Mario, Zombies and the Return of the Mad Titan

Rick Grimes, the rugged and grizzled protagonist of The Walking Dead, was used to facing all sorts of dangers in the post-apocalyptic world he lived in. But when he emerged suddenly from a glowing green gateway of light, he found himself standing face to face with a short, portly Italian man dressed in red overalls and a bushy mustache. Rick looked toward him with a confused stare.

“Who are you supposed to be?” Rick asked, eyeing the strange figure warily, blood still dripping from his beard after a recent victory over an assortment of zombie mutants and roving marauders.

“It’s-a-me, Mario. Hero of the Mushroom Kingdom,” the man replied with a proud grin and an impossibly thick Italian accent.

Rick couldn’t help but chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. “The Mushroom Kingdom? What in the f*** kind of hallucination is this?” he muttered to himself.

“It’s-a-called the Mushroom Kingdom! It is a place of — oh — oh god what is — ”

A group of zombies appeared now through a portal of their own. They quickly emerged over the horizon and bore down on the koopa-laden kingdom with a terrible thirst for flesh.

“S***. They must have been attracted by the sound of our voices,” Rick said as he quickly loaded his gun.

But Mario simply chuckled and pulled out a small, red mushroom from his pocket. “Don’t worry, my friend,” he said. “I’ve-a-got this.”

And with that, he ate the mushroom and suddenly grew to nearly triple his size. He then proceeded to dispatch the zombies with ease, using his fists and a variety of inexplicable power-ups that seemed to appear out of thin air. A series of fire balls flew rapidly in every direction and set the groaning zombies ablaze.

From thin air, and as if to taunt the now-fleeing monsters, Mario then pulled out an obscure plumbing apparatus and proceeded to douse them with torrents of water. At one point during the evolving chaos, Rick was pretty sure he even saw his new friend turn briefly into a tanooki and proceed to tail-whip the undead aggressors.

Rick was both amazed and impressed by the little mustachioed man’s wild variety of skills. “Where did you learn to fight like that?” he asked.

“In-a-the Mushroom Kingdom, we have to be ready for all sorts of dangers,” Mario replied with a wink and the toss of another mushroom into the air. He caught it in his mouth without shifting his focus from Rick for even a millisecond. This mushroom, however, appeared to be of a more psychedelic variety.

“But enough about-a-me. Tell-a-me about yourself, Rick. What’s it like living in your-a-world?”

And so, Rick found himself telling Mario all about the harsh realities of living through the zombie apocalypse. Mario listened intently, his eyes wide with shock and horror at the tales of loss, survival and betrayal.

“Don’t-a-tell me he cut his head off??”

Rick nodded sullenly. The afternoon continued to wear on and they continued to exchange stories.

“Nooo… not-a-Glenn! But… but,” Mario stammered desperately.

“It’s a brutal world,” Rick confirmed with a nod.

With the sun a little lower in the Mushroom Kingdom sky, the two found a surprising bond growing between them.

“…I mean it’s-a-no big deal really…” said Mario without much conviction.

“So you’re telling me you’ve saved her from a giant, fire breathing lizard, on multiple occasions, and she won’t even go on a second date with you?”

“It’s-a-fine, really… she said that I’m-a-just better as a friend.”

“You know what, that’s straight bulls***. You’re a good man and she owes you more than that.”

Mario’s doubt softened slightly.

“Yeah… maybe you’re-a-right…”

“She’s gonna regret passing up on a great guy like you!”

Even Mario’s mustache seemed to brighten at this.

And so, Rick and Mario set off on a new life, fighting zombies and rescuing princesses in a world where anything seemed possible. They may have come from two very different places, but they quickly became the best of friends, bonded by their love of adventure and new shared affinity for stabbing violently into the flesh of unsuspecting zombies.

But no legions of zombies or fire breathing lizards could prepare them for their next foe. Suddenly, a purple figure with a hardened face and a suit of armor emerged from a portal he seemed to have conjured. They were standing face to face now with none other than Thanos.

Thanos, the Mad Titan, had recently wiped out half of all life in the universe with a single snap of his fingers. He was a being of immense power, and, judging by the ingress of convulsing black energy he’d emerged from, Rick and Mario knew they would need to use their pooled years of Koopa pounding and zombie battling here if they were to even stand a chance in defeating this new enemy.

“I’ll handle this, Mario,” Rick said, pulling out a Luger from his pocket and firing it violently at the destroyer of half the universe.

But Thanos simply laughed as the bullets bounced off of him. “You are no match for me,” he said, his voice filled with contempt. “I am the most powerful being in the universe.”

Rick gritted his teeth and stepped forward, a second gun now clenched tightly in his hands. “We’ll see about that,” he said. “I’ve faced my own share of ruthless bastards in my world. I won’t go down without a fight,” said Rick. But his bravado fell nearly as flat as his bullets did in the face of the cosmic superpower.

The battle that ensued was epic, with Rick and Mario using all of their strength and cunning to try to take down the Mad Titan. Mario used his various power-ups and impressive agility to dodge Thanos’ attacks, while Rick used his years of survival experience and expert marksmanship to hit Thanos directly where it hurt most. He found that while headshots did little to the Mad Titan, that shots directly to the groin weakened him significantly. Even with all of the power in the universe, he still bore the weakness of mortal men.

With one hand wrapped delicately around his purpled testicles, Thanos used the infinity gauntlet in the other to conjure a black hole and launch it toward the beleaguered zombie fighter. But with years of plot armor working in Rick’s favor, the cosmic force that sucks up matter itself was simply no match for him. He fired bullets angrily into the churning void of crushing emptiness until it stopped in its tracks. His American action hero gunmanship sent the gaping event horizon cowering back into the void from whence it came; Rick cooly blew smoke from the third gun he’d saved just in case this precise scenario were ever to arise.

But despite their best efforts, Thanos was a formidable opponent. He sent a sun hurdling at the plumber in red overalls as his eyes widened in fear and the hairs of his mustache stood on edge. But Mario hid beneath a flying koopa and allowed his shelled acquaintance to bear the brunt of the crushing weight of the smoldering star.

The Mad Titan’s strength and durability seemed almost limitless, and it seemed as though the 80’s video game star and overstayed action hero would never be able to defeat him.

But just when all hope seemed lost, a glint of light caught Rick’s eye through the cloud of ash that had emerged from the collapsing sun. It was the Infinity Gauntlet, the powerful artifact that granted its wielder the ability to manipulate reality itself.

“Mario, the Gauntlet!” Rick shouted, coughing out dust and pointing desperately toward the glowing object. “We have to get it!”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Mario charged towards the Gauntlet, dodging Thanos’ attacks with acrobatic feats of athleticism. He triple front flipped through the overbearing cloud of smoke with the prowess of an olympic gymnast, deftly snatching the Gauntlet from the Mad Titan before he could even see what had happened.

“You fools!” Thanos roared, his eyes blazing with fury. “You have no idea how to wield such power!”

But Rick and Mario knew exactly what to do. With the Gauntlet in their possession, they were able to turn the tables on Thanos and unleash the full extent of its power. With the Gauntlet placed atop Mario’s famed white glove, he could feel the force of a thousand Mushroom Kingdoms within his palms. With the snap of his fingers, the ground began suddenly to vibrate. As Thanos stood there, a look of dire trepidation now pervading those powerful eyes, what he saw terrified him.

Thanos found himself standing face to face with an entire legion of angry goombas. They scowled at him as they waddled ravenously toward him. Their brown mushroom heads bounced back and forth with an intimidating fervor as the cosmic force of time, space and soul found himself desperately trying to breathe amidst a rushing tide of fanged fungi.

As the dust settled and the Mad Titan lay on the ground shaking and defeated, he let out a cough and a quiet sob. Rick and Mario stood victorious, the heroes of two worlds united in their determination to defeat evil and bring peace to the universe.