t some point, fans of the bizarre Nickelodeon cartoon Invader Zim probably despaired—the network, reportedly unhappy over the show's appeal to older viewers instead of its much younger target audience, regularly pre-empted the show or moved its timeslot without advertising the lineup changes. Ultimately, Zim was canceled after two years of shaky network support, and most fans assumed that Nickelodeon wouldn't bother with a DVD release.
Anime Works comes to the rescue with the two-disc set Invader Zim Volume 1: Doom Doom Doom, the first of three projected releases encapsulating the whole series. The first installment features 16 quarter-hour episodes, plus the half-hour pilot—along with animatics for 14 of those episodes and commentary tracks for 12. The series begins on the planet Irk (the DVD includes Irken-language subtitles), where a horde of little green bug-eyed aliens is planning to conquer the galaxy. The Irkens consider height the ultimate merit, and their hapless, smug leaders (voiced by Wally Wingert and former Kids in the Hall troupe member Kevin McDonald) are referred to as "The Almighty Tallest." Just as they've finished handing out planetary infiltration assignments for Operation Impending Doom II, an impossibly short, loud Irken named Zim (Richard Horvitz) arrives and demands to be let in on the fun. The Tallest are appalled—Zim apparently singlehandedly sabotaged Operation Impending Doom I by gleefully running amok with a superweapon before even leaving Irk.
To dispose of Zim permanently, the Tallest saddle him with an insane robot helper made of trash and assign him to an entirely theoretical planet on the edge of nowhere. Six months later, Zim and his robot, GIR (Rosearik Rikki Simons), arrive on Earth. There, Zim dons an unconvincing human disguise, creates a creepy facsimile of a house and some clumsy robot "parents," and assumes the guise of a normal Earth boy. He even enrolls at the local school, where he assumes he will learn how to conquer Earth. Instead, he runs afoul of a local conspiracy theorist and UFO nut named Dib (Andy Berman), beginning a rivalry that lasts throughout the series.
A deeply sick cartoon
Invader Zim Volume 1 contains some of the series' best episodes (the pilot, "Dark Harvest") alongside some of its weakest ("Rise of the Zitboy," "Germs"), but virtually all installments of the show are manically energetic and disturbing in a hilarious way. The show was created by comic-book artist Jhonen Vasquez ("Johnny the Homicidal Maniac," "Squee"), and his sick sense of humor tends to leach into storylines that might be too disturbing for kids. In "Dark Harvest," for instance, Zim worries that his lack of human organs will expose his alien nature, so he begins stealing organs from his classmates and replacing them with random objects like a box of milk, a hall pass and a cat. In "Bad, Bad Rubber Piggy," his attempts to sabotage Dib with a time machine and a pile of toy pigs results in Dib's systematic mutilation and death. In other installments, Zim and Dib take their rivalry to ridiculous lengths, or Zim attempts to conquer Earth through ridiculous means; in most cases, the episodes are wildly over the top, and even those that never find a solid plot footing are at least full of bizarre diversions.
The many commentary tracks on this initial disc are another random diversion. The pilot's commentary includes Vasquez, Horvitz, Wingert, Simons, Berman and script coordinator Danielle Koenig all joking over each other in a rowdy, noisy mix. Later episodes subtract some commentators and add others, generally maintaining a crowded party/reunion atmosphere that's more clubby than informative.
The show's animation blends dark, oppressive reds and purples with bright, vivid greens; it's clean and appealing, and the periodic CGI is well masked and blends in admirably with the rest of the images. The gross-out gags are the series' one sop to its supposed prepubescent audience, but the show more often trades on extreme incongruity and whipcrack comic dialogue. Zim can occasionally be creepy, but more often it's just one of the darkest, most absurd cartoons ever to briefly grace television. Nickelodeon's youngest viewers may not have appreciated it, but older viewers with a taste for the weird should certainly check it out.
