Hammer Bros.

A Hammer Brother depicted in New Super Mario Bros..
Hammer Brother
Type	Koopa
Debut	Super Mario Bros.

Hammer Brothers are a type of koopa that specialize in throwing hammers and have appeared in multiple games since Super Mario Bros..

Information

The Hammer Bros. are lean and tough-looking Koopas wearing black shells and helmets. As their name suggests, their primary weapon is the hammer. They are deadly long-distance attackers, hurling hammers non-stop at their enemies. However, they are also vulnerable to attack in close range. Hammer Bros. also rarely attack solo and are usually backed up by a nearby "bro". It is unsure if any of them are actually biologically related or if it is just a title. They seem to have inspired similar-looking Koopas with "Bro" in their names, such as the Boomerang Bros. and the Fire Bros..

The Hammer Bros. are often seen as the elite fighters in Bowser's forces. In Super Mario Bros. 3 Hammer Bros. are found wandering in the overworld map in each world. Whenever Mario or Luigi comes to one, he will engage one or two Hammer Bros. (or a different type of Bro, depending on the world) in a short quazi-boss battle. After the Hammer Bros. are defeated, the winner would get a new item. It was possible to skip the fights entirely by putting all the Bros. to sleep with a Music Box. The Hammer Bros. Suit appeared as an item in the same game.

Although the traditional Hammer Bros. did not appear in Super Mario World, there was a strange version called the Amazing Flying Hammer Brother. He still dopped hammers, but now he did while riding winged blocks. The Amazing Flying Hammer Bros. reappeared in Super Princess Peach.

In Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars a pair of Hammer Bros. showed up as the game's first real boss. They were known for talking to their hammers as if they were alive, and battled Mario on Mushroom Way. After they were defeated, they left behind a Hammer and a Flower Jar. Later in the game a green Hammer Brother, named Dr. Topper, engaged Mario in mind-bending puzzles at Bowser's Keep.

The Hammer Bros. also appear as somewhat powerful enemies in the Paper Mario games and Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. Two mind-controlled Hammer Bros. also appear as early bosses in the past storyline of Mario and Luigi: Partners in Time. While under the control of the Shroobs, the Hammer Bros. only talk in 1337 speak and act as a boss for the Baby Mario Brothers, guarding the Vim Factory. After the Hammer Bros. are defeated and freed from the mind control, they reward the Baby Mario Bros. with a hammer and teach them how to use it.

In the Mario Party games, the Hammer Bros. make small appearances in most minigames. They also appear as capsule items in Mario Party 5 and Mario Party 7. Their first playable appearance was in "Mario Superstar Baseball", where they were hidden characters. The Hammer Bro is also available as a sidekick character in Super Mario Strikers.

Trivia

• The many varieties of Hammer Bros. was briefly parodied Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, where Hamma Jamma mentioned his aspirations to become a "Business Bro" rather than a traditional Hammer Bro.
• In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door a Hammer Bro named Hamma claims his grandfather was one of the original Hammer Bros. in Level 8-1 of Super Mario Bros. (although he probably means 7-1 or is a liar, as there are no Hammer Bros. in level 8-1).