Fact: Mal is the Shadow Queen from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door.

They both are dark entities that take over an innocent being to use as a vessel (Mike/Princess Peach), and then the hero (Mike/Mario) must gather up a gang of allies to defeat them (Chester/Goombella, Svetlana/Flurrie, Yoshi/Vito, Bobbery/Manitoba, Zoey/Koops, Svetlana Again?/Ms. Mowz). There’s another storyline going on with Luigi/Every other TDAS Contestant, but it’s in the background and very vague/incomplete.