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Invader Zim is the titular main protagonist villain of Invader Zim and the main protagonist and the secondary antagonist of its movie Enter the Florpus. He is GIR's master and Dib's arch-nemesis. He is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz, who also voiced the Crayon Boy in Codename: Kids Next Door (2002-2008) and Daggett The Beaver in The Angry Beavers.

History[]

Zim is an Irken, whom lives in outer space on another planet called Irk. A galactic conquest called Impending Doom II is ready to send Invaders to conquer his or her target planet. Zim, however was banished to Food courtia but came to the great assigning thinking he's still an Invader. He is an overdramatic and hegemonic villain.

The Almighty Tallest decided to rid Zim for good; so they assign him to an unknown galaxy with one planet that have living beings, Earth. Before Zim leaves he gets his SIR Unit robot but gets one from the garbage and his name is GIR.

Zim managed to fool every human with his "disguise" as a pre-teen student. All except one human boy named, Dib. Whom can see right through the disguise. Zim and Gir explore the Earth trying to learn of the Humans and their customs, and nature as well.

While living on Earth some humans able to noticed that Zim isn't human, especially Gaz whom is Dib's one year younger sister. Gaz does not see Zim as a threat.

Even though Zim wants to conquer and destroy the Earth really badly. There are other Aliens that will try to destroy the Earth, Zim will do anything to stop them and save the planet, from other aliens like an Irken feamle named Tak. While still living on Earth, another Irken named Skoodge is now living with Zim due to the Tallest being hateful towards him as well.

It is revealed in a cancelled episode The Trail, that Zim has caused alot of problems on Irk, ever since he was born. He caused a seven year blackout, created a blob like creature that ate a female Tallest named Miyuki and a male Tallest named Spork, another blackout for five years, blowing up other Invaders, ruining Impending Doom I, and destroying Irk cities. Which is why he was sent to Food courtia.

It also revealed that the Almighty Tallest Red & Purple knew Zim; since all three of them are the same age and they both also hate Zim for being so small.

If the series had continued the unfinished film Invader Dib. Zim will become a hero and become the new ruler of Irk and having Gaz as his empress by his side.

Personality[]

While most Irkens are expected to be ruthlessly loyal to the Empire, Zim is considered overzealous even by their standards: Brash, arrogant, and overconfident, Zim's tendency to cause wanton destruction makes him a danger to himself and his own people, yet he still considers himself a mighty Irken warrior. In addition, he is acutely narcissistic and megalomaniacal, congratulating himself on even the smallest of successes; these, however, are few and far between.

Despite his self-proclaimed greatness, Zim rarely succeeds in his attempts and is held up as a complete laughingstock, a scapegoat, or a figure of contempt by his own species, a fact that he is either oblivious to or simply chooses not to notice; this is hinted at by the fact that due to his self-absorbed nature, it prevents Zim from seeing his failures, past and present. He claims to be proud of all the past disasters he has caused, and rarely acknowledges his defeats in his present mission on Earth (often blaming them on other characters, or other factors, or completely changing the subject). When he is told by Tak in "Tak: The Hideous New Girl" that his "mission" was really an attempt to get rid of him, he simply rejects her statement as a lie. It is not entirely clear whether Zim is aware of his failings in the eyes of his leaders and is desperately trying to compensate for them, or whether he really is just completely oblivious to the opinions of others, as he had deluded himself into thinking he's "amazing" and can do no wrong.

Despite this, Zim is innocently loyal and obedient to the Tallest, the Irken Empire, his planet and his people, and is willing to go to ridiculous lengths to please his leaders, to the point that he is zealously willing to endure pain or hardship in order to gain their respect. In the episode "Planet Jackers", Zim even undergoes a rather severe beating in the name of protecting his mission and Irken interests.

Zim's laugh and mannerisms are overly theatrical, which is fitting for his dramatic personality. As seen in "Future Dib" and "Bolognius Maximus", he can let his maniacal laugh linger for too long and be unaware of the disturbance he causes.

By turns this would-be Invader can be petulant, critical, paranoid, humorous, sarcastic, pretentious, pedantic, depressive, melodramatic, and even occasionally whimsical. He is often curiously attached to random objects, such as his robot bee ("Tak: The Hideous New Girl") or Li'l Meat Man. He is immensely proud of anything he creates, yet is often frustrated when his devices fail to live up to his grandiose expectations.

It's clear that Zim is highly intelligent (in his own crafty sort of way) and is a keen manipulator of tools and devices, but has absolutely no apparent interest in thinking things through to their logical conclusion. The fact that creating and unleashing a giant water balloon on the city from orbit in "The Wettening" will also destroy his house (but not his base) doesn't seem to enter his mind; when he hijacks the Massive in "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars" he only considers (incorrectly) that the Tallest will be appreciative of his efforts. Nor does he really consider the consequence of restoring the natural time-flow of a city-leveling explosion in "Walk For Your Lives", despite being warned several times, by GIR no less, until his base was coming down around him. An alternative explanation is that he is aware of the consequences of his actions, but believes that they are worth reaching his goals and is willing to amend them after he does so.

Zim clearly is more than capable of destroying Earth, but he hardly ever uses this capability correctly. For instance, when he is accidentally sent a Megadoomer robot, he decides to use it to kill Dib, when the robot obviously has the destructive power to do better things. He has often come very close to taking over the planet, only to be thwarted by Dib or Gaz, Jhonen Vasquez has gone on record by saying that Zim has a "horrible sense of direction" and he is so preoccupied with unimportant "threats" that he doesn't get anything done, this may be a result of his paranoia.

One of Zim's abilities is his somewhat inconsistent skills at piloting; while in a tense situation he flies masterfully but seems to crash on most other occasions, and his skills pale in comparison to opponents adept at hand-eye coordination or overall agility (such as Gaz). Zim also has admirable engineering ability; in "Walk of Doom" he singlehandedly improved the SIR Unit guidance system chip, and in "Walk for Your Lives" he hand-built a variable time stasis field capable of altering individual time-fields. He is immensely proud of anything he creates, yet is often frustrated when his devices fail to live up to his grandiose expectations.

Even though Zim often affirms that he wishes to conquer Earth, it has been hinted that he would not actually want to enslave humanity or rule the planet himself. In "Attack of the Saucer Morons", Zim gained a group of human worshippers who would be willing to do his bidding, Zim, however, panics and tries to escape from them, believing that they are trying to capture him for dissection and study. In the Nickelodeon Magazine Special, in which Zim somehow finally takes over the world, he doesn't stay to rule for very long, instead leaving Earth forever (along with Dib, GIR and Minimoose) to ride alien bunny rabbits and drink soda.

Zim shows no remorse for the people that are harmed due to his actions and almost never takes responsibility for his mistakes, priding himself on causing destruction in the name of the Irken Empire, even when said destruction is aimed towards other Irkens.

More or less he considers everyone else but himself (even members of his own race) expendable for his own plans, often exploiting them to reach his own goals with apparent disregard for their safety or well-being. For example, in "Hobo 13", Zim sends the soldiers under his command to their dooms when other, safer methods could be taken (even using Throbulator, the last soldier in his unit, as a battering ram), causing Sergeant Hobo 678 to fail him automatically despite the fact that Zim manages to survive the obstacle course. Another example is when Zim destroys a candy machine in "Tak: The Hideous New Girl", ending Tak's mission to become an Invader and he either doesn't realize that she's trapped or, more likely, he doesn't care. His behavior and unawareness of his actions are most likely the result of him being Defective, as revealed in the cancelled episode "The Trial".

Zim is most comfortable in ensuring destruction rather than gaining power and when he does gain power, he seems not to care much for it, treating it more like a means to an end since it has been heavily implied that he only seeks to take control of the planet to mainly earn the praise and respect of his leaders. An example of this was seen in "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever", where he easily got the entire human race to worship him when he disguised himself as Santa Claus, but rather than to build an empire for himself, he cared more about sending the humans away to the Tallest and thus, their own doom. Towards the end of Enter the Florpus, Zim grows bored of the humans' panicking at the Florpus Hole, saying "why don't you bow down before me or something?".

Zim usually shows little to no affection, often claiming to "need no one", but he occasionally lets a softer side of him slip by accident. In "Parent Teacher Night", when Zim thought back to when he was born, he remembered the first thing he ever said was that he loved the "cold, unfeeling robot arm" that "hatched" him from his incubation capsule and activated his PAK. In "Walk of Doom", he yells at GIR for leaving behind his guidance chip and stranding them in the middle of the city but when GIR starts to cry, he forgives GIR (despite the fact that he was crying because he missed the cupcake he ate).

Strangely, it would seem that Zim also relies on the presence of his mortal enemy, Dib, for motivation. He said in "A Room with a Moose" that his mission might not be as "exciting" without Dib around to "annoy him", but also seems to dwell on the big-headed human quite a bit, sometimes more so than his actual mission.

In fact, Zim enjoys tormenting and humiliating Dib even if it is unprovoked that he would just do it for the fun of it, making Dib's hatred for him real and his efforts to beat the Invader all the more personal. This importance was particularly highlighted in "Mopiness of Doom": When Dib briefly decided to give up his pursuit of Zim, the Irken lost all motivation to take over Earth or do anything in general.

In Enter the Florpus, it was shown that Zim has the potential to be an actual threat if he puts his mind to it, as he successfully hijacked Professor Membrane's Peace Day ceremony, but only after Dib unintentionally inspired him (and he even rubs it in his face about it).

Earth was moments away from being destroyed and taking humanity with it, Zim showing a complete indifference towards his own life because his mission, even if it was his last one, would've been complete.

Zim sounding so triumphant while stepping into his own doom is quite fanatical because his loyalty to the Irken Empire knows no bounds and he is no doubt willing to go out like a soldier doing his duty.

Appearance[]

Zim, like most of the Irken race, seems to be based on the typical "little green men from outer space" stereotype. Many Irkens are about the size of a preteen schoolchild, but Zim is exceptionally short, earning him ridicule from his fellow Irkens, who are respected only if they are tall in height.

In "The Nightmare Begins", Zim was shown to be even shorter than the notoriously diminutive Skoodge. In addition to his short stature and green skin, he also has round teeth (resembling gums more than actual teeth), and a long, worm-like tongue.

Zim also has ruby-colored eyes; a very common trait in Irkens. It was also mentioned in "Walk of Doom" that Zim's eyes contain ocular implants.

As he considers himself to still be an Invader, he continues to wear the standard uniform: a red tunic-like garment with three black stripes and a triangular pink collar and sleeves, as well as black boots, leggings, and gloves. His PAK is light gray with pink spots.

He also possesses a pair of antennae, however, their exact function is unclear. His antennae visibly pick up vibrations in "Battle of the Planets". In Enter the Florpus, Zim's antennae convey emotion by either standing alert or drooping while he "schmoops".

Trivia[]

  • Zim shares the same personality with Jhonen's other lead male character, Johnny C.
  • Invader Zim series will return in comic books this summer 2015.

Gallery[]

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