King Tetris

King Tetris
Species	Koopa disguised as a Tetris Ningen
First appearance	Super Mario (Super Mario Land 2) (1989)
Latest appearance	Super Mario (Super Mario Land 3) (1990)

“わしはテトリス大王。 六千年の眠りからいまさめたのだ。(I am King Tetris. I just woke up from a 6,000-year-long slumber.)”

—King Tetris, Super Mario Land 2

King Tetris is Bowser's persona and the main antagonist in the Super Mario Land 2 manga from the Super Mario series published by KC Deluxe and later returns in the third chapter of the next volume. It is the first "King persona" Bowser takes in the Super Mario Land miniseries.

When first met, Bowser is simply wearing an Aztecan mask with demonic traits, such as fangs and big pointy ears. He also dons pauldrons, but the rest of his body is not disguised, causing Mario to become suspicious upon seeing his spiked shell and tail. Also, in this first encounter, Bowser uses his magical "Tetris Powers" to move Tetriminos while wielding an Aztecan-looking magic staff.

During the second part of the story (and in the next volume), he wears a less bulky mask with longer ears, now resembling horns, and more armor pieces adorned with spikes, covering most of his scaled body. While the tail is still visible, the shell is now covered under a cape with "KING TETRIS" written on it. He also mastered the use of the Tetris Power without the need of using the staff.

King Tetris seems to have been an actual person in the Tetris tribe, famous for having hidden a great treasure that can only be reached by the greatest Tetris player. He then disappeared for ages, leaving the Tetris throne empty.

After Mario is separated from his friends in the Tetris temple, he and the Tetris Ningen chieftain Germane end up in a room where they come face to face with King Tetris, who had just awoken from a 6,000-year slumber. He then asks Germane to hand him over their treasure. To this request, the chieftain questions why the King would ask such a question, as he was the one to hide it in the first place. King Tetris hits him in the head, claiming that after such a long time he has forgotten it. Germane leads the king and Mario to a double waterfall and states that the winner of the Tetris battle will receive the treasure. King Tetris is already advantaged by his skills at the game, but also has help from Germane, who tells him which Tetrimino is falling next, much to Mario's annoyance. However, thanks to Luigi, Peach, and Goro, King Tetris' water gets cut off and Mario is able to play it safe and easy by eliminating some rows of blocks and even wins after Luigi knocks out Germane and tosses a Tetrimino to Mario that helps him win the challenge. As a bridge for the fabled Tetris treasure is forming from Mario, King Tetris drops his disguise, revealing himself to be Bowser, and runs to the treasure, realizing too late that he had just locked himself into a rocket ship that blasts him to the Moon.

Some time later, Bowser returns from the Moon (presumably due to the Tetris technology from the rocket) and, disguised again as King Tetris, leads an invasion on the Mushroom Kingdom by dropping giant Tetriminos each containing an atomic bomb and a member of the Tettoman (his personal squad of superhero-like servants). He then declares he will be making the kingdom his personal arcade room, transforming everyone who disagrees into Tetriminos with his magic powers. Finally, he challenges Mario to a difficult game of Tetris at the highest difficulty: if he wins, he will leave; otherwise, the bombs will be triggered. Mario almost loses, but Luigi pulls the plug from the game, and when King Tetris confronts him, he accidentally squashes the plug into pieces, choosing to return tomorrow to finish the challenge, and making sure such "cheap tricks" will not be used again.

The next day, after Mario is trained by Dr. Areku to play by following the rhythm of a Cossack song, he manages to do better, even after the King secretly activated the "super speed" mode. King Tetris tries to sabotage the technique by destroying the music player, but Peach and Luigi put on an orchestra and continue the music. Mario wins, but King Tetris still gives the order to trigger the bombs, but Areku disarmed them during the game. Angry, King Tetris puts up a giant robot made out of his spaceship and the people transformed into Tetriminos and goes on a rampage. Mario, Luigi, and Peach (transformed into an actual peach by the King) manage to enter the spaceship-head, where the King proposes one last match: a one-on-one match against Mario for a best of three. Mario loses the first round and Luigi is turned into a pumpkin, then Mario resorts to a glitch that he had just learned from Areku to win the second round. For the third round, King Tetris destroys his gamepad, but thanks to the people trapped into the Tetriminos forming the robot, Mario obtains the power of a Super Mushroom to counter and overwhelm King Tetris' "Tetris Powers", winning the match. King Tetris once again tries to not keep his promise by zapping at Mario, but Peach deflects his magic with a mirror, causing him to hit himself. In the resulting explosion, Mario briefly sees Bowser's figure, then he escapes with his friends out of the crumbling robot.

The volume then ends without specifying what happened to Bowser (or specifying if Mario ever knew that Bowser was once again the one under the King Tetris' mask all along this time around, as he was never once called "Bowser" during the entire second act), but he continues to reappear in the following issues with new "King personas". At the beginning of the next one, Bowser is initially referred by the Goombas as King Tetris, before he tells them to call him Golf Daiō.

In the third chapter of volume 3, King Tetris returns, much to Mario, Peach and Luigi's surprise. He challenges the three to an ice hockey, offering his mask and the "The secrets of Tetris" book as prizes. The challenge takes place on Tetris Shima, a floating iceberg filled with Tetriminos in which a whale is trapped inside and whose baby joins Mario to help her out. At first, Mario thinks it is going to be a normal ice hockey match, until he realizes that giant Tetriminos are used as pucks, which the King and his army of polar bears try to use to trap them. When Mario comes out victorious, King Tetris then offers another challenge: a mix between hockey and Tetris, where they each have to take a puck-Tetrimino to their own goal and make it fall into place, like in a normal 2-player Tetris match. Mario proves to be good at it, but King Tetris is shown earning more points as the polar bears are not only faking to be few in numbers, but are also Tetris Ningen in disguise. When revealed, Mario and his friends use a combined blow to send every Tetris Ningen to their goal, winning the game. The iceberg cracks, freeing the whale's mother, who blasts away King Tetris with her blowhole. While flying off, Bowser loses his mask and, inside of it, Mario finds the book: a copy of the Super Mario Land 2 manga. Just like in the previous story, King Tetris is never addressed as "Bowser" by Mario and his friends.

Gallery

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  Super Mario Land 2 chapter 1

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  King Tetris' first disguise in Super Mario Land 2 chapter 2

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  Super Mario Land 2 chapter 3

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  Super Mario Land 2 chapter 4

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  King Tetris referencing Fist of the North Star in Super Mario Land 2 chapter 4

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  Super Mario Land 2 extras

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  Super Mario Land 3

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  King Tetris in ice hockey gear

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  Super Mario Land 3 chapter 3

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  King Tetris unfazed by the cheating accusations

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Notes
Japanese	テトリス大王だいおう Tetorisu Daiō	King Tetris
	KING TETRIS	-	On the King's cape