Wario (ワリオ?) is a fictional character in Nintendo's Super Mario series, as well as the main character in his own offshoot Wario series of video games. The character was designed as an evil doppelgänger to Mario, making his début in the 1992 Game Boy title Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins as the main antagonist and final boss. He was designed by Hiroji Kiyotake, and is voiced by Charles Martinet, who also voices Mario and a number of other important characters in the series, and is responsible for giving Wario his trademark cackle.
Since his early years, Wario has evolved into more of an antihero than a villain, and has been given starring roles in his own games, spawning the successful Wario Land and WarioWare series. He has even been known to ally himself (however reluctantly) with Mario in games such as Super Mario 64 DS and Yoshi's Island DS, and has become a staple of the character rosters in the series' spin-off games, in which he is often paired with Luigi's own doppelgänger, Waluigi. However, unlike that of the Mario Bros., the relationship between Wario and Waluigi remains a mystery, Martinet's opinion being that they are just "two nice, evil guys who found each other.