Wart (Mario)

"I am the great Wart. Bah ha ha ha!!"

- Wart

Wart, also known as Mamu, is an antagonist in the Nintendo universe. He is the main antagonist and final boss of Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, Super Mario Bros. 2 and BS Super Mario USA, the primary antagonist of the Super Mario Advance book and the Cloud Nine comic book, a major antagonist in Super Mario-Kun and a supporting character in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, Wart steht unter Strom, Tanooki Suits Me and the Nintendo Adventure Books. He is a toad-like king and the leader of the 8 Bit Club. His goal is to take over the world of Subcon.

Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic
Mamu appears in a storybook telling tale of the Muu World, the world of dreams. He attempts to conquer the Muu, but is defeated by the Muu people, who knew of his weakness to vegetables and used them to stop him.

The storybook was later given to the twins Poki & Piki, by the green-dressed monkey Rūsa gives the storybook However, the twins enter a quarrel with each other and end up tearing out the final page of the story, thus removing the book's ending where Mamu is defeated. Mamu then appears and kidnaps the two children into the pages of the storybook. The two kids pleaded for help, and Rūsa hurries away. Thus, a family comprised of Papa and Mama, their son Imajin and their daughter Lina jump into the storybook and set off to save the twins and liberate Muu from Mamu's regime.

Mamu fights the family when they reach the dream factory. Mamu can spit five bubbles at the four heroes and can destroy the vegetable projectiles produced by the machine of his room. Conventional attack methods are ineffective against Mamu. The family has to throw vegetables in his mouth when it's open, defeating him after four hits. After Mamu's final defeat, the inhabitants are saved, completing the story. The two kidnapped children are rescued from their cages (with the key being thrown at the cage while Mamu was being beaten offscreen to a pulp by the Muu people) and return with the family back to their world, where the game ends.

Super Mario Bros. 2
After gathering enough forces, Wart invaded and conquered the Subcon. In response, the citizens of the Subcon contacted Mario and asked for his help to defeat Wart.

Mario, along with Luigi, Peach and Toad, eventually found his way to the Subcon and fought through Wart's army before eventually confronting Wart face-to-face.

He attacks by shooting/burping out nightmare bubbles at Mario, Peach, Toad, or Luigi (whoever the player faces him as). He does have one weakness. You can grab the vegetables as they come out of the vegetable machine and throw them at Wart when he opens his mouth. If a veggie touches a bubble, it will be destroyed, so a character must time their shots carefully. He hates vegetables, so whenever one is thrown into his mouth, he takes damage. After six hits, Wart will turn to stone and fall of screen. He is then tossed around and beaten up by the Subcon after Mario and friends release them.

It is then revealed that the entire game was a dream by Mario.

Later Appearances
However, in BS Super Mario USA, it is revealed that the events of Super Mario Bros. 2 really did happen and that Wart and the 8 Bit Club managed to retreat into another dream after the events of the game.

After building up his forces again, Wart invades and conquers the Subcon, forcing the king of the Subcon into hiding. He also steals the golden statues that were placed as thanks for Mario and co.'s rescue. In order to stop Wart, the Subcon King contacts Mario and co. requesting their help once again.

The heroes eventually confront Wart once again. Like in his previous appearance, he is defeated by tossing vegetables at him. After he is defeated, Subcon vanishes.

He makes a minor appearance in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening to teach Link the "Frog's Song of Soul". He was also mentioned by a Toad who supposedly saw him in  Paper Mario: Color Splash.

Literature and Comics
Wart appears as the main antagonist in the Cloud Nine comic. Here, he appears as a businessman who manipulates Mario, Luigi and the Mushroom King during their search for a good bed. Wart manages to trick the Mario Bros. into leaving the King alone, whom he then takes to the top floor of the bed store and presents him the Cumulo-Nimbus Special, a weather altering, bed-shaped cloud that spreads a sleep aura. The King instantly falls asleep on it, after which Wart proceeds to use him as a power source for the Cumulo-Nimbus, which he sends out to the Mushroom Kingdom.

The entire kingdom is being flooded by the cloud as lightning strikes and hurricanes woosh over the land. Realizing that they've been deceived, Mario and Luigi manage to save the King and stop the Cumulo-Nimbus. They later ambush Wart and blast him off to the Fungus Forest.

Wart appears again in Tanooki Suits Me, where he tries to purchase stolen art from Bowser. Mario, however, tricks Wart into thinking that the art is worthless and that Bowser is double-crossing him. This leads to a fight between Wart and Bowser as Mario returns the art to the museum.

In Wart steht unter Strom, Wart fights Mario in rage after the plumber stole the batteries of his Game Boy.

Wart is the primary antagonist in the Super Mario Advance book, where he takes over Subcon yet again. After defeating his underlings, Mario, Luigi, Toad and Peach confront him, but Wart effortlessly captures them all with his bubbles, safe for Peach, who barely manages to beat him by pelting the toad with vegetables.

Wart returns once more in Volume 8 of Super Mario-Kun, where he takes over Subcon a fourth time. Now with the ability to shapeshift and transform and immunity to the vegetables he was once weak against, Wart fights Mario and friends yet again. Birdo is lost during the fight, but Wart turns up defeated regardless.

Wart's other appearances are in the Nintendo Adventure Books, where he turned Subcon into a skate park in Doors to Doom and as a guest to Bowser's party in Dinosaur Dilemma.

Personality
Wart is shown to be proud, rude, menacing, selfish, and persistent. His greatest desire is to conquer the dream world Subcon. More likely than not, he would not be satisfied and would take on the rest of the universe. He does not stop, even if he is defeated. This was shown in BS Super Mario USA, when Wart returns to "replace" Subcon's king Osama; in other words he tried again to conquer it, but was defeated by Mario. Yet, Wart is known to be very jealous of Mario. After his conquests on Subcon, Wart can have a calm attitude as shown when Link met him. Instead of conquering Kolohint Island, Wart spent most of his time traveling throughout the world and assisting Link on his quest. He even has his two Frof Choir with him.

Powers and Abilities
Since Wart is a frog, he possess the abilities that any frog has and especially has affinity with water, able to spit streams of water. Wart can spit bubbles, which can harm and also trap others and incinerate items, as well as powering up his allies.

Wart can also use magic, and put a curse on someone, as revealed that the curse he put on Mario during his sleep did not work according to the Instruction Manual of Super Mario Bros. 2, but he can put a spell on an entire world, and cast spells to alter the landscape, as well as conjure flashes of light to clear entire areas of enemies, turning others into different things and swapping the places of others, or even warping reality.

Wart is nearly invincible; he could not be harmed, not even a bomb will injure him, unless a vegetable is thrown at him six times (four times in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic). In Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic, Wart is able to rift space-time, shaping a portal to another world, making his hand huge and then extending it to the outside world. Wart can also travel from world to world, wherever he wishes to, including in The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.

Wart can control dreams as well and is immune to destruction powers and being erased from existence, as he remained even after the world he's in is destroyed. Lastly, with the Frog's Song of Soul, Wart can resurrect others and awaken them from every type of sleep and unconsciousness, including eternal.

In Super Mario-Kun, Wart could also transform and shapeshift into various forms. He can also create pocket realities resembling his throne room inside of vases in Subspace, as seen in BS Super Mario USA.

Trivia

 * A frog named Wart Jr. appeared in Animal Crossing, Animal Crossing: Wild World and Animal Crossing: City Folk. It is unknown if he is meant to be a relation or an allusion to Wart, as they do not look similar, and apart from Wart Jr.'s latent desire to take over the world, share nothing in common.
 * In BS Super Mario USA, Wart is said to have fled to another dream in the brief era of peace at the end of Super Mario Bros. 2. This may possibly be an allusion to The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, in which he makes a friendly cameo on Koholint Island.
 * Oddly, Wart, mislabeled as "King Koopa", appears in reels B and C in a Master-view toy released during the run of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
 * In the original Super Mario Bros. 2 (along with its remake in Super Mario All-Stars), Wart could still hurt the players if they touch his defeated body. In Super Mario Advance however, he becomes intangible to the players once defeated.
 * In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, one of the names that can be gotten from pressing the "RANDOM NAME" button is "WART".
 * He shares similarities with King Wartlord from the 2001 animated Brazilian film, The Happy Cricket.
 * Both are evil reptilian kings.
 * Wart takes two less hits to defeat him in Yume Kōjō: Doki Doki Panic.
 * Wart is the only boss character from Super Mario Bros. 2 who never appeared in the Super Mario Super Show.
 * It is never explained why Wart has a vegetable making machine in his throne room, even though he despises vegetables.
 * James Rolfe (also known as the AVGN) stated that Wart was the worst videogame villain ever in Screwattack's Worst Ever! video on terrible video game villains.