Zim (Invader Zim)

Zim is the title character and protagonist/antagonist of the Nickelodeon animated series, Invader ZIM.

He is a member of the alien Irken race, where placement in the social hierarchy is determined by height. Zim, being one of, if not the, shortest Irken alive, is afforded very little societal worth. Ironically, Zim remains oblivious to this, and believes himself to be the pristine example of his species. As a result, he takes it upon himself to become involved in missions of utmost importance, where he is very usually not wanted, and for good reason. His unsolicited involvement in the Irken "Operation Impending Doom 1" ended in complete and abject disaster when he hijacked a dangerous mechanical suit and went on an inexplicable rampage across the surface of his home planet, single-handedly destroying much of the invading forces. For this, he was banished by the Almighty Tallest; but after 'quitting' being banished, Zim returned to demand participation in the aptly named, "Operation Impending Doom 2". To keep history from repeating itself, the Tallest send the pint-size hindrance to a section of the universe where there 'might' be a planet, in the hopes of sending him on a fruitless quest to traverse vast reaches of empty space, effectively removing him as a potential liability. Much to their chagrin, he calls them some six months later, very much alive and engaged in his 'mission'; to conquer Earth, incidentally the mystery planet the Tallest thought 'might' be there. And the only thing standing in Zim's way, discounting his own incompetence and stupidity, is Dib, a pre-teen paranormal investigator, bent on exposing Zim's alien identity. Zim is voiced by Richard Steven Horvitz through the run of the series, but voiced by Billy West in the pilot episode.

Characteristics

Throughout the length of the series, various comments made by Zim have indicated that, at least by Earth standards, Zim is much older than he seems. And Jhonen Vasquez himself has stated that Zim's age is 16 Irk years or 159 Earth years .

Zim's key characteristic is his rather short stature; as the Irken race determines its social ladder by height, his excruciating lack of vertical prowess is definitively acute.

Abilities

Throughout the run of the show, we see Zim's abilities fluctuate in scope and capacity as pertinent to the episode in question. He runs the gamut from capable to incompetent from episode to episode, sometimes within the same one. As a pilot, he is skilled enough to go toe-to-toe with high-level Invaders like Tak in some cases, while he is often outmatched or equaled by humans with little to no space-faring experience (i.e. Gaz and Dib).

Fitting well with his having been trained from birth to be a ruthless and maniacal alien conquerer, Zim is able to goose-step so well that he sometimes does so even when walking casually.

His technological prowess is subject to much change throughout the series as well. About half the time that Zim invents and/or utilizes a technology, he meets with success; the other half almost universally consists of cataclysmic failures that very usually results in destruction the likes of which no one, Irken or Earthling have ever seen. He has the mental capacity to perform great technological feats, shown in the episode Walk of Doom via his ability to upgrade GIR's guidance system, which is apparently top-of-the-line. The upgrade is successful and bequeaths GIR with the ability to track local and intergalactic targets with pinpoint accuracy(made useless by the fact that GIR removed it to make room for a cupcake during the trial run).

Other times he manages to mismanage high-end Invader technology with catastrophic results: in the aptly named Megadoomer episode, he is 'given' the titular Megadoomer Combat Stealth Mech. By not taking the time to study the machine prior to using, he manages to invisibly alert the entire city to his presence and appearance (though they likely forgot soon after), eventually necessitating the self-destruction of the machine to avoid further notice. He also manages half-successes/half-failures, which, despite the successful half, manage to cause incalculable doom.

He develops a Variable Time Stasis Field in the episode Walk for Your Lives, which does work (it allows Zim to manipulate the temporal plane of anything within the eerie green aura of the Field), but malfunctions when he overcharges it, causing a predictable explosion. As if that were not enough, the machine's energy manages to co-bond the time-stasis effect with the actual, much larger explosion of the Field itself, creating an ominous green glob that would gradually expand to its actual size (roughly larger than the entire city). In typical Zim-fashion, he elects to accelerate the blast to real time to make it disappear, apparently failing to realize that the explosion would just...explode, which it does, something that even GIR realised would happen.

To go along with that vein is Zim's also inconstant intelligence. While Zim is smart enough to be called a 'genius' by Earth-standards (i.e. his knowledge of science, math, and space likely far exceeds the capacity of a regular human), he is very often illogical, irrational and very temperamental, leading to many of his failures and blunders.

Finally Zim has the "unique" ability to make humans do what he wants, from time to time he manages to convince people to do things without much effort, for example on the Christmas episode he makes his own holiday character and orders a great amount of humans to beat up Dib without questioning.

Relationships

Zim, while openly antisocial and individualistic, has varied and often complex relationships with the many beings around him.

GIR

As his primary sidekick, and incidental multi-faceted toolbot, GIR is shown spending the most time around Zim in the series, and is likely the Irken's only friend (in any remotely conventional sense). Their relationship is very tumultuous in its closeness; Zim's view of GIR fluctuates episodically between that of an expendable tool and a valued friend and lackey. Several of their escapades show Zim view GIR's welfare callously; when a freak moose-related accident propels GIR's intelligence into the house's A.I. and leaves GIR's body lifeless, Zim is unconcerned about his servant's welfare and is in fact annoyed that he now has to fix him. But on other occasions, there is notable compassion sensed for the little robot by our green-skinned protagonist: as Zim travels the dark depths of a paranormal dimension, he shows concern for GIR's welfare against an assault of what he believed to be preteen zombies (in actuality, they were Skoolchildren dressed up for Trick-or-Treating; far from being harmed by the Treaters, GIR was actually wreaking comically chaotic havoc upon them). The relationship is at least somewhat mutual, as GIR shows a demented concern, devotion and love for his master too.

MiniMoose And The Computer

The only two other henchmen of Zim, MiniMoose seems to have a certain bond with his master, in his cancelled debut episode when Zim ordered MiniMoose to do many things to prove how good of a minion he can be Zim stated that if he was capable of certain emotions he would love MiniMoose, obviously referring to the fact that he was amazed at how well his new sidekick obeyed his every command, something that Gir ralely does.

Zim´s relationship with his computer is strained at best, usually the computer treats Zim with contempt since his master usually treats him/it poorly, he is even shown to be annoyed by Zim´s ignorance and would most likely be left alone rather than to obey him.

Dib

Dib serves as the primary protaganist/antagonist in the series, the former being determined to expose Zim's extraterrestrial identity and stop his mad quest to subjugate mankind. As such, they are bitter opponents, whose conflicts blur the line between petty rivalry and mortal enemity. From various quips made between the two of them, they are in the midst of a series of informal contests, the 'winner' and 'loser' determined by who manages to get the upper hand, no matter how slight the gain. These conflicts rarely incur monumental change in either ones' quest, and very often cancel each other out, putting both at square one again. Even when one wins, it is usually only a mental victory, as true victory escapes them while gloating. While loathing each other with a deep-set and almost irrational rancor, an unfinished episode script shows that they are actually interdependent; Dib needs paranormal beings like Zim to maintain meaning to his life, and Zim needs Dib's antagonizing crusade to motivate himself to action. When one loses the will to perform as they should, the other loses interest and becomes decadent. This, in a very twisted and baffling sense, may make the two of them friends of a sort; ones that would take every chance to scoop the other's guts out with a melon baller.

Gaz

Zim and Gaz rarely interact exclusively in the series' run, and mostly consist of sardonic one-liners between the two of them. There is a running joke in the show that has Zim constantly underestimate Gaz's capabilities, leading to often painful and disastrous results. In fact, Zim seems to be one of few people completely oblivious to just how dangerous and powerful Gaz is. Gaz, in turn, is one of the few people capable of seeing just how pointless opposing Zim's 'mission' is, given how incompetent and volatile his abilities are. She sums up this thought when Dib points out how hazardous Zim's pursuit of world domination is with the simple and poignant phrase: "But he's so bad at it."

Some fans believe that Gaz has a secret crush on Zim and likely hides her feelings by beating him up and threatening him whenever she gets the chance.

The Almighty Tallest

Zim's relationship with the Tallest is one of adoration and near-worship. He is highly respectful of them, and greatly desires their approval. This gives rise to his great misconception of their confidence in his abilities: he manages to ignore the Tallests' vehement and frequent assertions that they find Zim dangerous and useless, and latches onto the false praise they mount in order to be rid of him. On rare occasion, however, he manages to find things that pique their interest, which may make him, if not an asset to Operation Impending Doom 2, perhaps a curiosity.

Prisoner 777

A Vortian prisoner who Zim contacts every now and then to get new technology like Schematics of the Massive, MiniMoose, The Santa Suit and probably all the other machinery he has around in his underground lab, it is obvious that 777 thinks of Zim as a pest but apparently has no problem with giving him what he wants.

Ms. Bitters

Zim harbors a relationship bordering on respect for his 'Skool' teacher, and finds her a useful repository of Earth knowledge. But, even with this pseudo-respect, he is still often bored of her lectures, and finds himself passionately aching for an end to her intolerably dull and oppressive classes.

The Skool Children

Zim establishes no close friendships with his classmates, preferring to use their ignorance as a medium to study their race rather openly without any suspicion. He is often the brunt of many taunts on the part of his classmates, though usually he is just ignored; on rare occasion he is given their approval, especially at times when such approval would most antagonize Dib. Keef is the only classmate with whom Zim has communicated on any level approaching friendship, using the red-haired weirdo as a way to maintain his human facade.

Other Invaders

Since Zim sees himself as the greatest Irken alive (with the possible exception of the Tallest), he usually views other Invaders in a condescending manner. The irony is, of course, most of them are usually far more capable than he is. Exemplary instances of this include his detailing of Invader Tak's capabilities; he recognizes her immense talents, but still seconds them to his own ("She's good! Not good like me, but still good."). He treats Invader Skoodge, a ridiculed, yet highly capable Invader, with derision even in the face of his more prominent successes.

Zim's PAK

Zim, like all Irkens, was fused at birth with a mechanical device called a PAK. Zim's PAK provides him with life support, all the necessary nutrients for survival, and an array of different weapons and tools. These tools include a set of four spider-like mechanical legs that can shoot out lasers, an organ harvester, scanner pads, hand-held communicators, memory drive, charging cell, atmospheric processor, high tech infrared/nightvision binoculars and holographic transmitters. It can reanimate the user after a sudden shock (like the wave of raw stupidity in "Plague of Babies").

Zim's PAK, due to his actions after Impending Doom One, has him encoded as a Food Service Drone; this was part of his banishment to the Irken snacking planet Foodcourtia. In an unfinished episode Dib steals Zim's PAK. Zim accidentally slips telling Dib that without his PAK he can only live for 10 minutes, though in "NanoZim", it shows ZIM without it for a few seconds for him to work on in his lab.

Weaknesses and Immunities

Members of the Irken race, or at least Zim, exhibit severe adverse physical reactions to certain normal Earth products. Physical contact with water, some meats, and barbecue sauce among other foodstuffs cause him terrible pain; some of these things act as a caustic and can burn him seriously by merely touching his skin, and can even fuse itself to his flesh if left alone.

He also finds most Earth foods to be disgusting to the taste, resulting in serious wretching and vomiting were he to consume them; though he does seem to be able to tolerate some foods, waffles in particular, and takes the chance to attempt to immunize himself to the negative ramifications of Earth food by eating things he can stomach. Notably, [Tak] was not harmed by being in contact with meat while Zim is always burned at the touch.

While his weaknesses are many, he seems to also possess immunity to certain human travails. Lice, for instance, find no appeal in him, and are, in fact, repelled and destroyed by his skin. A liquified form of his skin can kill even the largest and most ferocious lice in seconds. He also appears to have a pain threshhold larger than that of the average human. An example is in the episode, "Planet Jackers" when he smashed into the earth's fake sky and his eye popped out. He then simply popped it back in, despite a grunt or two.

Zim also is apparently unable to be killed easily, somehow he manages to elude death on several ocassions, there are times when other characters, most notably the Tallest try to kill him, he somehow survived metting his demise at the end of "Hobo 13" when the Tallest programed a ship to go straight into a sun, Zim is also unable to be "erased" from the Irken Empire due to his PAK have many errors that would make any Control Brain to go insane.

Disguises worn in public

Zim often wears disguises to attempt to conceal his identity from the humans that he plans to eventually conquer; they are often poorly or hastily constructed, and habitually grew worse as the series went on.

Zim's school disguise consists of some contact lenses and a bouffant wig. The contacts give his eyes a human appearance, and the wig covers his antennae; all else about him, including his uniform and green skin, is left unchanged. He explains away his skin color and lack of ears as a skin condition, and has passed off being caught without his contact lenses as a bad case of pinkeye.

He occasionally wears an old man disguise in "Walk of Doom", which he uses throughout the first season. In the second season of the show Zim upgrades his disguise arsenal with a floppy, huge-headed human suit with a cape, a sewed-on handbag and stuffed puppy, and a nametag reading 'human'.

Other costumes worn include a fat lady outfit, used to hide the timefield explosion in Walk for Your Lives, bear suit seen when reporting to The Tallest in Battle of the Planets, 'Baby Inspector' disguise for interrogating 'Noogums' in Plague of Babies and the Santa suit and Easter Platypus disguises used to manipulate the public in The Most Horrible X-mas Ever. The Pilot episode also has an oversize robotic battle-suit shaped like Zim's school disguise for use in the food-fight that occurs.

Domination of Earth

During most of the series run Zim has been trying to take over the Earth and on a few occasions he nearly succeeded, for example, the time he planned to savotage Prof. Membrane´s PEG project, trying to get the humans to destroy themselves by giving them a machine that would "free" a girly ranger named Moofy but his biggest time to shine was when he pretended to be Santa Claus and sent all the humans as slaves to the Tallest.

Due to the human race still existing two million years from now as seen in The Most Horrible X-mas Ever it is obvious that Zim NEVER took over the world.

Ironically Gir managed to take over the Earth during the events of the cancelled episode "The Trial" however that seemed to last for about a day and relinquished control after just being asked to do so.

Voice actors

In Jhonen's original pilot episode, Zim's voice was provided first by Mark Hamill and then by Futurama voice actor Billy West. Jhonen Vasquez has stated in the DVD commentaries that he felt casting West as Zim would have created a situation where there would be two comedy science fiction-based cartoons on the air at the same time with the same lead voice. The pilot episode with Billy West's voiceover track is available as an extra feature on the 2nd disk of the Zim DVD set.

Angry Beavers voice actor Richard Horvitz was originally intended (as Vasquez mentioned in the DVD commentary) to voice Zim, however he still had work to do on Angry Beavers. After Angry Beavers was over, he re-voiced Zim as a tester on the third pass of the pilot and was finally chosen to be the character's permanent voice for the remainder of the American series. This final version of the pilot is not currently available to the public in any form. Only Billy West's version is available on the first volume of the Invader Zim DVD collection.