 |
DIO has declared that this article has stopped in time, and any or all information on it may be outdated. Help improve this article by checking and updating its info wherever necessary And now time resumes! |
|
| “ | Come, GIR. Let us rain some doom down upon the heads of our doomed enemies. | „ |
| ~ Zim declaring his mission in "The Nightmare Begins". |
| “ | I AM ZIM! | „ |
| ~ Zim's catchphrase. |
| “ | The coming invasion... will not be stopped... by your... BURRITOS! | „ |
| ~ Zim's villainous breakdown to Dib in "Pilot". |
Zim is the titular main protagonist of the Nickelodeon animated television series Invader Zim and the titular main antagonist of the 2019 Netflix film Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus.
He is an Irken serving the Irken Empire as an Invader. Because of his incompetence, Zim was banished to Earth by the Almighty Tallests under the guise of being sent to conquer it. He is also Dib Membrane's arch-nemesis.
He is fairly tendentious, argumentative, confrontational and unsympathetic towards others, though he occasionally shows some kindness towards certain characters. Nevertheless, he is prone to causing chaos and destruction for either himself, his own race, or Earth.
He was originally voiced by Billy West in the pilot episode of the series, Richard Steven Horvitz (who also played Orthopox in the Destroy All Humans! video games, Kaos in the Skylanders franchise, Zhencha in Mulan, Lugosi in Bunnicula, Moxxie in Helluva Boss, and Monster Convict in Superjail!) in most future appearances, and Andrew Russell (who also voiced Akira Otoishi in JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Diamond is Unbreakable) in Smite.
Personality[]
A brash, idiotic and overconfident alien, Zim is a bit insane defective Irken Invader who has gift for destruction yet is faithfully loyal to the Control Brains and the Almighty Tallests, the respective leaders and figureheads of the Irken race. Knowing how dangerous Zim can turn about for their plans of galactic conquest - as he had single-handedly foiled the previous attempt from ignorance - they randomly choose a planet far as possibly known to send him to get rid of him, which happened to be Earth, although Zim sees it as a genuine invading mission and does his best to conquer the planet to please the Tallest in spite they have no real interest to annex it to their vast empire, being too arrogant to realize it or not wanting to admit it. Nevertheless, due to the constant interventions of Dib Membrane, Zim often fails on his attempts to take over the Earth.
Due to Zim's arrogance, obliviousness, and/or blind loyalty, he remains unaware of the contempt that the Tallests have for him; even though they voice they don't want him to communicate with them, he fails to register the complaint. Depending on the mood of the Tallests, they either consider him a laughing stock or an immense annoyance, yet Zim never detects their disdain. When Zim's plans fail, his fear of disapproval from the Tallests make him lie about accomplishments or most often changing the parameters of the scheme to argue that he actually succeeded - such as when he tried to pilot Mars to kill humanity, but it was knocked out of the solar system by Dib piloting Mercury, therefore Zim claimed he always planned to destroy Mars. The Tallests never believe him, yet Zim stammers out excuses that he believe are convincing, but are never.
He was originally going to ally himself with Gaz in the conquest of Earth, but also be potentially in love with her (likely starting when she is a bit older, as she is a prepubescent 11-year-old child in the original pilot and the final series), but those plans were largely set aside.
Considering that Zim has been raised since he was born to be solely loyal to the Irken Empire, however, his actions can be rather understandable from a certain point of view, as it could be simply be said that he has grown up to believe that the Irkens are the absolute dominant race and that they are destined to rule over the galaxy, thus just doing what he believes it will benefit his people and seeing no wrong on it. Even Jhonen Vasquez, the show's creator, has said that Zim is a good guy just like Dib, but from a different side. Yet rarely seen, Zim has some good in his heart, as shown when he expresses concern over GIR's safety or when he feels pity upon seeing all members of his robot army getting destroyed by Dib and Professor Membrane, desperately calling them by their names in spite of their identical appearances.
Anyway, despite how evil he is, his incompetency makes it so he is rarely an actual threat, however, Zim has proven himself to be an actual threat if he really puts his mind to it. In Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, Zim not only manages to take over the Earth with the sabotaged Membracelets but nearly succeeds in getting it sucked into a Florpus Hole. However, Zim's stupidity nearly costs him after all as he fails to realize that the Tallests are coming to Earth to get rid of him definitely and narrowly dooms himself and all humanity to suffer on the Florpus Hole if not for the Membranes' timely intervention. There are also cases when his carelessness create a problem in his plans that end up turning against him, as when he repaired GIR's central processing system that made him try to destroy Zim since (like HAL-9000) GIR concluded the greatest threat to Irken conquest of Earth was Zim himself, or the nanogel Santa Suit that became self-aware, which was banished from the world but eventually returned every Christmas as a city-sized monster.
In addition, Zim has been shown sometimes to be very cruel, like when he gets rid of Keef by changing his eyes with robotic ones for stalking him or when he messes up with time to cripple Dib in the past to the point he momentarily causes his death, making Zim a deranged and dangerous foe who has crossed the Moral Event Horizon occasionally. Zim also displayed cruelty and pettiness over the smallest slight, as shown when Dib threw a cupcake at him, in response Zim put an unknowing Dib into a virtual reality that simulated Dib's dream life, which provided a fulfilling existence to make him drop his guard, so got him to confess that he did throw the cupcake; upon the confession, Zim revealed the perfect life had been false, with a lifetime happening over a few hours in reality - Dib was heartbroken, yet Zim felt obligated for further revenge by similarly throwing a cupcake at Dib's head, however, Zim believed the cupcake was the greatest insult, rather than the VR deception.
Zim's overconfidence often makes him unaware, if not denying, his own shortcomings, especially in terms of knowledge; he is committed to conquering the Earth, yet he has a profound ignorance about human culture, technological limitations, and biology. He compensates for his ignorance of culture through brashness and charisma; when he learned about human anatomy and his lack thereof would expose him, he opted to steal human organs for his own body from other children - replacing them with arbitrary nearby objects - with the argument of "more organs means more human." Despite his misguided decisions, he is never considered abnormal by anyone except Dib and Gaz, as the majority of humanity in the show are blithering idiots; while there are exceptional intellects like Professor Membrane, they fail to understand Zim's alien origins, since they don't believe in extraterrestrials, merely concluding he is a foreign human with a skin condition, a misconception that Zim is often able to exploit.
Appearance[]
| “ | Besides, no invader has ever been so.. very small. You're very small, Zim. You're a tiny thing. | „ |
| ~ Tallest Purple on Zim. |
Zim is a green alien who has a silver/pink PAK (which was given when he was a Smeet) on his back. Zim also has ruby-colored eyes; a very common trait in Irkens. As he considers himself to still be an invader, he is shown to always wear his standard uniform: a red tunic-like garment with a pink collar and sleeves, as well as black boots, leggings, and gloves. It was also mentioned in Walk of Doom that Zim's eyes contain ocular implants. He also sometimes speaks in a Japanese accent. Since the eyes he was born with are not visibly different from subsequent appearances, it can be assumed that these implants are subcutaneous.
He also possesses a pair of antennae; their exact function is unknown, but they seem to function like human eyebrows; rising and lowering to convey emotion. It is possible that they also function as an organ in place of ears, as they picked up vibrations in Battle of the Planets.
Biography[]
Backstory[]
Zim is an Irken fellow born from Irk. When he was on O.I.D 1, he was assigning to Blorch, but accidentally used Irk as a target and ended up banned to Foodcourtia. After days passed, he later escaped and goes on O.I.D 2, where the Tallests fooled him that there was a secret planet that is mysterious and never knew what it was. Accompanying him on his exile mission was his robot assistant GIR.
Zim was sent into exile by the Almighty Tallests due to that he accidentally almost destroying the Irken Empire with a massive robot assault walker destroying entire buildings and military vehicles in his path and possibly killing dozens of other Irkens and ruining Operation Impending Doom I (OID 1 for short) for not knowing that he was attacking the wrong planet. Although, he did put the fires out after that (despite making them worse). As punishment, Zim was sent into exile and was sent to the Irken snacking planet known as Foodcourtia for almost toppling the Irken Empire. During the great assigning for Operation Impending Doom II, Zim escaped and made it to Irk where he expected to be given an assigned planet but instead was given a sandwich and was told to leave. In response to his refusal to leave, Zim was sent to Earth unaware that the Tallests thought it was fake and was given GIR, a SIR unit (Self Information Retrieval Unit) made from garbage and other junk that was defected from the others.
Invader Zim[]
in the first episode, Zim is sent to conquer earth by the the tallest after quitting his banishment to foodcourtia. Little does he know the tallest only gave him this task to get rid of him and have no intention of conquering earth. He is given GIR, a defective SIR model and goes on a six month trip to earth. Once there he gives disguises to himself and GIR and establishes his base. He then attends Skool to learn more about the planet and not long after forms a rivalry with Dib Membrane, the only person who knows he’s an alien. The rest of the series goes on similar stories showing Zim either attempting to rule over earth or stopping Dib from blowing his cover.
Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus[]
Zim appears in the Netflix film Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, as the main antagonist, with Dib as the main protagonist. In the film, Zim returns after going into hiding. He then sets out to begin the Phase 2 of his plan to conquer Earth. The only problem: he can’t remember what it was.
Other Media[]
Nickelodeon Super Brawl[]
In the newer Super Brawl games, Zim appears as one of the many playable characters.
Super Brawl World[]
In Super Brawl World, Zim appears as a playable characters.
Super Brawl Universe[]
In Super Brawl Universe, Zim appears as a playable character.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl[]
Zim appears as a playable character in Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl.
Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix[]
Zim appears as one of the many playable characters.
Smite[]
In Smite, Zim appears as a skin for Cupid, being introduced as part of a larger Nickelodeon event on July 12th, 2022.
Quotes[]
| “ | Victory! Victory for Zim! | „ |
| ~ Zim assuming that he won. |
| “ | You lie! You LIIIIIIE!! | „ |
| ~ Zim to Ms. Bitters. |
| “ | Dib: Zim! Zim: YES, IT IS I, AND- Hmm? Oh wait, sorry. You’ll have to move along, hideous goblin. I’m posing dramatically for when the Dib shows up. Dib: I am Dib. Zim: What? Ugh, ugh, ugh! UGH! Dib: But- Zim: Gimme a sec here. Dib: We know each other. Zim: (clears throat) I’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU, DIB! |
„ |
| ~ Zim and Dib meeting again in Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus. |
External Links[]
- Zim on the Invader Zim Wiki.
[]
 Villains
| ||
|
Irken Empire Humans Zita | Zib Others | ||
 Villains
| ||
|
Playable Characters Non Playable Bosses | ||
 's Brawl series Villains
| ||
|
Playable characters Bosses Brawl Calls Enemies | ||