| Tatanga | |
|---|---|
| Super Mario series character | |
Tatanga concept art from Super Mario Land. | |
| First game | Super Mario Land - 1989 |
| Created by | Shigeru Miyamoto |
Tatanga ("the Mysterious Spaceman") is a villainous alien in Nintendo's Mario Video Game franchise.
Tatanga appears as the final boss in Super Mario Land, where he kidnaps Princess Daisy of Sarasaland. He fights Mario in a war robot called "Pagosu" while Mario attempts to shoot him down from his "Sky Pop" airplane. Interestingly, this makes Tatanga one of the few Mario villains to be fought in the style of a shooter game.
Tatanga also appears in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins as the guardian of the "Space Zone" coin. In Super Mario Land 2's manual, it was revealed that Wario took over Mario's Castle while Mario was gone to rescue Daisy. Since then, Tatanga has remained largely obscure.
In Other Media[]
Tatanga, as he appears in the Game Boy comics.
Tatanga also appeared in the Game Boy comic books, published by Valiant as part of the Nintendo Comics System in 1990. There, in addition to an obvious change in his appearance, he had taken control of an estranged human from New Jersey by the name of Herman Smirch. Tatanga often hypnotized Smirch into bringing him through "the gateway" to Earth (a Game Boy, actually) so that Tatanga could conquer it (his targets included the Windows on the World restaurant, atop the north tower of the pre-September 11th, 2001 World Trade Center, and the John F. Kennedy Space Center). Fortunately, a certain other human would notice Tatanga and bring Mario out of the Game Boy to drive Tatanga back.
Template:Mario enemies