The Mysterious Spaceman

If you ask a person to name a few Mario characters, the first would probably be Bowser or Luigi. Then they might say Yoshi or Princess Peach, and maybe a few common enemies from the games, but probably the most die hard fan will remember, let alone know of Tatanga. This space creature first saw the day of light in Mario's first handheld adventure Super Mario Land.

Tatanga was the final boss of Super Mario Land and the only boss so far in which Mario has to shoot down in an airplane, known as the "Sky Pop." The "Sky Pop" airplane was one of the vehicles Mario used to complete his adventure in Sarasaland (not the Mushroom Kingdom). As well, Mario was trying to rescue Princess Daisy (not Princess Peach) who has now become a common character in the Mario universe. Another difference between this game and other Mario games is that only the only character that appears in a different game is Tatanga himself. The rest of the enemies are exclusive to Super Mario Land even though the may look like common enemies they have unique names such as a chibibo and a goomba. This main reason for this was that the game was not made by Shigeru Miyamoto, but by his mentor Gunpei Yokoi.

After Mario defeats Tatanga we would assume that he should be dead, just like Bowser, but being the mysterious spaceman he is comes back for another round in Super Mario Land 2: The Six Golden Coins. But instead of being the final boss of that game (that title goes to Mario's cousin Wario) Tatanga is the boss of Space Zone, who is much easier to defeat this time around. Tatanga also appeared a few comic strips in the early 90s but has since vanished in the Mario universe.

He would be a perfect final boss if New Super Mario Bros. 2 is ever created and would work extremely well with the new Mario Galaxy coming out later this year. He has everything in his portfolio to be able to cause Mario to go into outerspace since he is known as "the mysterious spaceman." So Nintendo don't let Bowser be the only villain for Mario to face in future titles because Tatanga has shown that he can easily fit this role.