really good.

I found this book for sale from a vendor at MAGFest 2019. Being a fan of the 1980s-90's era of Super Mario Bros., I bought it and read it shortly after getting home.

Status

I own a first edition paperback and have read it.

Review

Good

• The cartoon style is wonderful. Charlie Nozawa is extremely talented at drawing funny and highly expressive characters.
• For a children's comic, the story is pretty sophisticated.
• I love Princess Toadstool not only personally attacks Bowser, but is able to rescue herself without the need of Mario or Luigi.

Bad

• Friendly Floyd is a rather pointless character.

Ugly

• Nothing.

Links

• en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Mario_Adventures - Wikipedia.
• mariowiki.com/Super_Mario_Adventures - MarioWiki article.
• goodreads.com/book/show/7464348-super-mario-adventures - GoodReads.
• tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/ComicBook/SuperMarioAdventures - TV Tropes.