Zim

Zim, also known as Invader Zim, is the titular main protagonist from the Invader Zim series.
== Charactah Account ==
A pint-sized alien from the planet Irk, with an ego as big as he himself isn't, Zim is a walking disaster area that somehow remains oblivious to his own shortcomings and the contempt his people hold him in. He thinks he was sent to Earth as an Invader to ready the planet for hostile takeover, but really his leaders were just trying to get rid of him by sending him as far away as possible (they didn't even know there would be a planet there for him to try to conquer). On Earth, he aims to take over the world, but is of course continually thwarted, either by his Dib's interference, GIR's stupidity, or his own incompetence.
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 by his own people - a fact that he is either oblivious to or simply chooses not to notice. Zim is cluelessly 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. However, his self-absorbed nature prevents him from acknowledging any of his failures, and he chooses only to speak about the better things that came from each incident.
Zim's laugh and mannerisms can be said to be somewhat derived from a masculine equivalent to the unpleasant "ojou" stereotypes common in anime and manga, and "rich person"/"popular schoolgirl"/"spoiled brat" stereotypes of Western animated cartoons and movies, combined with the "overconfident alien invader" stereotype seen in sci-fi shows and movies. Despite his frequent displays of stupidity, it is clear that Zim is highly intelligent in some respects - being a keen manipulator of tools and devices - but has absolutely no apparent interest in thinking things through, and wastes much of his time fretting about or dealing with unimportant "threats." Moreover, it is evident that he is more than capable of conquering the Earth, yet he hardly ever uses this capability properly, and has often been very close to taking over the planet, only to be thwarted by his own negligence. 
== Appearance ==
=== Cartoons ===
* Invader Zim
* Invader Zim Season 2
=== Comics ===
* Invader Zim
* Invader Zim Quarterly
* Invader Zim Quarterly Collection: Oodles of Doom
* Invader Zim Treasury Edition
* Invader Zim TruthShrieker
* Invader Zim: Best of World Domination
* Invader Zim: The Dookie Loop Horror
=== Movies ===
* Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus
=== Video Games ===
* Invader Zim: Dib's Nanochase
* Nick Football Champions
* Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl
* Nickelodeon Extreme Tennis
* Nickelodeon Kart Racers 2: Grand Prix
* Nickelodeon Kart Racers 3: Slime Speedway
* Nickelodeon Party Blast
* Nicktoons MLB
* Nicktoons Nitro
* Nicktoons: Android Invasion
* Nicktoons: Attack of the Toybots
* Nicktoons: Freeze Frame Frenzy
* Smite
* SpongeBob SquarePants featuring Nicktoons: Globs of Doom
* Super Brawl Universe
* Super Brawl World
== Trivia ==
* Zim is fittingly the first Irken to appear in the series, albeit only the upper part of his face is seen in "The Nightmare Begins.“
** Zim by extension is the Irken/alien that makes the most appearances in both the series and the comics.
* Zim could've been considered the first Nicktoon villain to have ever killed anyone onscreen had the show not been canceled, since the unfinished episode "The Trial" confirms that he doomed two previous Irken leaders by accident, and during a flashback in "The Frycook What Came from All That Space", it was shown that he blew up all the other Invaders at the beginning of Operation Impending Doom I. Considering that Sizz-Lorr said Zim nearly "destroyed their civilization" it's heavily implied that he is responsible for the death of thousands, maybe millions of Irkens, or possibly that he nearly caused the extinction of the Irken race.
* Zim may have appeared in Jhonen Vasquez's comic book Squee! before the start of the series. A poster featuring an alien that looks Irken and wearing a wig like Zim's bouffant wig appears above Todd's bed. The image looks less like Zim, though, since the head is rounded and has mere stick figure hands.
* Zim has been seen in a commercial on Nickelodeon holding a sandwich, to which he has bad allergic reactions. In it, he was knocked off a wire he was sitting on and thrown into a light, making it explode. This commercial was a crossover of other series on Nickelodeon. After the cancellation of Invader Zim, Zim was replaced with Jenny from My Life as a Teenage Robot, which was also canceled. However, Jenny wasn't knocked into the light.
* Zim's personality is based on the part of Jhonen Vasquez that refuses to listen to anybody that has ever tried to hold him back from achieving his goals, like those who told him that he would never make a living out of drawing cartoons. The only difference is that Vasquez's relentlessness benefits him while Zim's is purely self-destructive.
** Vasquez also said that Zim is that version of him "highly concentrated", where his greatest superpower is his inability to understand why he might fail.
* Contrary to what a handful of people have thought, the name “ZIM” wasn’t inspired by the character Sergeant Charles Zim from Starship Troopers, who was portrayed by Clancy Brown (the voice of Mr. Krabs on SpongeBob SquarePants). Brown came across Jhonen Vasquez during a recording session and asked if there were any connections between the Zims, but as it turns out Zim's name came from a Tamagotchi Vasquez had given to a previous girlfriend.
* Zim is known to smell things and scents even though he does not have a nose, or his nostrils are so small that they're not visible, as evidenced in "Germs", when he is seen sniffing the scent saying it was the "stink of clean."
* In Jhonen Vasquez's Meanwhile... comic "Jhonen Vasquez V.S The Devil," there are aliens flying a ship similar to Zim's Voot Runner, though the aliens inside the ship look nothing like Irkens.
* It's revealed in "Tak: The Hideous New Girl" that Zim promised the moon to GIR.
* In one episode of Fanboy & Chum Chum called "Dollar Day", Zim can be seen on a comic cover in the background. His skin is faintly green and he is wearing his disguise, so one must be careful when looking for him.
* At some point in the series, Zim had learned to read human writing, as he is seen reading the newspaper, and understanding what it says, in "Zim Eats Waffles". Similarly, Zim seems to have been able to write in English early in the series, as seen in “Career Day.”
* Zim is a playable character in Nicktoons MLB alongside Gaz; best used as a first base-Irken, his bat is one of the strongest in the entire game if Turbo Hit is activated and he maintains his concentration. His clothes and overall body rendering are the same as in the show, only he wears a pinkish baseball cap that transforms into a first baseman's helmet when he is in first base. He also has a collectible card that mentions that he was almost cut from the roster when it was discovered that he was pulling a prank on fellow team players (tying their shoelaces together). His 'up to bat' pose is an action movie-style jump. Everyone in the stadium cheers him on (including Gaz and Dib) when he gets a home run, as do the hundreds of Irkens in the stands when he knocks the ball out of the park.
* Despite Zim being widely hated within the universe of the show, he is also quite respected by some, such as Keef, Professor Membrane, Invader Skoodge, Sergeant Slab Rankle, the Plim, Mooshy, and Spoopty among others. He is also quite really beloved in the fandom.
* The fact that Invader Tenn looks quite a bit like Zim may hint at the possibility that the two of them may actually be related since its possible that the Control Brains used similar DNA to create them.
* Ironically, Zim is the closest thing Dib has to a friend.
* Only three people during the whole series have been shown to intimidate or frighten Zim: Sergeant Hobo 678, Sizz-Lorr and Gaz. Although by the time of Enter the Florpus, Zim no longer seems to be intimidated by Gaz, which might suggest he got used to her or at the very least grew more cautious around her.
* Zim's name is spelled in capital letters in the official voice scripts.
** Other media forms stylize Zim's names in the same fashion, and some people consider it the canonical way of writing his name.
** Jhonen Vasquez stated that Irkens write in all caps "because they are annoying".
** Whenever Zim writes his name in the show, he writes it as "ZiM", capitalizing the "Z" and "M" but leaving the "i" lowercase. This is how his name appears in the show's title card as well.
* In the Japanese and Latin American dubs of the show, Zim is voiced by a woman. In the latter, his Spanish voice actress's voice is pitched down to sound more male in initial episodes.
* In Japanese, Zim's name is pronounced as Jim, as the language technically lacks a "zi" sound.
* Zim's Latin American voice actress, Magda Giner, also dubbed Lois Wilkerson from "Malcolm in the Middle". Coincidentally, both characters are known to scream a lot.
* As hinted in "Nubs of Doom" and confirmed by Jhonen Vasquez, purple is Zim's favorite color.
* In some rare cases, Zim has a habit of procrastinating on his mission as seen in Issue 1, Issue 20 and the canceled episode "Mopiness of Doom."
* Jhonen Vasquez, who is an avid gamer, has said that Zim likes video games. This was proven as he was seen in the pilot playing "Pain Piggy" in his base, while in "Bestest Friend" he told Keef he had video games, and in the unfinished episode "The Trial" the script had him playing video games during his existence evaluation. This makes Zim the only other character besides Gaz (on a regular basis) and the Shadowhog (in "Gaz, Taster of Pork") who is seen playing video games in the series.
* The unfinished episode "The Trial" implies that Zim may have an actual disorder, as the titular trial amounts to a process of Zim being declared legally insane or suffering from paranoia and mania.
* Zim is the only known Irken defective to not be deactivated seeing as the Control Brains themselves became insane from all the bad data in his PAK.
* Interestingly, the Control Brains can re-encode Zim's PAK from an Irken Invader to a Fast Food Drone without any problems but as mentioned above are unable to erase his PAK.
* In "The Nightmare Begins", Zim draws his base on a tablet first. If you watch closely, this shows that Zim draws it with his left hand. Yet in "Career Day" while taking the ink-blot test, he writes with his right hand. So Zim is ambidextrous.
* In some earlier episodes, Zim has four fingers, but later he has only three, this was probably done so as to make him appear more alien.
* Since Zim is already an adult by the beginning of the series, it's unlikely that he will grow in height unless Irkens have a growth spurt outside of their home planet, which is something fans have used in fanfics quite a lot.
* In the game "Don't Starve Together", Zim is shown as a character mod. He is also a model in Gmod.
* Ironically despite Zim wanting to enslave or destroy the human race, he seems to have a decent amount of "popularity" among not just the Skoolchildren but with a few citizens as people often side with him rather than Dib even when it is painfully clear that he hates humanity, at least for the majority of episodes that were completed before cancellation.
* Zim met President Man in "The Girl Who Cried Gnome" and again in Issue 32. This is the only time in the series and comics, respectively, that he comes across one of Earth's world leaders.
* In the episode "The Girl Who Cried Gnome" it was shown that Zim can whistle, what was odd was that he knew the lyrics of "If You're Happy and You Know It" which may hint he's getting familiar with human culture.
* In an interview with IGN in 2004, Jhonen Vasquez said that he "always imagined Zim as just being utterly unaware of his shortcomings, to a dangerous extent even. He's not really stupid, but he's got some problems getting priorities straight. He's this alien from an incredibly advanced race (technologically anyhow), with access to a universe of power. And yet he stays in school all day, enduring it, hating it, fearing it and freaking out about it. The thought of sneaking out or setting a robot in his place never crosses his mind. He gets so caught up with the most unimportant details, he ends up getting nothing done; He gets a giant robot, and his plan is to go beat Dib up. It was cool to remind people that he really was in control of some impressive stuff, but that his sense of control was so horrible that it didn't matter if his plans were foolproof."
* It was stated by Vasquez that while Zim's mission is actually an exile, Earth was still filed by the Irken Control Brains as a possible planet for conquest that is being infiltrated by a former elite, meaning that in a way Zim is an unofficial Invader, this can be proven by the fact that the Tallest still listen to Zim’s mission reports despite the fact they don’t care nor do they consider Earth important enough to invade but the Control Brains might think otherwise.
* Interestingly since Zim accidentally discovered Earth, other aliens may be aware of his discovery. One clue can be the fact that mail delivery services are seen sending him stuff to the planet.
** On that note, Zim has actually discovered several other species aside from humans such as the Martians, Nhar-Gh'ok, the Morphic, Space Pants, and Intergalactic Abductors to name a few, which he most likely tells the Tallest about in his reports.
** Zim also re-discovered the Plim and the Dooxisi.
** In this sense, Zim could technically be considered an explorer for the Irken Empire.
* Zim is the first Irken to have set foot on both Earth and Mars.
* It’s also implied but never shown in the series that Zim is the first Irken that has landed on Earth’s moon at some point, as he promised it to GIR, probably because he saw no use for the satellite. It wasn’t until Issue 21 that he eventually was seen on the moon.
* Zim has the most appearances of the four main characters in both the TV series and the comics. This is unsurprising since he is the main character.
** The only episodes where Zim doesn't appear in were "Battle-Dib", "Game Slave 2" and "The Sad, Sad Tale of Chickenfoot", though Zim was mentioned in "Battle-Dib".
*** Zim's voice actor, Richard Horvitz, claimed those episodes were his least favorite because Zim doesn't make an appearance in them.
** So far, Zim is the only character to have appeared in every issue of the comics.
*** Recap Kid did appear in every Issue of the monthly comics until the character was retired for the Quaterly issues.
* In Issue 7, when Zim landed on a previously lifeless planet, the Voot Runner's leaking fluid started the fast-paced evolution of life on the planet and he accidentally created life. At one point, Zim also spits in the fluid, creating a smeet similar in appearance to him, that refers to Zim as "papa". This technically makes Zim a parent, which would be the first time that has happened with an Irken in hundreds, if not thousands of years, as currently, the species as a whole has no families.
* In Issue 13, Zim admits that he has trouble telling human genders apart. He's shown making this mistake in Issue 17 when he refers to Dib as a lady. However, this could simply be a gag, since several times in the series he correctly calls Dib "Earth boy" and the joke could be a possible reference to Dr. Zoidberg from Futurama since he is also an alien who makes the same mistake all too often.
** Coincidentally, Billy West, who voices Dr. Zoidberg, voiced Zim in the pilot and almost voiced him for the entire series had Richard Horvitz not landed the role.
* In an interesting twist, Zim actually became a human in Issue 21 when he swapped bodies with Gaz; seeing as he hates humans more than anything, as stated in "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever", he ironically became what he hates the most.
* Zim has been able to create life from scratch, as in the above mention of Issue 7 when he accidentally terraformed a previously dead planet and even fathered a smeet for a few seconds. However, this may be a less than impressive achievement, as it has been hinted that Irkens can create blobs, which are another sentient and non-sentient lifeforms as seen in both the series and comics.
* Zim has only cried twice during the duration in the series, first in "The Frycook What Came from All That Space" and then in Enter the Florpus.
* Assuming that everything in the comic series is canon, Zim will eventually grow out of his "Defective" nature, finally conquering Earth and succeed in earning the Tallest respect as seen in Issue 12. This can possibly be a result of his PAK finally getting those "40 shmillion mistakes" fixed.
* In an interview when someone asked Jhonen Vasquez if Zim would ever conquer Earth, he laughed and said yes. The episode "The Most Horrible X-Mas Ever", may suggest otherwise.
** However, this finally happened in both an issue of the comics and Enter the Florpus. This makes Zim one of the four characters to have conquered the planet, the other three being GIR in "The Trial", Emperor Zim in Issue 12, and Gaz (in Zim's body) in Issue 21.
* Issue 25 shows some of Zim's backstory as an Invader in training. Sadly no further issues of the comic depicted more of Zim's past, making this one of the rare cases within the franchise where The viewers/readers find out information about Zim prior to the start of the series/comics.
* Issue 28 reveals that Zim doesn't know what hot dogs are made of and claims that "No one knows."
* In Issue 34, Zim believes that he and Prisoner 777 are "old friends" despite the fact that he has his children hostage on Earth, as revealed in Issue 1.
** In a twisted way, Zim is technically saving the lives of 777's children by keeping them in his base, as it's unknown what Irkens do to young Vortians after they conquered Vort.
* In Issue 40, it was revealed that across the multiverse, in universes where both Zim and Dib exist, they always end up meeting and are destined to be enemies.
** Also, Issues 5, 32, 46 and 47 also show that there are different versions of Zim but only the last one showed that some are more incompetent or a bit more competent than him and only one Zim was smart and ruthless enough that he has conquered the Zimvoid and possibly his version of Earth. (Although he was revealed to be a Dib disguised as another Zim).
** Issue 47 also reveals that in one universe Zim is named Carl.
* It was revealed in Issue 44 that Zim sometimes makes questionable business deals with other aliens. This would explain how he has monies since it's unlikely that the Tallest pay him.
* In Issue 45 it was shown that Zim surprisingly knows how to drive a car, as he stole a weenie mobile from the Deelishus Weenie restaurant and even more shockingly took a road trip despite hating everything about Earth.
** In the same issue, it was seen that Zim is actually capable of feeling love, as he comes to care for Li'l Meat Man as if it really were his child. However, once it fully registers with him that Li'l Meat Man is just a wad of meat, he stops caring about it.
** Also, as previously seen in "Parent Teacher Night" Zim has an affection for his cold unfeeling robot arm. This shows that Irkens can feel love as Jhonen Vasquez claimed.
* In Issue 46, it's revealed that Zim doesn't remember Tak and Skoodge even when they're the Irkens that Zim has talked to the most next to the Tallest.
* Vasquez confirmed that only polluted water can harm Zim, this is most likely because realistically, there is also water in Earth's atmosphere and if Zim kept breathing the planet's oxygen, it would only be a matter of time till it killed him.
* Zim has been shown to have memory lapses in many instances, such as in "Gaz, Taster of Pork", when he said that Dib was "making it up" when Dib brought up the events of "Bolognius Maximus"; in "The Frycook What Came from All That Space", when he initially didn't remember working on Foodcourtia (although he could possibly have simply blocked out his time at Shloogorgh's Flavor Monster as the abuse he received from costumers and Sizz-Lorr alike traumatized him); and in the end panel of Issue 3 where he didn't remember the events of that issue. This is often used to play with the series' floating timeline, as other characters can remember certain events, but Zim can't. Alternatively, Zim does remember but pretends not to out of pride.
** Amazingly, Zim is at the same time capable of remembering things he's not even present for, as he's able to remember something Sizz-Lorr said when Zim was nowhere in sight. Additionally in "The Nightmare Begins", Zim apparently remembered something Dib did despite just arriving on Earth, though this might just be him pretending in order to make Dib look crazier.
** This hints at the possibility that Zim's damaged PAK is somehow responsible for this ability.
* Ironically, Zim is arguably a better defender than an Invader seeing as he has saved the Earth a handful of times both in the show and the comics.
* As shown in "Walk of Doom", Zim may have claustrophobia, germophobia, and agrophobia.
* If Issue 16 is canon then Zim would also have a fear of clowns.
** This may be a reference to Richard Horvitz other well known role, Billy from "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy" who also has an extreme fear of clowns.
* According to Jhonen Vasquez, Zim is older than any living human and arguably any living being on planet Earth.
** Vasquez later confirmed that while he himself doesn't know Zim's exact age. He's canonically a young adult by Irken standards but quite old by human standards, and he simply likes spending his free time fighting human children since they're the only thing getting in the way of completing his mission.
** There was the possibility of Zim's age originally planned to be around 160 Earth years and 16 in Irken years, but was most likely scrapped; similar to what happened to Dib's last name to be unknown but was later changed to "Membrane" in the comics.
* Vasquez has stated that the four main characters aren't evil and that Zim and Dib are both "good guys" but on "different sides". This makes sense in Zim's case, as he is a "defective" and can't tell the difference between right and wrong.
** However, Zim has explicitly proclaimed himself to be “evil”, notably in the episode "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars" when he said, “With this, I can pilot the Massive and bring the Almighty Tallest here to witness my ingenious evil!”
* Despite Zim presumably having over a century of military training he is unable to defeat or kill Dib and Gaz who are mere children or "smeets" in Irken terms and theoretically shouldn't be considered a threat to his "mission", this could be due in part to his questionable sanity or maybe that Zim himself has yet to actually reach a level of mental maturity since he has remained the same personality-wise for most of his life.
* At San Diego Comic-Con 2018, Jhonen Vasquez said he believes that Zim is hard of hearing, which would explain why he screams so much.
* Issue 34 reveals that Zim pays to have his enemies (and people he just doesn't like) locked up in the space prison Moo-Ping 10.
* Zim can actually tell when other species are disguised as an Irken, unlike other Irkens, as seen in Issue 43 when he was the only one that recognized Dib even when he was wearing a terrible disguise. This is an ironic reversal of their standard dynamic, where Dib is one of the only humans who can tell Zim is an alien in an awful human disguise.
* Steve Ressel once said that if the Tallest ever told Zim the truth about his "mission", he wouldn't believe them as he is too arrogant, interestingly the Tallest never told him and Zim realized the Tallest had no intention to come to Earth by himself.
* In Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, it's revealed that Zim knows some Spanish, as he says "Vamonos" which translates to "Let's go", at one point (Which is what Zim says in the Latin American version of the film). This could be because he and GIR were stranded in Mexico at the end of the episode "Walk of Doom", and were stuck there presumably for some time, perhaps long enough for him to learn the language.
* In the movie its also revealed that Zim's antennae resemble Johnny C's "Bunny hairstyle" when they're bent forward.
* In a daydream Zim had in Enter the Florpus, it was revealed that he still believes that he holds the Invader rank despite being demoted to a Fast Food Drone.
* In the film, it's shown that Zim believes that the Tallest are his "biggest fans", highlighting the extent of his delusions about how they really feel about him.
* The YouTube video "Evil to Most Evil" voted Zim as the second most evil Nicktoon villain, only losing to Fire Lord Ozai from Avatar: the Last Airbender.
* In another YouTube video by the same contributor, "Cartoon Scientists: Dumb to Brilliant", Zim was ranked lower than Professor Membrane.
* Zim's mechanical spider legs are similar to Spider-Man's, Iron Spider's waldoes, or Superior Spider-Man's mechanical spider legs.
* Despite his "evil" but childish attitude, most people in the fandom find Zim to be quite lovable.
* Zim is indirectly responsible for the deaths of four Tallests.
* As the protagonist, Zim has made some big impact throughout the show, both positive and negative (mostly negative). Had Zim not escaped from Foodcourtia and made his way to Conventia, GIR would never have been made, Earth wouldn't have been introduced to the rest of the universe, Dib and Gaz wouldn't know about the existence of aliens, Dib wouldn't have a purpose and would probably have grown up to be an unhappy scientist instead of a paranormal investigator (as shown in "Mopiness of Doom"), Earth would have been destroyed by the Planet Jackers, the Resisty would have been killed by the Tallest, Invader Tenn's mission wouldn't have been destroyed beyond repair, humans would have been overrun with lice, monsters from a nightmare would have destroyed the Earth, Dib wouldn't be in possession of Tak's Ship, Minimoose wouldn't have been build, Mr. Dwicky wouldn't have been taken by the Plookesians, Mars would still be in its orbit, Squidman would be a normal man, Skoodge wouldn't have a place to stay, Santa Claus wouldn't be a feral monster, Clembrane would not be around and the Florpus wouldn't have been made destroying the Irken Armada and possibly Operation Impending Doom II.
* Zim is a well known misanthrope, with the only people that could rival his hatred for humanity being Gaz and Miss Bitters.
* An old bumper said that Zim is around 3 feet tall. However, whether or not this is true is unconfirmed. The bumper can be watched here.
* In The Dookie Loop Horror, it's revealed at one point that Zim killed and ate Dib when GIR cooked him as a pie during one iteration of the time loop, This would make Zim the first and only alien in the series or comics to have ever eaten a human, but because of the time loop, Dib did not stay dead for long.
* Zim's name was the last thing spoken in the comic book series.
* In Smite, Zim appears as a skin for Cupid, being set to be introduced as part of the Nickelodeon event on July 12th, 2022. He will not be voiced by Richard Horvitz.
* Interestingly it turns out that Zim has the colors of the Mexican flag on his person most of the time, due to his green skin, his white contact lenses and finally his red eyes/Irken uniform which may be a subtle reference to the fact that Jhonen Vasquez is Mexican, if that’s the case then it would be very ironic as those are colors that Dib, Gaz and Professor Membrane should be wearing as the family has been confirmed to be Mexicans.
== Gallery ==
File:Zim Render 01.png
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File:Zim 01.png
== External Links ==
* Zim at Invader ZIM Wiki
Category:Characters
Category:Males
Category:Invader Zim