Characters / Invader Zim: Irken Empire

Main Character Index | Zim & Allies | Membrane Family | Irken Empire | Skool | Aliens, Monsters, and Weirdos

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In General

The alien race that Zim comes from, a conquest-obsessed empire of Little Green Men with a hierarchy based on height, hellbent on taking over the entire galaxy.

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• Abusive Alien Parents: Irkens don't form families or personal relationships. Young Irkens are spawned in incubation tubes and raised from birth to serve the Irken Empire.
• Aerith and Bob: Irken naming conventions are...odd. We've met Irkens named Zim, Tak, Red, Purple, Miyuki, Spork, Skoodge, Sizz-Lorr, and Timmy.
• Aliens Lack Attributes: According to the creators, they don't have reproductive organs.
• Aliens Speaking English: Despite having their own written language, Irkens are always shown to speak English, even on their own planet.
• Always Chaotic Evil: What else could you call a race of alien Galactic Conquerors?
• Awesome Backpack: From birth, each Irken is fitted with a backpack-like device called a PAK that contains their memories, serves as a brain in it's own right, and can be used as a Bag of Holding. However, the PAK is so essential to an Irken's life that they will die if separated from it for longer than 10 minutes. Also, if an unlucky Irken happens to be fitted with a defective PAK at birth, they themselves are also considered defective (read: Zim).
• Bizarre Alien Biology: Irkens are dependent on their PAKs to live, are allergic to water and meat, and have a large super-organ called a "squeedlyspooch" that fills their entire torso and performs most or all bodily functions. The PAK being applied at birth and animating an otherwise lifeless Irken infant along with their dependence on it implies the organic body is artificially grown to host the PAK.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: invoked According to Word of God, they are capable of feeling love, but it's unlike the type of love humans are familiar with. What exactly this means has not been elaborated on.
• Culture Clash: Most Irkens show nothing but utter confusion/revulsion when dealing with alien cultures. Justified since their own society is a ruthless, racist, and imperialist military junta.
• Cyborg: All of them are this because of their PAKs.
• The Empire: It's in the name. Amusingly, the fact that the Almighty Tallest are actually puppets to the Control Brains suggests that their government is run in a manner more reminiscent of a modern constitutional monarchy than what this trope typically implies.
• Evil Empire: Well, obviously.
• Equal-Opportunity Evil: Female Irkens are shown serving as soldiers, invaders, and even the Almighty Tallest. That said, short Irkens suffer from constant discrimination within their society, with Skoodge in particular being treated like dirt in spite of being an excellent soldier simply because of his height.
• Fatal Flaw: Pride. Virtually every Irken seen on the show is incredibly full of themselves, with it eventually leading to their downfall.
• Fantastic Racism: Generally speaking, Irkens see all other life as utter filth only fit for being either Made a Slave or exterminated. That being said, some of their worlds (like Foodcourtia) suggest that their policies aren't always as extreme as that implies, with them being "fine" with other races as long as they serve the Empire's best interests.
• Galactic Conqueror: The Irken Empire is hellbent on taking over every planet in the universe. And when we say "every", we mean every, with it being heavily implied near the end of the series that they've been steamrolling their way through most of the Milky Way with no signs of slowing down. Well, at least until Enter the Florpus, which has the Irken Armada and The Massive all sucked into the titular Florpus and basically derails Operation Impending Doom II for the foreseeable future.
• Genius Ditz: They are collectively incredibly decadent and egotistical, but they are capable of maintaining and constructing elaborate weapons with incredible destructive capabilities, which is why their invasions usually succeed.
• Greater-Scope Villain:
  • The Control Brains, genetically altered Irkens encased in massive robotic forms, are the actual rulers of the Empire, with the Almighty Tallest as just figureheads (though they do still hold not-insignificant power on their own).
  • Likewise, there's Tallest Miyuki, one of the Tallest before Red and Purple, and the one responsible for the Irken Race's massive technological advantage.
• Invincible Villain: Despite being led by the glaringly incompetent Red and Purple, it's made clear that no race in the universe really stands any kind of chance at stopping the Irkens' intergalactic conquest, with all who attempt to resist them being instantly squashed like bugs. The only thing that seems to truly pose any threat to them is Zim's stupefying incompetence. This is possibly subverted after Enter The Florpus, though, as the Irken Armada and The Massive are all sucked into the Florpus and the fate of the Irken Empire is left completely up in the air.
• Large and in Charge: The hierarchy of Irken society is based on height. The tallest individual in a generation becomes the Almighty Tallest. Taller Irkens are given more important duties, while shorter Irkens are assigned to menial jobs such as food service.
• Laughably Evil: As a whole. Sure, they might all be Always Chaotic Evil Galactic Conquerors, but they're just so damn hilarious at the same time!
• Little Green Men: They resemble a human's stereotypical idea of aliens, with green skin, solid-colored eyes, and a pair of antennae. In a particularly notable riff on this trope, their society determines authority based on height.
• Master of Disguise: With a few notable exceptions (i.e., Tak), this is amusingly subverted with most Irken Invaders. Despite possessing sufficiently advanced holographic technology that would allow them to perfectly disguise themselves as natives of the planet they are currently conquering, most Invaders are so comically ultranationalistic and bigoted towards non-Irkens that they don't want to "sully" their true forms and instead take up Paper Thin Disguises, which all seem to rely on the natives holding the Idiot Ball to not notice.
• No Blood Ties: Irkens are grown in jars and enter military training immediately after "birth." They nevertheless seem to have familial feelings, since Zim considers the "cold, unfeeling robot arm" that activated him as his parent.
• Non-Human Non-Binary: According to Jhonen Vasquez, Irken do not have male or female identities, stating on Twitter that "the only IRKEN gender is A55H0LE. all caps."
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: It can be hard to remember at times that for all of their childish egotism and revolting decadence, they're also basically an entire species of ruthless sociopaths that have been conquering the entire Milky Way with no signs of slowing down anytime soon.
• Not Worth Killing: Or make that Not Worth Invading. The Irken empire have no desire to conquer Earth. They consider it a remote dump; the climate is horrible, and the natives are mostly morons. Only two rogue invaders are obsessed with claiming it for the Tallest. Tak (who was driven to insanity), and Zim (who has always been insane). The Tallest don't acknowledge them, and as long as Zim occupies the planet in exile, it makes the world even less desirable to the alien race.
• Orbital Bombardment: Referred to as the "Organic Sweep," this has the Irken Armada bombarding a newly-conquered planet from orbit so as to cleanse their new conquest of all organic life and make it fit for Irken colonization.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: It's a relatively minor Running Gag that Invaders wear absolutely horrible disguises to fit in with the natives of the planets they're trying to conquer. Notably, Zim actually comes across as one of the more competent in terms of disguising his alien form here... at least when compared to, say, Invader Slacks, who infiltrated the Large Nostril People of Boodie Nen by just sticking an absurdly big set of prosthetic nostrils to the front of his face.
• Powerful, but Incompetent: They vastly misuse their resources, have absolutely no tactical skills, and are a massively shallow race that values physical height and size more than anything (to the point where their Mothership is called The Massive). That said, their massive technology advantage over every other race in the universe keeps them on top.
• Pragmatic Villainy: Instead of fighting against the Planet Jackers, the Irkens instead just have a treaty with them for the Jackers to leave any planet marked by the Irkens for conquest alone, apparently having decided that a war with them wasn't worth the effort. Relatedly, they don't seem to want to always wipe out any non-Irken life when they can instead be used to serve the Empire's best interests (i.e., the Vortians being enslaved as Mad Scientists to help the Irkens develop better war machines).
• Riddle for the Ages: It has never been explained how the Irken race became completely dependent on artificial reproduction to survive (to the point of modern Irkens lacking reproductive organs).
• Sigil Spam: They put the Irken insignia on all their stuff. "Battle of the Planets" even shows that they first bomb the Irken insignia into the surface of planets they've recently conquered.
• Single-Biome Planet: Parodied, with the Irkens often devoting entire planets to utterly pointless and meaninglessly singular objectives. For instance, Blorch is designated to serve as a "parking structure planet" after it's conquered.
• Technicolor Eyes: Most Irkens have red eyes, with a few having purple instead. There are a few other colors that show up even more rarely, including green, blue, and brown.
• Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Female Irkens have long eyelashes and curled antennae.
• Uncertain Doom: As noted below, the Irken Armada gets sucked into the Florpus along with the Massive and the Almighty Tallest during Enter The Florpus, leaving the fate of the entire Irken Empire unknown. Though go by the fact that we last see the Tallest burning in agony some hellish dimension, their prospects do not seem good.
• Undying Loyalty: Due in part to them all being Cyborgs, the average Irken has a near-fanatical loyalty to the entire empire. It's quite a pity that their leaders typically don't return the favor.
• Women Are Wiser: One of Red and Purple's predecessors, Tallest Miyuki, is implied to be female from her name. She's also massively more competent than Red and Purple, being why the Irken Armada has incredible technology.

The Almighty Tallest

Voiced by: Wally Wingert (Red), Kevin McDonald (Purple)

Red: "The universe will be ours for the taking! It's only a matter of time before all the races of the Universe serve the Irken Empire!"
Purple: "I'll have them serve me the curly fries."

The leaders (figureheads, really) of Irken society. Their height is their only qualification for office, so they're not very well-equipped in the brain department, although Red seems to have it together better than Purple. They usually sit around snacking and acting like jerks, similar to a pair of teenage bullies picking on and bossing around a group of younger kids.

Red and Purple weren't the first Tallest. Some of the previous leaders were slated to appear in flashbacks if the show hadn't been canceled.

The proper way to address the Almighty Tallest is "My Tallest", the equivalent of "Your Majesty" (or, perhaps more accurately, "Your Highness") on Earth. As a general rule of both grammar and respect, "My Tallest" is never pluralized, even when more than one Tallest rules.

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• Aliens Speaking English: Like all Irkens, they inexplicably speak perfect English.
• All There in the Script: Their real names are Red and Purple (guess which is which).
• Ambiguous Robots: It's not clear whether they're cyborgs or organic beings wearing mechanical armor.
• And I Must Scream: Their final fate in Enter the Florpus is to be trapped in the titular hole, a swirling void of infinite realities crashing into and off of each other. We last see them in some kind of puppet hell dimension, screaming in horror as they burn. Zim, of course, sees nothing strange about this.
• Art Evolution: In Enter the Florpus, instead of just having two very long, seemingly metallic prosthetic fingers on their hands like they did in the series, their hands now resemble Zim' short black gloves with stubby claws and even featuring visible thumbs. Also, their skin is slightly paler, their armor is darker, and their spines are pinker.
• Asshole Victim: Their ultimate fate in Enter the Florpus, namely ending up trapped there after trying to destroy Earth just to finally be rid of Zim.
• Bad Boss: They both treat their underlings terribly, but Purple especially seems to enjoy shooting them out the airlock.
• Bait the Dog: Played for Laughs in the unproduced episode "The Trial". They kindly explain the process of Irken existence evaluation to a young Irken child, and then have him dragged off to the dungeons for knowing too much.
• Big Bad Duumvirate: For the franchise as a whole. Because of their matching height, they're both the official leaders of the Irken Empire. Unofficially, Red is the more domineering and competent of the pair.
• Big Bad Ensemble: In Enter The Florpus, they form one with both Zim (who is responsible for all the film's mayhem) and the Florpus itself; the Tallest intend to blow Earth up just to finally be rid of Zim, and the Florpus is a Negative Space Wedgie that threatens to suck the Earth in and scatter it across infinite realities.
• Big Eater: Usually shown eating their own weight in junk food.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars" reveals that Red can be a surprisingly capable leader when his life is in immediate danger. Otherwise, he'd much rather kick back and gorge himself while letting his underlings take care of the hard work.
• Buffy Speak: Despite otherwise being the smarter of the two, Red is consistently shown to be a lot less articulate than you'd expect from a (figure)head of state. This is perhaps best when he takes charge in "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars" and refers to the enormous laser that he calibrates the Massive to fire as "Some kind of... Laser thingy".
• Butt-Monkey: Purple has shades, mostly due to Red's abuse of him.
• The Caligula: Both of them are selfish, lazy and generally incompetent despots, though Purple seems especially useless. They don't even respect the traditions of their position, and somehow cheated their way out of having to amputate their thumbs after being named Tallest.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: Named after their eye colors.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars" shows that Red can be a genuinely competent commander when he has to. This does not apply to Purple.
• Culture Clash: They are absolutely floored when Zim explains to them that adult humans are generally much taller than Irkens, but are also incredibly stupid. This flies completely in the face of Irken societal ideas, so they have trouble wrapping their minds around it. This is also literally the only time in the series that they're genuinely interested in what Zim has to say about the Earth - the concept is just that alien to them.
• Deadpan Snarker: This, hysterical laughter or blank shock is how they usually react to Zim's antics.
  (Zim's base explodes during a video conference)
  Purple: Well, you look real busy exploding, Zim...
  Red: What a shame, moving on now...
• Divergent Character Evolution: In the first episode they each got alternating moments of stupidity and intelligence. By "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars", Red seems to have settled into "The smarter one", though he still prefers to laze around with Purple.
• The Dividual: While they do develop more distinct traits over time (Red becomes the more intelligent and domineering one while Purple becomes The Ditz bordering on Cloudcuckoolander), they still have very similar personalities, look almost exactly alike, and are never seen apart.
• Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes: Both their eyes are almost always half-shut, characterizing them as as smug, snarky, and exhausted by Zim's antics. Since their lids also slant inwards, they also have slight Tsurime Eyes fitting their exasperated demeanors.
• Even Evil Has Loved Ones: "Loved one" might be a stretch, but they are the closest of it to each other.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Played for Laughs in "Germs", when both are deeply unsettled by Zim's germaphobia-induced Sanity Slippage.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": They're only ever referred to as "The/My Tallest" in the series.
• Evil Empire: The figureheads of the Irken Empire.
• Evil Is Bigger: They're called the Almighty Tallest for a reason.
• Evil Is Hammy: They're the leaders of a race known to subjugate other planets and are some of the hammiest characters in the show.
• Evil Overlord: The emperors of the Irken Empire.
• Fate Worse than Death: Their eventual fate at the end of Enter The Florpus. After constantly refusing to move around it, they fly straight into it and are torn across different realities.
• Faux Affably Evil: They're lazy and generally genial, but that won't stop them from committing genocide or having their own soldiers Thrown Out the Airlock for not being tall enough.
• Fingore: invoked They only have two fingers on each hand, as opposed to a normal Irken's three. According to the Invader Zim Wiki, the production staff have said that when a Tallest is chosen, their thumbs are ritualistically severed to prove that they can rule without them. However this has been Averted by the current Tallest, Red and Purple, who instead hide their thumbs inside their massive gauntlets.
• Freudian Excuse: If the unproduced "The Trial" counts as canon, they witnessed their two previous Tallest die because of Zim. As such, their mistreatment of him at least might stem from fear that they'd suffer the same fate.
• Galactic Conqueror: Their and their species' entire motivation is galactic domination. Invaders are used to infiltrate planets and prime them for invasion from within. Afterwards, they tend to use them for mundane activities like serving junk food or parking structures. They're also not averse to just blowing up random planets in the way of their flagship.
• Greater-Scope Villain: While not intentional, they're the reason Zim is trying to take over Earth. Honestly, they weren't sure anything was there, nevermind a planet; they just wanted Zim out of the way while they conquered the rest of the universe.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: invoked Fans debate whether they're this, twin brothers (from the same cloning tube, maybe?) or gay lovers. More obvious in the comics, where they are shown playing together.
• Hidden Depths:
  • Red is confirmed to be Brilliant, but Lazy in "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars."
  • invoked "The Nightmare Begins" shows Purple to be the more eloquent of the two (at least enough to remember the word "armada"), though it could be argued that this is just a case of his personality not having fully crystalized yet.
• Honor Before Reason: In Enter the Florpus they refuse to diverge from their projected course, a straight line, because "turning is stupid." Even though they have more than enough time to get out of the way of the titular Florpus, they continue on in a straight line to their doom.
• Hyperactive Metabolism: They remain rail-thin despite constantly putting away enormous amounts of junk food. It's possible that their bodies aren't entirely organic.
• Irony: They only became rulers or Irk because Zim accidentally killed the last two. Now they have to constantly deal with the destructive individual who made their ascension possible. Granted, as mentioned, said individual was responsible for the deaths of the last two individuals to hold their position, so it's only natural they'd want to get rid of him for reasons beyond personal annoyance.
• Inadequate Inheritor: Unreleased episodes would've implied that their predecessor, Tallest Miyuki, was a much more capable leader. She was the one commissioned the Massive, while as far as the audience knows, these two don't have one accomplishment to their names.
• Jerkass: Along with being a pair of genocidal Evil Overlords, they're also generally lazy, selfish assholes who can barely stand each other, let alone anyone they consider beneath them (as in, everything else in the universe).
• Jerkass Has a Point: Given what we see of Zim’s actions during Operation Impending Doom I, it’s hard to argue that Zim didn’t deserve to be banished. Honestly, he probably got off easy. It’s also easy to see why they don't trust him as an invader after this, and Zim’s antics do tend to create more problems for the Irkens than they solve.
• Karma Houdini: Well, except for "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars". Finally averted in comic Issue #4. Their game of torturing Zim with a large Cheese Puff literally blows up in their faces. Further averted in the movie.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: After having escaped the series itself unscathed due to its cancellation, the Tallest finally get their comeuppance in the movie nearly two decades later: Namely, being trapped in a hellscape thanks entirely to their own stupidity and stubbornness, with traumatic — and potentially fatal — results.
• Killed Offscreen: They're obviously in distress at the end of the movie, and Jhonen confirmed during the Pixelatl México stream that they died. He then mentions the show's Negative Continuity and tendency to bring characters back from the dead with no explanation in the same breath, so whether they'll stay dead is up in the air.
• Large and in Charge: They're the leaders of their race because they are the tallest.
• Laser-Guided Karma: In Enter the Florpus they end up doing the eponymous action, meaning they've entered what essentially boils down to an indeterminate period of incredible pain at best and a wackier-than-usual death-by-black-hole at worst. Their final transmission seems to show them either trapped in or passing through a hellscape.
• Laughably Evil: They might be genocidal sociopaths who treat their own people like shit, but they also provide some of the funniest moments in the series.
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: Red is smarter, more competent, and more domieering than Purple.
• Lazy Bum: Neither of them ever do much in the way of leading, instead spending most of their time snacking and goofing off, and they tend to show aggravation whenever they are forced to actually do something. Operation Impending Doom II itself could be viewed as a product of their laziness: send out invaders to conquer planets for them ahead of time so that they don't actually have to do anything when they get to them. This ends up bringing them their doom in Enter the Florpus, where their refusal to make the small effort to steer The Massive out of the way of the Florpus ends up getting them and the entire Irken fleet trapped in an interdimensional hellscape for what may be eternity.
• Lean and Mean: In addition to being the tallest Irkens, they're also rail-thin despite how much they eat.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars" shows that Red can be a surprisingly competent and level-headed military commander when his life is directly threatened.
  • It's also amusingly subverted in the same episode for both of them. After being utterly humiliated by the Resisty and tossed around like pinballs for most of the episode due to Zim's actions, they contact him on a video call with the express purpose of making "our friend Zim hurt." Unfortunately for them, their video call is instead "answered" by Zim getting attacked by his own brain parasite while GIR and Zim's robotic parent decoys rampage through Zim's base. The Tallest lapse into horrified/baffled Stunned Silence, right before Purple runs offscreen to throw up.
• Made of Iron: Seemingly, "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars" seems to imply that they're impervious to plasma from the Sun, and presumably other stars. Granted, they are inside the Massive, but their reaction makes it sound as if their bodies are being exposed to it. With that said, they don't seem to be immune to reality warping from the Florpus.
  Red: Y'know, this isn't so bad.
  Purple: I think so, too!
• Make It Look Like an Accident: They've repeatedly tried to do this to Zim, so as not to directly implicate themselves in his demise, be it sending him off on a Snipe Hunt in the hopes that he'll die en route to trying to have him killed at boot camp. By Enter the Flopus, however, Zim teleporting the Earth directly into The Massive's flight path has them decide to forgo discretion completely and just blow up the planet so they never have to deal with him again.
• Meaningful Name: Red is the first color of the rainbow and purple is a color often associated with royalty.
• Moral Myopia: Averted. While the Irkens treat all other races as nonentities, the Tallest have no qualms about shooting their own people out of cannons or airlocks. One at least can't fault them for hypocrisy there.
• Not-So-Harmless Villain: Par for being part of the Irken race, their childish egotism and hedonism masks their ruthlessness and greed.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business:
  • It really says something about how furious they are with Zim in "Backseat Drivers From Beyond The Stars" when Purple (normally The Ditz of the two) starts to show some Tranquil Fury while Red (who has always been the more open of the two in their hatred of Zim) cheerily asks The Massive's technicians to "give our friend Zim a call."
  • Similarly, them deciding to simply destroy the Earth once it appears in The Massive's flight path so as to destroy Zim once and for all instead of Making It Look Like An Accident helps show just how profoundly fed up they are with Zim's antics and that they now just want to kill him no matter what.
• Only Sane Man: Heavily downplayed, but Red generally serves as not only the Straight Man to Purple's Cloudcuckoolander tendencies, but also as one of the more level-headed Irken leaders (his own foolishness and laziness notwithstanding), and is typically the one to grab the Sanity Ball in interactions between the Tallest and Zim/other Irkens.
• Orcus on His Throne: They don't do much except lounge around their mothership.
• Palette Swap: Of each other.
• Pet the Dog: They occasionally have moments, generally directed at each other, that show that they have some capacity for good will:
  • Red gets angry at Zim for denying Purple a planetful of snacks in "Tak: The Hideous New Girl".
    • In the same episode, Red affectionately pats Purple on the shoulder after smacking him over the head with his own puppet.
  • In general, even if Red abuses Purple most of time, he also shows a softer side toward him.
  • At one point, they let Zim talk about humanity and seem quite intrigued by it. More specifically, they're fascinated by his claims of humans being taller than Irkens and yet still utter idiots.
  • They also allowed Zim to give his show on Probing Day, despite openly hating him (They planned to fail and pummel him regardless, but still).
  • Amazingly, they even have one that has nothing to do with either of them, or even their species: At the beginning of "Invasion of the Idiot Dog Brain" a young human boy wanders into Zim's base, followed shortly by his mother. She scolds him for wandering off, he cheerfully declares that he missed her, and the two leave. Purple smiles and says he's "glad it had a happy ending after all." Red, also smiling, agrees.
  • In Enter the Florpus, they compliment an invader for sending snacks to them and mention he is awesome.
• Psychopathic Manchild: Despite being the sociopathic overlords of the most powerful known race in the galaxy, they mostly act like a pair of lazy, arrogant and stupid teenagers. They love sweets and junk food, bicker over simple things, and make their servants present their planet-conquest strategies with puppet shows. Heck, their dynamic with Zim can best be described as two Big Brother Bullies and their Annoying Younger Sibling.
• Pointy-Haired Boss: Their only qualification for their job is their height. Fortunately for them, that's the only qualification that matters in Irken culture.
• Purple Is Powerful: Purple, of course.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Red, of course.
• Slouch of Villainy: Their designs always make them look slightly hunched over, even in "The Nightmare Begins."
• Smug Snake: They're extremely arrogant and absolutely certain that nothing stands a chance of getting in their way of conquering the universe. While the Irken Empire is incredibly powerful, that fact is rather clearly unrelated to their incompetent despotism.
• The Sociopath: Don't be fooled by their laid-back laziness, as these guys are genocidal dicks.
• Sweet Tooth: It goes in hand with their Big Eater status — although it's possible that what humans consider junk food, Irkens consider healthy.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: Purple especially seems to enjoy doing this, and uses it as a disciplinary method for things as petty as asking questions!
  Purple: Well, that was the wrong guy, but that's okay, I think everyone got the message!
• Too Dumb to Live: Taken to its logical conclusion in Enter the Florpus, where they refuse to steer their ship around the deadly Florpus hole since it would mean not going in a straight line. They get sucked into it and end up being burning alive in some kind of puppet Hell.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: They were never the brightest bulbs in the series proper, but fly straight into Too Dumb to Live territory in Enter The Florpus when they refuse to fly out of the path of the Florpus Hole despite there being plenty of time to do so, resulting in both them and the entire Irken Armada suffering a Fate Worse than Death.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: The Tallest are much less subtle about their hatred of Zim in Enter The Florpus, to the point that they ultimately decide to blow up the Earth just to be rid of him once and for all.
• Trademark Favorite Food: "Snacks", which is used as a catch-all term for junk food you'd find in a convenience store - chips, nachos, Slurpees, burritos, etc. Though the snack food they're shown eating most often are donuts.
• Tsundere: Red and Purple argue a lot with each other (in private and in public) but they seemingly appreciate each other deep down.
• Uncertain Doom: As of the ending of Enter the Florpus, they are shown burning in a puppet-like alternate reality. Whether they ultimately perish in the Florpus, are stuck there alive for eternity, or somehow pass through and escape — into their own reality or another — remains unknown. The fact they're able to receive a transmission indicates that, at the very least, they're still on the Massive, which may be their only hope for survival. And even if they do make it out, they'll undoubtedly be traumatized for life.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Of a sorts. They spend a lot of time together and often play harmful pranks on one another.
• Vomit Discretion Shot: Purple's reaction to the parasite eating Zim's brain at the end of "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars."
• While Rome Burns: In the end of Enter The Florpus, their last words are of premature and stubbornly placed celebration as they fly headlong into the Florpus hole, dooming their entire race and them for presumably eternity.
• Would Hurt a Child: They send young Irkens to invade dangerous planets and seemingly don't care if they die along the way.
• You Don't Look Like You: Red's Series 2 Palisades toy gives him darker skin than Purple.
• Younger Than They Look: They look older than Zim, but the script for the unproduced episode "The Trial" reveals that the three are actually all about the same age.

Invader Skoodge

Voiced by: Ted Raimi

"So that no Irken boot has to come in contact with any unsavory alien filth! HOO-HA!"

An incredibly short Invader, and perhaps the closest thing that Zim has to an actual friend. Had the show continued, he would have become a reccurring character, and lived in Zim's basement.

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• Affably Evil: He doesn't really come across as being evil for its own sake, but Irkens in general seem to have an Always Chaotic Evil bent and at the very least he is complicit to genocide.
• Butt-Monkey: He was sent to a planet of Slaughtering Rat People, used as artillery against said planet after he pacified it, and then had his achievement given to someone else.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: With the exception of a variant cover for Issue #10, he's absent from the new comics.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: He's the first Irken Invader to single-handedly complete his mission, and he survived being on a planet as it was being blown up. If it wasn't for his gullibility, he'd be an Irken to be reckoned with.
• Deconstruction: His character exists to deconstruct the Irken Empires obsession with height, as not only is he the first invader to conquer a planet in Operation: Impending Doom, the planet he conquered was Blorch, home of the Slaughtering Rat People. If the Irken were any type of competent, they'd have given him a high status in their empire, but because of their general stupidity and obsession with height, he's treated like dirt due to being so short in spite of being a highly competent, unquestionably loyal, and durable soldier that anybody would want millions of.
• Made of Iron: Even more so than Zim, Dib, and Keef combined.
• No-Respect Guy: In spite of his accomplishments, the Tallest still treat him like crap because he's short.
• Offscreen Moment of Awesome: We never get any indication of how exactly he managed to conquer Blorch, home of the Slaughtering Rat People, but he did it.
• The Pig-Pen: Quite downplayed, but his uniform is consistently dirty and covered in splotchy stains.
• The Dog Bites Back: The unfinished episode Day Of the Spookies actually has him take pleasure in tormenting Zim when the two pretend to be ghosts on Mysterious Mysteries, and eventually leave him to be hauled off for study when things go south.
• Undying Loyalty: Even with how the Tallest and Zim treat him, he's still determined to prove his worth and risks life and limb to please them. Although it's shown even he has his limits.
• Unexplained Recovery: Blatantly and repeatedly. He often appears to get killed only to later return alive and well with no explanation for his survival.

Tak

Voiced by: Olivia d'Abo

"NO, IT ISN'T REVENGE! It's about taking back what's mine, you delusional twit! I should have been an Invader! I should have been part of The Great Assigning! I shouldn't have to be stealing this planet from you!"

A female Irken out to seek Zim's mission and prove herself as a worthy Invader to the Tallest. Fifty years ago, Zim caused a blackout that caused her to miss her test to become an Irken Elite. Not to be confused with the main character of another Nick franchise, Tak and the Power of Juju.

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• Aliens of London: Tak has a British accent while none of the other Irkens do.
• Badass Longcoat: Both her disguise and her Irken uniform resemble a tailcoat in the back.
• Berserk Button: She gets visibly enraged when Sara teasingly calls her Zim's "girlfriend", although she doesn't explode, since it would blow her cover. Instead, she uses her Compelling Voice to make Sara apologize and eat her own eraser.
• Best Served Cold: Tak wants to conquer Earth before Zim, since Zim was the one who made her fail her military exam and sent her to work as a janitor on Planet Dirt for fifty years. She actually doesn't view it as revenge so much as setting things right, though—as she (correctly) points out, she's a highly competent invader who deserved to get assigned a planet, while Zim was sent there just to get him out of the Almighty Tallest's antennae.
• Boyish Short Hair: In her human disguise mode, she sports a spiky and punky bob cut.
• Butt-Monkey: Somewhat, particularly being exiled from her planet despite being an excellent invader but Zim's idiocy caused this, and getting thwarted by Zim and being almost killed in a spaceship crash. Tak just couldn't catch a break.
• Cats Are Mean: Her S.I.R. Mimi takes the guise of a cat, and is nasty powerful enough to kick Zim and GIR's asses.
• Compelling Voice: It only works on idiots though.
• Evil Brit: She is not a Brit of the humans, although her accent is clearly British.
• Eviler than Thou: To be fair, not eviler than Zim, just more competent.
• Evil Laugh: It's so hideous in contrast to her appearance.
• Evil Versus Evil: Her conflict with Zim, since both of them want to conquer the Earth.
• Freudian Excuse: Zim inadvertently ruining her chance to become an Irken Elite and getting her exiled to the planet Dirt as part of the janitorial staff spurred her quest to prove herself a real Invader by usurping Zim's intended target of conquest and actually turning it into something valuable for the Tallest.
• Hypnotic Eyes: Tak seems to possess these in the form of some sort of device in or near her eyes. While in disguise, a flash of her eyes allows her to erase short-term memories of her victims (unless their mind is too strong, like Dib's and Gaz's were) and, in one case, impose her will over others.
  Sara: Looks like Zim has a girlfriend!
  Tak: It's not NICE... to embarrass people! You should apologize... and... (eyes flash) eat your eraser!
  Sara: (with Mind-Control Eyes) Yes, Tak! I'm sorry, Zim. (takes a bite out of her eraser)
• Irony: Had Zim not stopped her from taking the exam, she might've wound up among the invaders he blew up in Operation: Impending Doom 1.
• Knight of Cerebus: Tak is certainly a MUCH bigger threat to Earth than Zim. And comes very close to accomplishing her plans.
• Large Ham: It leads to Ham-to-Ham Combat when she argues with Zim.
• Loving Bully: Completely subverted and played for laughs. Zim's conclusion that Tak, while disguised as a skool girl, physically abuses him because she's in love with him is just a sign of his Insane Troll Logic. She really does just despise him and only uses his efforts to study "pain-based Earth affection" to torture him for giggles.
• Manipulative Bitch: She states that the human race is too gullible to suspect a thing when she takes over Delishus Weenie Corp, and proudly exploits that(along with her hypnotic abilities) to carry out her plan from Weenie headquarters.
• Mirror Character: For as much as she likes to claim she's Zim's superior, they both shirked menial roles assigned to them (Zim's indentured employment on Foodcourtia and Tak's temporary janitorial duties on Planet Dirt) for what they perceived to be faster routes to glory. Interestingly enough, both their respective exiles are also technically Zim's fault: Zim got himself exiled for blowing up the invasion fleet during the previous invasion, and Tak was only exiled because Zim's stupidity prevented her from getting to her final exam on time.
• More Deadly Than the Male: And how!
• Motive Rant: She at one point goes on a rant on how she hates Zim for ruining her life and wants to make him pay for it.
• No, Except Yes: She insists that she isn't after Zim for revenge, but that she is going to steal his mission in particular rather than that of any other invader.
• Nothing Personal: While Tak doesn't deny that she hates Zim, she insists her plan isn't about revenge per se, so much as proving that she's worthy of being an Invader while he isn't.
• Purple Is Powerful: Instead of the standard dark pink Irken uniform, she wears a purple one. Her eyes and the spots on her PAK are purple too.
• Right-Hand Cat: MIMI, who in contrast to GIR resembles a cybernetic black cat.
• The Rival: She's Zim's rival in the invasion of Earth.
• Revenge: She claims her plan to usurp the conquest of Earth from Zim isn't about revenge but about making things right by proving she's a real Invader while Zim is just a joke. However, she is open on how much she loathes Zim and enjoys making him suffer. In fact, it's telling that rather than choose any other unclaimed planet that could be more appealing to the Tallest, she chose the backwater far-off Earth where Zim is, despite being clearly aware he was sent there by the Tallest to be rid of him. ^note However, given she's going against orders, taking Zim's exile planet and making it valuable while ruining Zim's life in the process was probably the only way she could do this and get away with it.
• Satellite Character: Her SIR unit MIMI never acts independently of her. Justified as she's behaving how a proper SIR Unit would, unlike GIR.
• Sliding Scale of Villain Effectiveness: She's essentially a competent, intelligent version of Zim.
• Villains Blend in Better: Or in this case, Competent Villains Blend In Better. Her human disguise is far more convincing than Zim's, which says more on the latter given how well the other invaders were doing.
• We Will Meet Again: The last thing she says to Zim before he launches her into space. Had the series continued it was intended for her to come back as a recurring villain, but the closest she gets to returning in the show proper is her ship's presence, since it has an artificial intelligence copied off of her own brain.
• Women Are Wiser: She's the only prominently-featured female Irken, and is significantly more competent than Zim or the Tallest are.

Tak's Ship

Voiced by: Olivia d'Abo, Andy Berman

"DIB! Your face is STUPID!"

The modified Spittle Runner Tak used to make her way to Earth. After she was defeated, Dib keeps it within his family's garage to further modify it and study Irken technology. After being reactivated, however, it's discovered that the ship's autopilot runs on a copy of Tak's personality, and is hesitant to allow anyone but Tak to even sit in itself, let alone pilot it.

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• A.I. Is a Crapshoot: The ship is able to copy the memories and personality of its user. However, without proper training and an environment to understand what's going on, it will likely go mad trying to understand what it even is.
• Brain Uploading: It's able to utilize the brainwaves of its pilot as its primary AI, effectively becoming a robotic clone of them.
• Driven to Suicide: After running on a copy of Dib's brain that is then brainwashed by Zim, the real Dib tries to break it out of the mind control. While it remembers everything, it also concludes that such a life is so horrible that it would rather delete its own personality data.
• Enemy Mine: Though it confesses that it hates Dib, it also acknowledges that it hates Zim more, and agrees to help Dib and Gaz with the understanding that it'll hurt Zim.
• Sapient Ship: The ship is not afraid to speak its mind at any given moment it's active. And that usually means voicing its displeasure at Dib or any other humans riding in it.
• Sentient Vehicle: An alien spaceship with a fully independent AI.
• Token Evil Teammate: In Enter the Florpus, the ship teams up with Gaz and Dib to save the Earth but it's clear that the ship is only doing it because of its hatred for Zim (and, if the deleted scene is canon, breaking Tak out of prison).

Sizz-Lorr

Voiced by: Jim Wise

"Nobody escapes from Sizz-Lorr. I will find you, Zim. I will search all of space's dark corners to hunt you down. AND I WILL FIND YOOOOOUUUUU!!!"

Zim's boss during his exile on Foodcourtia, an Irken frycook who runs Foodcourtia's premier restaurant. After Zim escaped the planet, Sizz-Lorr swore to make him come back if it was the last thing he did.

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• Affably Evil: Once he accidentally drops Zim while kidnapping him from the skool, he genuinely apologizes to the human skool students.
• Almighty Janitor: He is the biggest, strongest, and probably the most powerful Irken ever seen in the show. And his job is being a fry cook. Though in his defense he is the highest ranking Fry Cook in the entire Irken Army, and given that the Food Court Planet is often used as a punishment, the position of head Fry Cook may function as a warden.
• Bad Boss: Played With. On the one hand, he took a good deal of delight in making Zim suffer and working him hard. On the other hand, Zim was sent there as banishment for nearly destorying their peoples' civilization without regret. As such, Sizz-Lorr's behavior could not only be justified, but also appropriate since he is not just Zim's boss, but more accurately his parole officer or even prison guard/warden.
  • Benevolent Boss: He seems to be a pretty decent and reasonable boss over to his employees, i.e. the people he actually hired rather than Zim, who is his prisoner.
• Big Entrance: Unlike Zim, he has neither the training nor desire to act as an invader and infiltrate human society in order to get what he wants. In fact, he does exactly the opposite and literally crashes into Ms. Bitters' class (while Dib was in the middle of giving a speech on Zim being an alien, no less), grabs Zim by the head, and drags him back to his ship.
  Sizz-Lorr: Now, BACK INTO OUTER SPACE!
• Big "YES!": He yells "Yes" in response to Zim's Big "NO!" at having to work for him again.
• Chef of Iron: The natural result of combining his role as a chef and a badass. He even suits up in battle armor with a giant spatula as a weapon.
• Clark Kenting: Zim was unable to recognize him without his fry cook hat. And Sizz-Lorr was wearing his name tag.
• Genius Bruiser: Along with having the usual Irken technological prowess, he's huge, enormously strong and a skilled fighter. He's also one of the few characters who is distinctly not an idiot.
• Improbable Weapon User: His laser-spatula...thing.
• Large and in Charge: And how - he is taller than any other Irken we have ever seen, perhaps even surpassing Tallest Red and Purple.
• Large Ham: It's a given that he'd be yet another hammy character.
• Non-Standard Character Design:
  • No other Irken, both those in the show itself and those only shown through concept art of scrapped episodes, has dark circles around their eyes like he does. Similarly, his eyes also don't have the same glossy reflection that other Irken eyes have.
  • Sizz-Lorr's PAK is massive. For context, the Tallests' PAKs are roughly twice as big as Zim's, while Sizz-Lorr's PAK is nearly quadruple that and almost as big as Zim himself.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: This is a funny one. At first, it makes sense that Zim doesn't recognize him: while he is a very large guy, he's also wearing a gas mask and bodysuit. Then he reveals his face. Zim doesn't catch on. Then he takes off the suit, and changes into his fry cook outfit. Zim still doesn't get it. Then he puts on a nametag. Zim's still unable to place him. It's only when he finally puts on his tiny paper hat that Zim puts two and two together.
• Punny Name: Sizz-Lorr. Sizzler!
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: After he finds out that Zim is gone in the flashback, his eyes momentarily glow red.
• Riddle for the Ages: Why is an Irken who is even larger than the Almighty Tallest and several times more competent working in fast food? Was he exiled like Zim? Does his weight counterract his height in the eyes of Irken society? Is the position of Frylord seen as just that sacred? The world may never know.

Vortian Prisoner 777

Voiced by: Wally Wingert

One of the Vortian military researchers used by the Irken Empire to produce their tech and weaponry, kept as a prisoner. He copes with this by making... interesting design decisions in Irken weapons, and trusting them to Zim, who he knows full well will do something horrible with them.

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• Gadgeteer Genius: A seemingly common trait for Vortians, who have provided Zim with many idiotic devices that seem outright designed to kill whoever uses them, such as the malfunctioning santa suit Zim uses in the christmas special, and probably the megadoomer.
• I Have Your Wife: How Zim gets said gadgets from him — he has 777's children stuck in a tube with an "Erase Children" button attached.
• No Name Given: We never learn his real name.
• Sarcastic Devotee: He's very happy to help Zim. For a given value of "help."
  777: "(Sarcastically hammy tone) That would be wrong! It'd infuriate the armada! (Suddenly helpful) I helped design that ship, you know. *Beat* Here you go!"
• You Are Number 6: He's only ever referred to by his prison number.

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