Super Mario Bros. #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeSuper Mario Bros. #1 (April 1990, Valiant) marks the debut of Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Toad, Bowser, the Mushroom King, and the comic-original character Wooster in the American comic book medium, making it the first U.S. comic book appearance of Nintendo's flagship cast. As part of Valiant's Nintendo Comics System — itself the very first publishing output of a company that would soon become the third-largest comics publisher in North America — the issue represents a pivotal moment in the crossover between the video game and comics industries. The series chose to expand beyond the games' premise by giving King Toadstool (the Princess's largely absent father) a fully realized, comedic personality, which set the narrative tone for the entire line. Of all the Nintendo Comics System titles, the Super Mario Bros. series proved the most prolific and longest-running, cementing this debut issue as the cornerstone of that publishing experiment.
In "The Legend," Princess Toadstool responds to fan letters from Koopa, Phanto, and Luigi in a playful, simulated letters page format—offering a rare, personal touch from the Mushroom Kingdom’s royal. This 1990 issue, a 1.95 USD comic from Acclaim / Valiant, features a typeset lettering style and invites readers to join the adventure by writing in for future installments.
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Valiant Comics was founded by former Marvel Comics editor-in-chief Jim Shooter, and the Nintendo license was announced at a January 1989 press conference in New York City — at which artists drew the story 'The Fish That Should've Gotten Away' live, making it the first comic produced for the line. A sneak-preview issue shipped on January 1, 1990, preceding the regular series and all other Valiant titles, meaning the Nintendo Comics System effectively launched Valiant as a publisher. The creative team across the series included writers and artists such as George Caragonne, Bill Vallely, Art Nichols, George Wildman, Mark McClellan, and others working under editor-in-chief Jim Shooter; specific per-story credits for issue #1 are listed as missing in the Valiant Comics Database, with the Grand Comics Database aggregating a broad pool of contributors across the issue.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published April 1990 by Valiant Comics as part of the Nintendo Comics System; 36 pages, full color, Copper Age.
- First U.S. comic book appearances of Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Toad, Bowser (as King Koopa), the Mushroom King, and the comic-original character Wooster.
- Issue #1 contains four segments: 'The Legend' (the origin/setup story), 'Piranha-Round Sue,' 'Cloud Nine,' and 'Koopa's Believe It or Else!'
- The Mushroom King (Princess Toadstool's father) is elevated here to a central recurring character — scatterbrained and comedically inept — despite having only a brief mention in the original Super Mario Bros. U.S. game manual prior to this.
- Wooster, the king's long-suffering 'chief mushroom assistant,' is an original character created for the comic series, not derived from any Nintendo game or cartoon.
- Princess Toadstool appears under that name throughout; the name 'Peach' was not used in American releases until Yoshi's Safari (1993).
- The Nintendo Comics System sneak preview (January 1, 1990) was technically Valiant's first-ever published comic, predating the company's wrestling and superhero titles — making the Super Mario Bros. line historically the founding publishing output of the Valiant imprint.
- Most of the 1990 series stories were later collected in the hardcover anthology The Best of the Super Mario Bros. (Valiant, September 1990), a 192-page full-color volume.
Cast · 7 characters
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Super Mario Bros. Special Edition #1 (1990)
Reprinted in Nintendo Comics System Sneak Preview #[nn] (1990), The Best of the Super Mario Bros. #[nn] (1990), Super Mario Bros. #21872 (1991), Adventures of the Super Mario Bros. #1 (1991), Super Mario Bros. #1 (1991), Super Mario Bros. #2 (1991), Adventures of the Super Mario Bros. #7 (1991), Nintendo Comics System #9 (1991), Back Issue! #142 (2023)
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