LEGO Super Mario: Character Pack 5, Iggy Koopa, and THE MIGHTY BOWSER

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - Catching up on... pretty cool Koopa stuff, actually.

It's been a month or less (...I think?) since these three pieces of Koopa-related content were revealed, though none have been released yet. So I'm not totally late, right? Anyway, I'm talking about more collaborations between Nintendo and LEGO, all in the LEGO Super Mario series.

Character Pack Series 5, featuring Toady and Hammer Bro

Character Pack Series 5 was announced at LEGO Con 2022, featuring fantastic additions such as Hammer Bro. and Toady (Kamek's minion from Yoshi's Island—very nice to see him here); middling additions such as Nabbit, Blue Shy Guy, and Purple Toad; and uninspiring additions like Red Yoshi, Baby Yoshi (yellow), and Waddlewing.

For whatever reason, Purple Toad insists on winking. Purple Toad isn't a notable Toad figure. One of them runs the purple half of the Crazy Cap store in the Mushroom Kingdom. It's the Toad with the best throwing arm (not saying much) in the outfield of Mario Superstar Baseball, but he's also the slowest of the Toad variations. He does have the pop fly Star Swing like Red Toad, though.

The colour evolution of Purple Toad, from Mario Superstar Baseball (top right) to Super Mario Odyssey (Mailtoad) (top left) to LEGO Purple Toad.
I promise the rest of the media in this article will only consist of Koopas!
By the way, Mario Superstar Baseball's Purple Toad is the closest to actual “purple”,
which is the colour in the bottom corners (RGB 128, 0, 128).
Though when I tell people purple is my favourite colour, I'm thinking of the shade of purple that LEGO Purple Toad has.

You'll be able to get a character pack for $6 per character starting August 1, and you will hope to get Hammer Bro. or Toady. That's one dollar more than the price of Series 4's character packs. As an Anonymous commenter pointed out to me last month, LEGO has gone from packaging the Character Packs in baggies to packaging them in boxes. With baggies, you could presumably try to feel which character was inside before purchasing. With boxes, you can't do that.

Okay, NOW I promise the rest of the media will only have Koopas.
Whatever Mario is doing to Nabbit, Nabbit probably doesn't deserve it.

Big Bad Island Expansion Set, featuring Iggy Koopa and Giant Koopa Troopa

Why wasn't this announced on MAR 10 2022 with the rest of the expansion sets releasing August 1, 2022? I don't know. As far as I can tell, the Big Bad Island Expansion Set wasn't actually...ANNOUNCED. It just...APPEARED, asking you to pay $45 for it. This island features rather minimal environmental design, instead featuring the figures of Iggy Koopa, Big Koopa Troopa, and Big Goomba. (And Goomba.) It's... basically a representation of Giant Land from Super Mario Bros. 3, though they didn't say that. Iggy is the boss of that world, too. The proportions are roughly similar in that Iggy Koopa is still bigger than a Big Goomba, but smaller than the largest piece of the set, Big Koopa Troopa. (At least, if Koopa ever stood up.) ...I guess it could also be a reference to the Soda Jungle, since Iggy Koopa is the boss there too (and he has pineapple hair in that), and there are also Big Koopa Troopas and Big Goombas there. Though only Giant Land is an island (or close enough to it).

There are tired methods for Mario, Luigi, or Peach to torture the inhabitants of the island. More seesaws like in the Adventures with Luigi Starter Course, and launcher bricks like in the Adventures with Peach Starter Course.

But, yes, now Iggy Koopa has turned into a LEGO, joining myself, Lemmy, and Larry Koopa. (And Bowser Jr.)

They already spoiled the ending: Iggy Koopa loses his fight after Mario invades the island without any provocation or justification.

THE MIGHTY BOWSER

Alright. This one is... legitimately cool. First of all, if you're going to be in the San Diego Comic-Con this weekend, you can encounter KING-SIZED BOWSER, towering over troublesome plumbers at 14 feet high and made of over 663,000 LEGO bricks. Here's a short video with intro music that reminds me of Kirby and the Forgotten Land's Roar of Dedede:

If you're... not so fortunate to be there this weekend, you can settle for The Mighty Bowser™ for $270, releasing October 1. He's 2,807 pieces and over one foot tall. While that sounds puny compared to KING-SIZED BOWSER, The Mighty Bowser still is much bigger than anything else that's come out of LEGO Super Mario, even bigger than the Question Mark Block. The Mighty Bowser is not only packed with girth, but also detail and features. I might want to unironically buy the set. (No plumbers included, of course... no gross human should get in the way of the King of Koopa Kingdom and patron saint of KoopaTV.)

Among his features are different poses on his head and neck, the ability for his legs to move when jumping, and the ability to open his mouth and shoot a fireball out. The rightful Master of all Koopas also has his dedicated set come with two towers emblazoned with his logo. (The twin towers can also be knocked down... though I wouldn't recommend it. Such terroristic actions fit Mario more.)

You can watch more about why you'd love this set in their promo video here.
The LEGO employees claim that if you like stomping on Bowser, you'll love the set. I disagree with the premise of that being an enjoyable activity.
(The guy is also really fascinated by the 3x3x3 ogives that are Lord Bowser's shell's spikes.)

The Mighty Bowser is waving this article good-bye in that picture. Ludwig will see you in the comments section below. (Hopefully, he won't see you in LEGO form because you shouldn't buy the Peach's Castle Expansion Set that features him.) You should probably convince him to do better things with $270 worth of his money than buy The Mighty Bowser, but he really likes how that's the name of it.


A day after publishing this, LEGO announced a new set: The LEGO Atari 2600.
Character Pack Series 6, Wendy O. Koopa, Pom Pom, and many horror stories of Mario messing things up arrive in early 2023!
The KoopaTV staff bought and attempted to build The Mighty Bowser. How did that go?
Several Chinese bootleg versions of The Mighty Bowser exist, but they look quite unimpressive.