Nintendo-land: Mario Mania - Archenemies

As one of the Koopa Family´s most talented Magi Koopas, Kamek was assigned to an important mission. To raise their newest son Bowser Koopa in his new Castle on the Yoshi Island.

Introduction

One night Kamek had a vision about two twins that would be born in the Mushroom Kingdom that dawn (Mario and Luigi) that would cause much trouble for the Bowser family. He flew away into the night to kidnap the two newly born twins from the stork that was carrying them to their parents, but he only got his filthy hands on Luigi. Mario fell out of the bag which the babies laid in and fell to the ground. Luckily Yoshi was taking a walk in the woods of the Yoshi Island and Mario landed right in his head. When Kamek came home to Bowser´s Castle he saw that there were only one brother, so he ordered his troops to go out and find Mario, but as we know Yoshi and his pals at last managed to defeat him and return the twins to their parents.

Being a Magikoopa, Kamek looks very similar to one of them; far more than any of Bowser's other high ranking Magikoopa minions. This means that in most of his appearances, he wears a pair of round spectacles and a set of blue robes, complete with a blue wizard's hats. His wand is a golden stick with a red jewel at the end. However, there are usually a few alterations in order to tell the difference between him and a regular Magikoopa. The first of these was introduced in his debut appearance. His blue hat has a white band around the bottom, which wasn't seen on any other Magikoopa's hats at the time. White bands are also on the end of his robes' sleeves. In Super Princess Peach, he had a complete change of wardrobe, instead having cyan robes covered by a purple cloak and changing his round glasses for a more triangular shaped pair. After recieving enough damage in the battle, his colours return his classical set. His wand also changed slightly, now being longer and having a green jewel instead of red.

Kamek's skin, like all Magikoopas and most other Koopa species, is yellow. Despite being very old, he shows no physical signs of his age, looking very similar in the present as he did in the past.

Abilities and Powers

Kamek displays powers commonly associated with Magikoopas, including short range teleportation, creating beings from inanimate objects, pyrokinesis, firing magical blasts from his wand and the ability to create multiple copies of himself. These are assumed to be much more powerful than those of a regular Magikoopa, because of his top rank. Kamek is also capable of flying on a broomstick, being the first ever Magikoopa to display such an ability.

Aside from the aforementioned powers inherent to all Magikoopas, Kamek has portrayed as having powers unique to himself, the most prominent of which is his ability to shrink and grow other creatures (including himself) to extreme proportions. Kamek is also capable of psychic powers, such as divination, brainwashing, foreseeing events in the future and manipulating objects with his mind. These he does without using his wand, although he does utilize a crystal ball for precognition and divination.

Kamek also displays some expertise at mechanics, apparently building the time travel device he and Bowser utilize in Yoshi's Island DS; Kamek's inguinety at mechanics remains in the Club Nintendo comics, with one story even having him create a vacuum cleaner-like device which can absorb color and emotions. Kamek is also a master at various types of games, pertaining such skills at them that he has been given the coveted title of Game Mage.

See Picture to the right.

Personality

Kamek is the stereotypical right hand man; he does what his master wishes, without question. This means that if Bowser gives an order, no matter how ridiculous or difficult, Kamek will follow it. He is also very evil, formulating diabolical schemes with little thought as to how they will effect innocent people, such as kidnapping the Baby Mario brothers and attempting to destroy his enemies without a seconds hesitation and instead a feeling of joy (apparent in his speeches to the Yoshis before setting one of his monsters on them).

From Mario Party DS, it would seem that Kamek is also quite an academic character, as the board that he owns is a library. This is reinforced by the fact that Kamek can build complicated machines; an ability obviously requires much skill and knowledge in the areas of science, math and technology.

Other Media

An unnamed Magikoopa character extremely similar to Kamek appears in Nintendo Power's Super Mario Adventures comic, which was created at least four years before his debut in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. This Magikoopa acted like a second-in-command to Bowser and was in charge of his wedding to Princess Toadstool, doing such duties as creating a giant wedding cake for the occasion and overseeing Bowser's troops and the Yoshies he had enslaved.

Kamek is featured as recurring villain in the Mario comics in the German edition of Club Nintendo, first appearing in the story "Mario in Mariozilla", in which he tries to shrink Mario. His plan fails, and Mario grows to an enormous size, resulting in a fight between the two of them. The power of Kamek's broom unintentionally shrinks them both, and only Dr. Light is able to transform them back. At the end of the story, Kamek and Mario give each other a hug. Kamek also appears in Club Nintendo's adaptations of Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and Yoshi's Story (despite not appearing in the game the latter comic is based upon).

Credit to the Super Mario Wiki for most of the info.