Bowser

"Did somebody page the king of awesome?"

- Bowser

Bowser Koopa, also known as King Koopa or just Koopa is the main antagonist of the Mario series. He rules over the turtle-like Koopa Troopa race and is constantly striving to expand his kingdom by conquering the Mushroom Kingdom, although his plans are always spoiled by his arch-enemy Mario. He's in love with Princess Peach, and his attempts of conquest always include kidnapping her in one form or another.

Characteristics
"I'm huge! Even scarier up close, huh?"

- Bowser

Bowser's looks and personality have, as with most early Nintendo characters, slowly evolved over time. Most of his defining characteristics have remained the same, though. His most recognizable features are his spiked shell, red mane, and spiked cuffs, which except for the mane have been prominent features of Bowser in all of his appearances. One point of debate over the time has been Bowser's size, which seemed to vary in every one of his appearances. Most of the time, he is about twice the size of Mario. Plus, His personality varies depending on his role in the plot. In the main platformers, where he is the main villain, he has a very dark, brutal and serious disposition. In the RPGs, he shows some more amusing sides of himself, as he is shown to have a talent for sarcastic wit, works very hard to live up to the "evil king" image, and very often displays a shortsighted lack of common sense. The most prominent part of his personality, however, is his confidence. When he decides to help the other denizens of the Mushroom Kingdom against a common foe, it is mostly because of his own ego. In his mind, the only one allowed to kidnap Princess Peach, destroy Mario and/or conquer the world is himself, and he flies into a rage when other villains attempt to usurp his position as "the biggest, baddest brute around".

Powers and Abilities
Although the entirety of his abilities largely changed over time and varies a lot from game to game, mostly due to the magical artifacts he steals, most of his basic abilities stayed the same, which would run down to fire breath and tremendous strength, due to his size. He's also able to use his spiked turtle shell for an effective combination of attack and defense. In his earlier appearances, he apparently also had the power to wield black magic, although this has largely been dropped from his later appearances. In Super Smash Bros: Melee and Super Smash Bros: Brawl he has also shown the ability to transform into a larger and more monstrous form of himself, called Giga Bowser, although this ability is likely not to be considered canon, due to the nature of the two games. Bowser's Inside Story provides a new explanation to his size fluctuations: When his life is in danger, adrenaline surges through his body and grows him to a gargantuan size, in which he can better fight battles against giant foes. He can also jump at certain lengths and heights of tremendous portions.

The following additional powers are simply these for certain games:
 * 1) Shape-Shifting (Super Mario Bros.: The Rescue of Princess Peach, anime movie)
 * 2) Teleportation (Super Mario 64)
 * 3) Flight (Super Mario Galaxy 2)

Actions
Throughout the series, Bowser has always been seeking to expand his power, which he mostly tries to accomplish by acquiring magical artifacts and the resulting conquest of whatever it allows him to conquer. In addition to this he almost always kidnaps Princess Peach, whether she has any actual relevance to his plan or not. This is due to him being in love with her. Although he often reaches his goal of conquest, he is always stopped by his archenemy Mario, which made him build both deep hatred, but also deep respect towards him. This respect mostly shows when he is forced to cooperate with him, which usually happens when a force more evil and more powerful than himself appears (as was the case with Smithy, Cackletta, or Count Bleck). In those situations he usually swallows his pride and sacrifices himself to help the heroes and save what he intends to conquer.

Appearances
So far, Bowser appeared as the villain in many Mario games, but also made appearances as either a minor villain or even hero in several other games. As with most major Nintendo characters, he appears in most of the sport and party games of the Mario franchise. His stats in those games make him obviously powerful, but a little slow.In a few RPGs he also sometimes team with up Mario and Luigi.

Subspace Emissary
Bowser appears as a recurring boss in the Super Smash Bros: Brawl story, ''Subspace Emissary. ''He is second-in-command to Ganondorf who works for the Master Hand. He, along with Wario set out to find and capture several of the Smash Bros characters. Bowser first appears in the DK Jungle confronting Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong. He has a special gun that'll turn any character into a trophy. He aims it at Diddy but DK superpunches him far away and gets turned into a trophy instead. After finding Fox McCloud, Diddy finds a Bowser trophy laying around but it was a fake and it dissolves into little shadow bugs. The real Bowser appears and attacks the two but they escape.

Later in the game, Bowser runs into Kirby and whichever princess he saved from Petey Piranha. Bowser turns that princess into a trophy and has the shadow bugs turn into a dark clone of that princess. He then takes the princess aboard the Halberd and leaves the clone to deal with Kirby and other characters. He then receives a transmission from Ganondorf to go to King Dedede's castle and retrieve the other princess trophy. Boswer does so and with his koopa troops, they storm the castle, knock out King Dedede and take the princess trophy. He is pursued outside the castle by Mario, Link, Pit, Kirby and Yoshi but he escapes and retreats to the Halberd.

With the princesses successfully captured, Bowser goes after Diddy Kong again and this time, turns him into a trophy. He goes after Fox but the fox is too fast for the ray gun. Bowser is then attacked and his gun is destroyed by Fox's ally, Falco Lombardi. The two then bring Diddy Kong back to life and Bowser flees but not before having the shadow bugs form a giant Subspace Diddy Kong and has it attack the trio. Bowser is seen later aboard a giant subspace warship with Ganondorf. The heroes, all reunited, fly toward the ship and Ganondorf open fires on the ships but Kirby destroys the core of the ship; causing it to explode. Ganondorf and Bowser retreat into subspace in time. As the villains head to meet the Master Hand, Bowser is betrayed by Ganondorf and turned into a trophy by him and pushed aside. Ganondorf and Master Hand meet and are both betrayed by the true villain of subspace, Tabuu. Tabuu kills the Master Hand and turns Ganondorf, along with all the heroes into trophies.

Miles away, King Dedede, Ness and Luigi are brought back to life and they enter subspace and bring the heroes back to life. Halfway through, they find Bowser's trophy and revive him. Bowser reawakens and attacks the trio and King Dedede engages in battle with him. Dedede wins and Bowser is turned back into a trophy. The same thing happens again but Dedede shuts him up and tells him that Tabuu is the real enemy. Bowser then reluctantly joins the groups of heroes. When the rest of the heroes are revived, Bowser finds Ganondorf's trophy and continuously beats it in vengeance and storms off. Bowser then joins the heroes in the fight against Tabuu and they defeat him.

Super Mario Bros. Movie


Mario and Luigi find themselves in a strange dystopian parallel world where a human-like race evolved from dinosaurs rather than the mammalian ancestry of true humans in a Manhattan-like city. Sixty-five million years ago, a meteorite crashed into the Earth and in doing so ripped the universe into two parallel dimensions. All the surviving dinosaurs of the time crossed over into this new realm. Iggy and Spike turn out to be henchmen (and cousins) of the other world's germophobic and obsessive dictator, King Koopa, descended from the T-Rex. However, the two have failed to also bring Daisy's rock, a meteorite fragment which Koopa is trying to get in order to merge his world with the real world that separated from Koopa's world during the meteor strike. It turns out that Daisy is the Princess of the other dimension but when Koopa overthrew Daisy's father (and turned him into fungus), Daisy's mother took her to New York using the inter-dimensional portal. The portal was then destroyed, killing Daisy's mother in the process; but when Scapelli was blasting at the cave, the portal was reopened. When Koopa hears about the re-opening of the portal, he sends Spike and Iggy to find Daisy and the rock to merge the dimensions and make Koopa dictator of both worlds. Spike and Iggy, however, who had grown more intelligent after being subjected to one of Koopa's experiments, decide to turn on Koopa and join forces with Mario and Luigi. Koopa thinks only Daisy can merge the worlds, but Mario and Luigi were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Daisy is eventually rescued by the plumbers, along with the help of Toad, a man punished by Koopa for performing music protesting his reign, then condemned to be "devolved" into a Goomba.

Eventually, the two worlds merge and Koopa inadvertently devolves Scapelli into a primate while aiming for Mario, but Luigi and Daisy take back the rock and the worlds separate again. Mario confronts Koopa and eventually wins when he and Luigi devolve him, transforming him into a ferocious, semi-humanoid Tyrannosaurus. Koopa then leaps out for a final attack but Mario and Luigi destroy him by devolving him further into primeval slime. Daisy's father, the king named Bowser, turns back to normal and reclaims control over the kingdom stating he loves those plumbers. The citizens destroy anything involving Koopa. As the brothers return home, Luigi and Daisy admit their love for one another but Daisy cannot return to New York until the damage caused by Koopa is reversed and she spends more time with her father. Mario rephrases Daisy's words to Luigi but he does not care. A deeply hurt and saddened Luigi kisses her goodbye and the two brothers return to New York, while Daisy watches them leave. About three weeks later, Daisy returns for Mario and Luigi's help in fighting more villains. Meanwhile, Mario and Luigi's story is televised, giving them the name; "Super Mario Bros".

Giant Bowser
Bowser's most recurring form, in many games Bowser will use different items in order to increase his size, the smallest is double his normal size and the largest is bigger than a castle.

Frog Koopa
Bowser using the Frog Suit, giving him the ability to breath under water and swim faster.

Fire Koopa
Bowser using a Fire Flower, giving him the ability to shoot fire from his palms.

Raccoon Koopa
Bowser using the Super Leaf, giving him the ability to fly.

Fire Racoon Koopa
A Mixture of Fire Koopa and Racoon Koopa, using both the Fire Flower and Super Leaf.

Metal Bowser
A more durable form of Bowser used by obtaining a Metal Box. Bowser uses this form in the Super Smash Bros. series, and also in Mario Party 2.

Giga Bowser

 * Main Article: Giga Bowser

In the Super Smash Bros. series, Bowser gained a new form of himself that grows about three times his normal size and his power is increased immensely. In Melee, Giga Bowser appeared in the final Event Match along with Mewtwo and Ganondorf. In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Giga Bowser appears as the final smash move of Bowser.

Dreamy Bowser

 * Main Article: Dreamy Bowser

Bowser's currently strongest form, Bowser takes this form in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team after eating the Dream Stone. This form increases power's size and makes his body glow and turn rainbow colours. Bowser gains many new abilities with this form.

Meowser
After using the Super Bell on himself, his cat ego resembles more of a tiger than a cat, but still enables him to climb on walls with cat claws, on the second round in his form, he eats four Double Cherries to create four fake Meowsers.

Related Articles

 * Shrowser
 * Bowletta
 * Dark Bowser
 * Dry Bowser
 * Mecha Bowser
 * Bowser Jr.
 * Koopa Troopa
 * Koopalings
 * Goomba
 * Giga Bowser

Trivia

 * Super Mario Bros. creator Shigeru Miyamoto mentioned in an interview that Bowser's original design was inspired by an ox. But later changed it to a turtle when it was pointed out that Bowser looked more like the said animal.