The Herman Smirch Trilogy

THE HERMAN SMIRCH TRILOGY

The Herman Smirch trilogy is a threesome of comics released by Valiant Comics, technically as part of the Nintendo Comics System but also with its own world and continuity. They include the issues "In the Palm of Your Hand . . .", "It's a Small World After All", and "Team Play." They are set in the real world, where Mario is simply a fictional video game character, and loosely center on a man named Herman Smirch.

Herman Smirch is a selfish, arrogant man who works in a video game store and regularly shoplifts the games he sells. Because of his twisted and self-serving spirit, Tatanga from the game Super Mario Land manages to open a portal between the Mario world and the real world using a Game Boy he stole, unleashing his armies into the real world to take it over. The first issue then follows two children who figure out how to summon Mario from the game so that he can defeat Tatanga and put him back in the game.

The next two issues follow Herman Smirch once again coming into contact with a Game Boy and being once again used as a conduit to release Tatanga into the real world once again, Smirch being forced to act as his henchmen and new children and "good" adults having to summon Mario to defeat him.

Obviously, Smirch is our first option for a potential character. Though he is a regular human, the stolen Game Boy releasing enemies from Super Mario Land certainly gives us some stuff to work with, as does the actions he is forced to take both in servitude to Tatanga and while trying to avoid getting roped into the schemes. I should also note that this does give us some material to work with for Tatanga as well, and the enemy character Pionpi is given a bit of an upgrade as Tatanga's right-hand man, even acting as the main villain in "Team Play." He regularly rides around on a Yurarin and seems to be in full command of all the various enemies, with Tatanga letting him lead the troops.

Here's what we've got so far:

Characters:

Mario

Link

Kirby

Luigi

Princess Peach

Toad

Yoshi

Bowser

Tatanga

Koopalings

Herman Smirch: Game Boy, gun, hijack, flying car, Tatanga's minions

Mushroom King: go-kart, portable throne, magic wand, dog, chameleon, "Sacred Cylinder of Cheese," Green Gecko Gem, garden, mattress of clouds, Wooster, Stopwatch

Dirk Drain-Head: wrench, plunger, cape, Snakey, Pipe Ooze, Muck

Pionpi: Yurarin, spell, minions

Stanley the Talking Fish

Friendly Floyd: salesman, items

Stages:

Super Mario World locations

Nintendo Hotel

Real World locations (Disneyland being one of them)

Thanks for reading! Next up, we have two Mario vs. Wario comics to cover!