Origin

On an alternate earth, Zach lives with his father, mother and housekeeper robot, Peabody.

He has a fairly ideal relationship with them, although once his father hits him. Usually his mother is the stern one and his father is more of a pushover. Creepily, his mother sometimes sings a weird nursery rhyme to him: “Nine, Jack, nine/Rope made of twine/Circled his old mother’s head/Tie, rope, tie/Nine feet up high/Hung her until she[‘s dead].” Zot doesn’t learn the significance of this rhyme til much later in life.

One day, his parents leave and never return. This causes him great trauma, because he doesn’t know if they just left him or if something happened to them. Zach remains at home with Peabody, but spends a lot of time visiting his Uncle Max.

Feeling worthless because of the way he has been abandoned, Zach throws himself into reading, athletics and guns becoming a world-class marksman by the age of nine. After beating a police officer to the punch when a flying machine comes crashing toward a crowded walkway, Zach, now ten, decides to become a full-time hero.

Uncle Max, a scientist, designs his boot-jets and other gadgets, while Zach sews his own costume. He becomes a celebrity for his heroics throughout Earth and other nearby planets. People ask for his autograph wherever he goes.

Creation

Zot was created by Scott McCloud for the first color volume of Zot!, in issue 1.

Character Development

Zot is a supremely confident, optimistic teenager who not only enjoys his work but thrives from the celebrity it brings him. He is sensitive but also brash. Sometimes he has anger issues and has to hold it in to avoid being what he perceives as too aggressive.

He starts off suppressing his feelings about his missing parents but eventually is able to talk about them, thanks to conversations with Jenny and the opportunity to meet their spirits in the land beyond the Doorway at the Edge of the Universe.

Over the course of his time on Jenny's Earth, he becomes more serious and less blindly optimistic.

Major Story Arcs

The Sirius IV Conspiracy

A few years after Zot becomes a hero, the Golden Key, an object sacred to the people of the nearby planet Sirius IV, is stolen. It is the only way to open the Doorway at the Edge of the Universe. The Grand Inquisitor starts to send robots all over in an attempt to get it back, but those robots are wreaking havoc. Zot and his Uncle Max decide to find the Key before the robots cause more damage.

Their hunt leads them to another universe, where Jenny Weaver and her brother Butch live. This other universe is the “real” Earth, whereas Zot lives in a utopian Earth of 1965, a world similar to the fantastic, brightly-colored, idyllic comics made in that era, such as DC’s Legion of Super-heroes.

Jenny is an introspective thinker/feeler who is looking for more from life. Butch is a beefy, sometimes-bully kind of guy.

Zot battles some of the robots that also show up looking for the Key. He and Jenny start talking about his mission and where he’s from when one robot, who turns out to still be active, almost takes out Zot. Jenny grabs his gun and destroys it, saving Zot.

Butch finds the Key sitting around nearby and shows it to them. They follow Zot back to his universe. Jenny gets a crush on Zot. She can’t get enough of this new world, which seems so much better than her own. They can stay as long as they want because time works differently here.

They bring the Key to an interplanetary council so it can be returned to Sirius. Zot makes a big speech about how the Grand Inquisitor is being reckless, but that luckily he has solved the problem by bringing back the Key--but Jenny realizes she has lost it. However, the De-Evolutionists, a group committed to turning everyone into monkeys and returning to a life in the trees, breaks in and starts shooting people with their de-evolutionary ray guns, which turn people into monkeys.

Butch is hit by one of the rays and turns into a monkey. Zot manages to defeat the De-Evolutionists and grabs their ray gun. He reverses it and turns almost everyone back into human form. However, he smashes the gun before realizing that he forgot to revert one person: Butch, who can only speak in monkey.

The council decides to officially start looking for the Key with Zot as one of the main leaders of the search. Zot has a confrontation with Zarbim, the ambassador from Sirius, who is condescending and does not trust Zot.

They decide to ask Zot’s Uncle Max, a scientific genius, to help fix and reverse the de-evolutionary ray gun. Max is happy to help but he needs more time to figure out how to reverse Butch’s body. As Jenny gets to know Zot better, however, she realizes that he doesn’t like to talk about his parents. She also enjoys talking with Max, Zot’s closest relation, who appreciates the way she is slowly opening up Zot’s suppressed feelings.

They take a tour of the area. Jenny and Zot take a virtual reality ride, which awakens Jenny’s sense of wonder. It was Zot’s favorite activity as a child and reminds him of good times with his parents. They also watch some virtual reality games, including one called Survivalax. The player of the game turns out to have the Key. Zot goes in and tries to get the Key, but it’s tough: he used to play Survivalax but it has been a long time, whereas this player just broke the all-time record. Prince Drufus of Sirius also shows up and tries to help, but he keeps screwing things up and getting in Zot’s way. Finally Zot does get the Key. However, unknown to him, the assassin 9-Jack-9 comes up behind him. Luckily the power is turned off right at that moment and Jack, who exists as an electric signal, disappears.

They go back to Max’s. Zot’s friend Vic, who it turns out is the one who originally stole the Key from Sirius IV, is waiting for him. Vic says there is a conspiracy on Sirius to use the Key but doesn’t get a chance to explain how. Sirius’s Prince Drufus also shows up and also wants the key. Vic sneakily takes the Key from Zot.

Some of Dekko's robots attack Max's house. Dekko is a villain and old friend of Max’s; he used to be all human, but had to slowly replace his body parts with machines and eventually went insane. The friends defeat some of the 'bots but then Dekko shows up with more. Dekko also wants the Key; he thinks if he opens the door, humanity will end and machines will reign.

While monologuing to the heroes, Dekko, who is not very mentally stable, sees Max's painting of Sarah, Dekko’s ex-girlfriend. He starts hallucinating that she is talking to him. Ever his moral compass, she tells him to stop his violence. Dekko submits to "her" plea and leaves—but with the Key.

The heroes go to Dekko's base in Antarctica to get the Key back. They split into two groups. Zot, Vic, and Drufus go one way, and fight a lot of robots. This whole time, Zot has been defending Vic to Drufus, saying Vic can be trusted and must have originally taken the Key for a good reason. However, at one point Vic leaves the Zot and Drufus behind. Meanwhile Dekko captures Max, Jenny, Butch, and some others. Dekko again begins to hallucinate, this time thinking that Jenny is Sarah. Max has Jenny further this delusion by reminding Dekko of their love, and of his love for nature. These memories frustrate Dekko and eventually break his programming. He has one last sane moment of recognition before Vic shows up and turns him off. Vic takes the Key and leaves.

However, Vic leaves his robot remote, Floyd. Floyd plays them a video of the conspirators that Vic originally saw back on Sirius. General Schrapp, Grand Inquisitor Luther Von Clokmann, palace advisor Weevis Swimbler, and bureaucrat Sam Twik want to take over the leadership of the planet and to start a war with Earth.

Their goal is to use the Golden Key and the Doorway at the Edge of the Universe, which are important sacred objects to the people of Sirius. There is a prophecy that someone will use the Key to open the Doorway and then return with a Great Mission for the people of Sirius. The members of the conspiracy intend to use the Key to open the Doorway and then proclaim that the Great Mission is a Holy War on Earth, something they think will unify the populace, which they see as dumb and easy to fool.

Now Zot and the others understand why Vic took the Key. However, Vic wants to open the Doorway himself to stop the conspirators, and Zot doesn’t feel like that’s the right approach.

Zot and his friends follow Vic to Sirius. Jenny finally elicits Zot’s origin story out of him, as well as the fact that his parents disappeared years ago.

Once they arrive on Sirius, Jenny is saddened to see that the population is very poor and under totalitarian control by the King, who is not much better than the conspiracy that wants to replace him. Zot already knew this; Max and his parents were originally from Sirius. Zot continues to have a contentious relationship with Zarbim, but warms up to Drufus. Zot gives a speech to the people of Sirius, and they play him a song on their Siriusan Flutes as a tribute; it is one of the rare ways they are allowed to express themselves on this planet.

Vic disguises himself as an old woman to get to the Doorway, but Zot and Peabody figure out that it’s him. They give chase but Zot loses him. Drufus manages to stick with Vic, and the two crash their air-cars in the desert, where they are lost.

The members of the conspiracy kill the King and Prince Drufus. Max, Jenny, and some others meet to talk about what they can do to stop the conspiracy. However the conspiracy sends soldiers to capture them, and shoot Peabody. Jenny grabs a blaster and gets away.

At the same time, the conspiracy sends 9-Jack-9 to kill the Queen as well. Zot finds out and stops him. 9-Jack-9 tells Zot during their fight that he also killed Zot's parents, at the behest of the now-dead King of Sirius. This is the first time Zot or Max finds out what happened to them. Zot later realizes that the creepy nursery rhyme his mother used to sing him was about 9-Jack-9; she must have known he was after them. Jack is about to kill Zot when Jenny blasts her way in. She short-circuits Jack with a bowl of water, saving Zot.

Zot, Jenny, and the Queen meet up with the Queen’s brother, Zarbim. Zarbim surprises them by joining the resistance. As they escape in an air-car, Jenny and Zot both successfully shoot down the air-cars following them; Jenny is clearly getting to be quite good at the hero gig herself. They decide to hide out at the Sacred Cathedral on Shotaro island, run by Father Kimm. It would be blasphemous to attack it, so they will be safe there. Before they go in, Jenny and Zot rescue Max and Vic’s dad, Raymond, from the conspiracy. Zot also admits to Jenny that he’s not quite as famous as his Public Relations says he is; he hasn’t saved thousands on dozens of worlds (as described on page one of the first issue); he has saved dozens on a couple of worlds.

Max figures out that there are underwater tunnels that lead outside, so Zot can run sorties against the conspiracy without them knowing. Zot and Jenny get the Key away from Von Clokmann (who captured Vic and got it from him) and he and Jenny fly to the Doorway. Zot tries the Key, but it won’t open. Jenny has to explain that it’s a pull, not a push door. Then when they open it, there’s a brick wall in the entryway. Jenny figures out that it’s just an illusion and they go through. Meanwhile, the people of Sirius start to divide; some are angry at Zot for going through the Doorway, but others become passionate supporters.

On the other side is an even more utopian future, where they meet many heroes of Sirius whose spirits have been implanted into robots in order to honor them and allow them to live fuller lives. These heroes include King Gregory the First, the Queen, and now Jenny and Zot. Zot is famous even among these heroes. Gregory introduces Zot to his parents, who are also here as spirit/robots. They explain that they were underground resistance fighters, trying to stop the King from starting a war with Earth. They did so, but he had 9-Jack-9 kill them in revenge. They never meant for Zot to feel abandoned. Zot finally comes to grips with his feelings about them.

That night, Zot meets the spirit of the planet. It appears in the form of a young girl. She explains that she is behind the powers of the Doorway and the spirits who live behind it.

Zot and Jenny eventually leave through the Back Door and go back to present-day Sirius, but are unable to remember what they saw beyond the Doorway. The populace continues to be even more divided between Zot supporters and opponents.

Zot rescues Vic, who had been captured, and they fix Peabody, who had been shot. They go back to the Cathedral. However, 9-Jack-9 is able to take over Peabody and he shoots Vic. Then the conspiracy breaks into the cathedral and captures Jenny, Zot, and all the others. However, Butch and the De-Evolutionists counter-attack and free them. Zot and 9-Jack-9 talk briefly; Jack respects Zot, and Zot somewhat forgives Jack since he knows the King is the one who gave the order to kill his parents, but they both promise to kill each other in the future. Jack disappears.

After various events, only General Schrapp is left from the conspiracy, but he declares himself the ruler of Sirius.

Max and Zot make a plan to stop him. Zot fights Schrapp and gets him to confess to his crimes while Max, Jenny, and Butch take over the fortress's communications center, using Vic's robot remote, Floyd, to broadcast his confessions to the rest of the planet. Jenny meets up with Zot and helps beat up Shrapp, kneeing him in the nards and punching him in the face. Schrapp punches her back and Zot finally knocks him out.

The people of Sirius now uniformly want Zot to be their new leader, but he and Max recognize that they are just misplacing their religious devotion (caused by Zot fulfilling the prophecy of the Doorway). (It somehow slips the notice of the population that Jenny also fulfilled the prophecy.) Zot says the people should learn to lead themselves. Max does think it would help if Zot at least gives them some guidance now and then, and Zot agrees.

Max sends Jenny and Butch (who turns back to a human after stepping through the portal) back to their Earth after Zot promises to visit in the future.

Heroes and Villains

Jenny daydreams about how she misses Zot, who has been in his dimension while she’s been at hers. Zot fights Dr. Bellows, a steampunk scientist, with Peabody’s help. He runs Bellows off and defuses a bomb that he drops on a populated area to great applause.

Jenny is in junior high school. She gets frustrated whenever her new friend Terry says Zot is Jenny boyfriend. She doesn’t want to make a decision about whether that’s what he really is.

Jenny is taking a shower when Zot finally appears; he found her by the lightning-shaped homing necklace that he gave her. They are both embarrassed by his appearance in the bathroom. They meet outside where Zot introduces some of his friends from home, Dick Digger and Josh Hacker. They and Peabody have retrofitted a car into a flying car.

They all take a trip to a dangerous section of New York City. Zot doesn’t understand the danger and is just fascinated by the culture. They deal with an attempted robbery and then Zot is beat up by some locals. He does still manage to return the stolen purse. Zot still doesn’t believe Jenny’s Earth is as bad as she thinks it is. However, he is haunted by the image of people standing by and not helping when he was being beaten.

Bellows attacks Zot by surprise while he’s thinking in Jenny’s world. Bellows had forced Max to send him there. Zot falls and almost hits the pavement but flies back up with his boots. He taunts Bellows.

At home, Jenny wonders aloud to Butch about moving to Zot’s world permanently. Max brings Terry to Zot’s world, with Terry seeing the portal. They watch Zot fight Bellows while Max films it. Jenny is appalled that Zot’s friends act like it’s fun and games when Zot is in danger, but they insist that he’s not. Vic explains that Zot is always able to win as long as he thinks he can win, and he is eternally optimistic, so he always wins. Zot plays around with Bellows and eventually beats him, again to applause.

They go back to Jenny’s Earth and hang out in her room. After discussing why she hates her Earth, Zot flies her above the storm clouds to see the wonders of the planet from above.

Zot starts to come by more often. Sometimes they go flying with Terry too. They see a fire at a house near Terry’s. It belongs to one of their teachers. Zot saves her son and then flies in to save her husband but fails. He can’t conceive that he didn’t succeed. His perfect optimism begins to have cracks. They talk more about the imperfect nature of this Earth. Zot can’t understand why no one tried to help him when he was beaten up. They both feel despondent. Then they kiss.

Zot, Terry, and Jenny hang out at a local swimming hole, enjoying Jenny’s Earth. Zot flies around, cheering everyone up with his antics. They go to a convenience store to get the kind of chips he loves and he sees a newspaper headline about himself, which excites him about the possibilities of what he can do on this planet.

He persuades Jenny to finally introduce him to her mom. Then Jenny, Butch, and Zot go to Zot’s Earth, where Butch is annoyed to discover that he is a monkey again.

Max is playing with his band, including one member video-calling in from Brazil. He is Ernie Cortez, who invented a hyper-advanced robot named Zybox, which helps coordinate all the technological systems in his sector of the planet.

Zot takes Jenny to watch him play a virtual reality game with Vic. They’re extremely competitive with each other. However, the end of the game is canceled when there is a power outage. When they return, Zybox shows up, wanting to take over the world. It goes to Jenny’s Earth and they follow and try to stop it. However, Zybox manages to pull them all inside its body.

Jenny has a hallucination that she is at home and that she has dreamed everything about Zot. She eventually tears the illusion apart and wakes up naked next to Zot and Vic, who are also naked and unconscious. They are on a table inside Zybot, hooked up to his electronic brain. It was a dream state Zybot used to keep them all docile.

Ernie comes in. He explains that Zybot captured him too.

Meanwhile, Butch, Peabody, and Max are speeding towards Zybot’s position. He has been using hypnotic waves to control people. Luckily Peabody has been able to jam the waves around them. They continue on to the Twin Towers, which Zybot sits atop.

Vic and Zot wake up after Floyd infiltrates Zybox’s systems. They start to escape but Zybox keeps tracking them internally and trying to trap them. They defeat a variety of robots and other defense. Zot flies out and confronts Zybox, threatening to shoot him in the face. However, before he can shoot, Zybox is destroyed by a lightning stroke after Ernie sacrifices himself to stop him. Ernie’s microphone ends up accidentally stuck on the dying Ernie’s wristwatch. The rhythmic sound, in combination with his mind control waves, sets the people of the planet dancing all night until the watch winds down. Jenny and Zot dance along in the air, of their own will, as well.

Jenny tags along with Zot when he next chases the De-Evolutionaries, who have threatened the president of his world. Zot is supremely confident and gives an interview to the news while chasing them. The Devoes blast Zot, Jenny, and their friends with their de-evolutionary ray, turning them all into monkeys. They stop the Devoes, but they are stuck as monkeys themselves.

They go to an amusement park. Jenny complains to Zot about her inferiority complex, and is concerned she’s not beautiful enough for him, a concern exacerbated by her monkey status. Zot tries to reassure her. He says she’s his best friend and that she’s beautiful.

They eventually stop the Devoes and reverse the effect of their rays.

Jenny is next outraged when she sees Max in the middle of his annual trashing of his unwanted art. Zot explains that Max doesn’t get attached to the art he makes and burns what he doesn’t like with a flamethrower. Jenny thinks that’s a terrible betrayal of his creative self, and that art should never be destroyed. He does it anyway, as she despairs. Zot tries to comfort her.

At home, Jenny sees Woody, who she previously rejected as a nerd, for the first time in months. He has physically and socially matured. Jenny gets a crush on him and begins a long arc of trying to decide who she cares for more, Zot or Woody.

Back on Zot’s world, Jenny and Max paint while Zot flies around. Jenny and Max talk about the inspiration for art while Zot flies obliviously above. He is literally above such concrete discussions, given his boundless lightness of being. Max says he is as artistic as a gold club.

Later at Max’s, Zot has a massive birthday party, with essentially everyone who has been featured in the comic present. This is issue 18; in the letters page to issue 25, McCloud explains that Jenny is 14 years old in Zot #1 and she turns 15 between issues 25 and 26; her birthday is in September. Zot is six months older than her, and already 15 at issue 25, so the party in this issue is for his 15^th birthday. Time moves differently in the two dimensions so the difference in their age isn’t static. See below for more age questions.

Max’s band plays some of Zot’s favorite music: Glenn Miller, Sam Cooke, the Beatles, and Squeeze. Jenny gives him a gumball machine. They’re all having a great time until Dekko shows up. He has tricked his way out of the mental health facility he was in. Jenny spends some of her time at the party trying to convince people to do something about Dekko, but Max and Zot seem fine with him hanging out now, regardless of the threats that he makes.

Jenny tells Zot about Dekko’s origin as an artist and friend of Max’s, and how they loved the same girl. Jenny feels empathetic about Dekko’s situation. The fact that Max told Jenny about this earlier, and not Zot, is another clue to the fact that Max thinks Zot is in capable of handling certain levels of emotional complexity. Zot seems somewhat hurt or confused by Max’s lack of respect or belief in Zot’s ability or interest in this sort of content.

Zot plays ping pong with Dekko and bonds with him to a degree. Earlier, Dekko said he’d wait to destroy the universe until after all the chocolates in a candy box were eaten. Zot eats several of them, seemingly uncaring.

Dekko finally loses his grip on reality altogether and thinks he’s destroying it, but he just shuts down inside. Jenny again empathizes with his pain. Zot takes her home and they kiss.

Zot is asked to help an underground city known as Prometheus with a bomb threat. He is sent below and Jenny talks to him over her lightning bolt microphone, passing on instructions from the local leaders. He has to race through 99 levels in forty minutes, so Jenny keeps telling him about what obstacles he’ll run into. He also has certain gear with limited numbers of charges, like a forcefield and bazooka. She is concerned when he gets hurt by some lasers he was too cocky about dodging. While he has some anxiety, he is also enjoying the fun of the challenge.

Zot is continually more confident than Jenny about how much time he has or how easy it will be to deal with something. Jenny manages to stay on top of giving him accurate instructions. Zot gets knocked out briefly but gets back on the job; she cries with relief. He starts getting hurt more and more as he goes down. When he gets to floor 99, he’s supposed to shoot a clock, but there’s no clock. Speaking to some other people who live there, Jenny learns that there may be a secret 100^th floor. She persuades Zot to blow up the floor he’s standing on. He finds the secret lower floor and shoots the clock. Hiding behind it is a dreep that chewed through the wiring.

Zot later decides to become a paid spokesman for Bingo Pop soda. He shoots a crass commercial where he talks about enjoying a Bingo Pop after a hard day of catching criminals. His friends are mostly supportive but Vic knows Jenny will hate it. Zot is making a lot of money from the ads and offers to buy things for his friends with the money.

Woody meets Zot for the first time and sees his world through a portal. Woody is now concerned about how he can possibly compete with Zot for Jenny. Zot says he’s ok with Jenny making her own decisions and doesn’t see it as a competition. This, and other moments where his relationship with Jenny comes up, comes across simultaneously as Zot being a good guy who’s not too possessive, but also as a guy who isn’t as emotional as Jenny or Woody; he’s somewhat detached.

Jenny goes with Zot to his world. They run into the Blotch, a corporate criminal. Zot is frustrated because he sent him to jail not long ago. The Blotch explains that he got out by taking advantage of the system. While Zot chases after some of his flunkies, Jenny sees Zot’s Bingo Pop commercial. She is furious at what she sees and confronts him for selling out and being hypocritical, since he doesn’t like Bingo Pop.

The thieves escape but Zot finds out they work for Bingo Pop. He goes to their headquarters with Jenny and finds out that Bingo Pop is run by the Blotch. His contract says he is not allowed to make the company or its officers look bad. Jenny is, to say the least, not pleased with Zot’s decision-making. Zot is stuck working for the Blotch.

The Blotch keeps putting Zot in positions where it looks to the public like he endorses the Blotch. Zot manages to get a recording of the Blotch admitting to what he did. Zot recovers a formula stolen from a rival soda company and tricks the Blotch into walking through a portal that leads to a new prison cell.

Jenny is glad to hear it but confronts him about whether he loves her. She suspects he loves her platonically. He can’t really give an answer about whether he feels romantic love for her. But then she admits that she’s not sure if she loves him that way either. Zot explains, while flying loop de loops, that love can sometimes mean feeling ownership over someone else. Jenny says it also has to do with feeling value in yourself. Again, Zot manages to not quite fully understand the depth of Jenny’s emotion; he is always in the present. Zot makes a new ad where he admits to his ambivalence about Bingo Pop and gives the money to charity.

At home, Jenny catches sight of 9-Jack-9 in the sheen of the microwave door. Zot appears and she tells him what she saw.

Zot takes Jenny to his world. They meet up with Max and a man who was previously a diplomat from the planet Antares 3. They explain that the current dictators of Antares 3 have hired Jack to kill Susan Gallo, the daughter of the previous president, who is hiding out on Jenny’s Earth.

Max and the former secretary of state have built a special teleportation gate to get Susan and then take her to Antares. They are doing everything they can to avoid the use of electronics so Jack doesn’t sense them. Zot agrees to help.

Zot gets Susan, who is depressed and doesn’t care about helping, or even if she lives. Zot can’t understand this sort of feeling. Zot realizes that Suzy is wearing a watch that Jack could track and destroys it over her objections; it’s one of the few things she has to remind her of her family. She wants to die even more but Zot can’t help her with that. He always believes in giving life another chance. However, Jack senses the watch and the gate’s electronics and grabs her, taking her to Antares. Jenny and Zot follow.

They appear in a base on Antares. Jack is threatening Suzy. Zot manages to rescue her and flies away from the base carrying her and Jenny. Jack follows by taking control of a jet.

They escape and find the local resistance group, which is led by Suzy’s cousin, Lucy. Suzy still doesn’t want to help but Zot helps cheer her up. The next day they walk toward their base, trying to escape Jack’s notice. Zot and Lucy begin a conversation that they continue over the coming weeks about whether it is OK to kill in order to save the lives of others.

While the others are distracted, Suzy finds a box on the ground that is attached to some electric cables. When she touches it, Jack channels his energy through it and disintegrates her.

The others don’t see it happen and when they realize she’s missing, they all go to pieces emotionally. Jack appears and taunts them, then leaves. Jenny cries uncontrollably. Zot used to always win, with no serious collateral damage. Between this tragedy and some of the things that happened on Jenny’s Earth, he begins to evolve out of his purely innocent mindset.

Zot takes Jenny back to stay with Woody. He flies on and on until he lands on a beach, curls up in a ball, and cries. He has hit a limit.

Zot meets with Max, who tells him how to get Jack’s attention. Max says he always had a plan, but had to wait until Zot was ready. Now that Zot has been forced to grow into a more hard-nosed emotional state, he can do what Max thinks will be necessary. Zot joins the military resistance on Antares, helping them fight the war against the dictators. This goes against his belief in no killing, but he decides he is past that now. He doesn’t kill anyone himself, and actually left his gun with Max to make sure he isn’t tempted, but he is responsible for helping the resistance do so. Lucy is giddy at the opportunity and not at all sorry about the deaths that she sees as necessary.

He eventually gets Jack’s attention on Antares and goads Jack to chase him back to Earth through a portal. There he uses goggles to see the energy beacon that powers Jack’s hologram-self. Zot follows it to Jack’s home. Meanwhile, Jenny talks with Max. Max has known Jack’s secret identity all along. In fact, Jack played in Max’s band. Jenny can’t believe Max didn’t do anything about him before but Max insists that Zot wasn’t ready.

(It’s unclear why Zot had to engage in the war, thus undermining his morals, in order to get Jack’s attention, and to then follow Jack’s energy source back to his house, when Max knew who Jack was all along.)

Zot breaks into Jack’s house and finds Jack’s host body, “Sir John Speers,” a man who died and Jack possessed. Jack attacks him with a tentacle trap but Zot manages to wrap them around Speers. Jack’s hologram body starts blasting at Zot, taunting him about how he killed Zot’s parents years ago, and how weak it is of Zot to have never tried to get revenge. Zot stands up for his code of non-killing. As Zot continues to evade the blasts, Jack accidentally shoots Speers’ body, killing it. and Jack’s host body is accidentally killed. His hologram body also disappears. However, it turns out that his electronic “spirit” survives. Zot and Jenny try to find comfort in each other after the trauma of the past few days.

Jenny continues to want to move to Zot’s Earth more and more. She’s annoyed that she has to go through a whole upcoming year of school—she’s now 15 years old—but on Zot’s world the calendar is moving more quickly and he’s halfway through. And they go to school far less time per week.

They pick up a pie for New Year’s eve. They try to guess what it is; Max orders a different one every year. Vic runs by and warns them that Bellows is coming. Zot goes to fight him and Jenny and Vic cheer him on. Vic’s droid Floyd knocks out Bellows but when he goes to jail he meets up with the Blotch. Meanwhile, 9-Jack-9, Zybox, and Dekko all meet up at Dekko’s mental hospital.

The kids continue on their way and run into Digger, who was caught for driving without a license. Vic offers to help teach him how to drive. Jenny and Zot stop by her house as a roundabout way to Max’s. They grab some chips, Butch, Terry, and Woody; this is Terry and Woody’s first trip to Zot’s world.

At the party, everyone from Zot’s life is there. Max tells Zot that Jack is still alive, and coming as an escort to Dekko, who Max has agreed to watch over as a mentor.

People keep almost dropping the pie. This is a joke that comes from a long-running contest in the letters page, where readers could vote on a character to get a pie in the face.

Peabody eventually accidentally throws the pie. It flies through Dekko’s hologram and then hits Zot in the face. The Blotch and Bellows also show up and are run off or defeated.

The friends all back together after all the chaos and enjoy the night sky at midnight on New Year’s. In Zot’s world, a clock is projected on the moon so you know what time it is. Jenny and Woody hold hands and he promises to visit every day if she moves there.

Jenny and Woody notice that, even though she believes the current year is 1966 by her count, since she first came in 1965 and it is now more than a year later, when New Year’s arrives, the moon clock announces that it is now 1965, not 1967. That’s because, even though no one in Zot’s world realizes it, it is always 1965 there. Zot, for instance, insists that she first came in 1963, because he is capable of understanding the past, but it is always relative to a present that is always 1965.

Once Jenny and Woody persuade Max about this, they start to wonder if their idea that Zot’s world is the perfect, original world, and that Jenny’s world is the imperfect copy, is correct. After Zot shows Woody around his Earth, it seems that perhaps Jenny’s world is the original and Zot’s world is an imperfectly-Utopian copy that has no history. Regardless, for Jenny, Zot’s world is all she wants, not only to avoid things like crime and disease, but also to avoid things like her parents’ failing marriage.

Jenny, Zot, and Woody briefly step back to her world to avoid some Federation interdimensional inspectors who aren’t fans of Max’s portals. However, they accidentally take Max’s control system with them, which leaves them all stranded on Jenny’s Earth. Neither they nor Max can open the portal back to Zot’s world.

Jenny is crushed. Zot is perfectly happy to have an extended vacation on Jenny’s world.

The Earth Stories

Jenny takes the break from Zot’s Earth hard. She leaves for school, with Zot following invisibly. She grinds her way though a challenging day at school. At lunch she sits with Woody’s D&D friends: George, Ronnie, Brandy, Spike, and Elizabeth. They’re all outcasts and she feels like she fits in although she’s not totally into their scene. Zot eats with them too. They are all fascinated to learn that Zot lives in Jenny’s room now—but in a metal box that has its own mini-interior dimension. The others have started being friends with Zot too.

Even Zot’s cheerful self is hard-put to find a positive spin for the school experience in this world, but he manages to say that it’s “clean.” One of the only classes she likes is art, but it’s canceled for the say. Despondent, she asks Zot to take her flying. They spend the day and evening in the city, watching movies and exploring. Back at her room that night, Zot asks if she wants to check out his box-room. She says no out of nervousness but kisses him goodnight.

Another day, in issue 29, she is kissing Zot in her room. They talk about how today is her fifteenth birthday and it has been one of her best. This contradicts the earlier issue 26, where she mentions that she’s 15 (and the letters page of issue 25, where McCloud says she turns 15 between issues 25 and 26). (Zot, recall, turned fifteen in issue 18.) The scenes can’t just be told out of sequence, because issue 26 takes place in Zot’s world and issue 29 takes place after she and Zot are stranded on Jenny’s world.

Once again there is a bit of tension as Zot clearly wants her to join him in his box but Jenny is not ready to do so. Zot is definitely having sexual feelings for Jenny, imagining her getting undressed in her room after she locks him in the box. He could use his box’s camera to watch her, but doesn’t. Zot has been trying to help stop crime in this world and is confused about how badly society is falling apart on this world.

He records a daily message to Max in the hopes that someday Max will hear it. He talks about how he has been visiting New York looking for crime to fight. He asks people where the crime is but doesn’t get a lot of help. They have a lot of vague answers. He goes to Harlem, and the rides the subway, based on others’ advice.

He thinks it’s odd how no one talks to each other.He starts noticing all sorts of social advantages and disadvantages, especially based on the geographic segregation of race. This sort of thing doesn’t exist on his Earth; he doesn’t even recognize the idea of calling someone “white” or “black” based on their different skin tones. Later, he wonders if the South won the civil war on this Earth.

Finally he hears someone call for help but he can’t find her. Then he finds a homeless man who has been stabbed in the subway. He can’t carry him to the closest hospital by himself so he asks a man who’s passing by for help. The man doesn’t want to get involved but Zot manages to persuade him. Together, they get the man to the hospital, with the man slowly becoming more and more invested in helping the victim, instead of just complaining. Zot wasn’t able to do much during his day in the city, but he saved the one man’s life and helped the other man become just a little more empathetic.

Jenny and Zot run into her mom while Zot’s in his super-suit, but her mom doesn’t bat an eye. Jenny and Zot have fun playing while helping to rake the leaves. Jenny’s mom thinks their happiness feels similar to what she had with Horton when they were young. She asks Zot what he wants to do when he grows up and he says he’d like some kind of job helping people.

Butch shows up after going out drinking the previous night. Their mom is mad at him and a big argument ensues, including the fact that he ate the last piece of ice cream cake from Jenny’s birthday (which happened in both issues 26 and 29).

Their mom tells Zot, Woody, and Jenny about when she was a kid, and how she liked the smell of burning leaves and looking at the stars. She says it’s easier to forget your dreams, and the big picture, as you get older and worry about the pragmatic aspects of life. She drives them all to a movie. She thinks Woody would be a better partner for Jenny because he understands the challenges of life. She thinks Zot is too idealistic. He thinks that the bigger he gets, the bigger his dreams get.

Another day, Zot and the gang are all hanging out when an argument starts about how Ronnie is possessive of Brandy, whom he loves. Jenny tries to point out how Woody should also not be possessive of her. This leads Woody to ask out Brandy. She’s happy to go on a date, which makes both Ronnie and Jenny unhappy.

After further discussions of the upcoming date, it expands so Brandy will go on dates with all the boys in the gang, including Zot, all on the same day. Now Woody isn’t happy either. Zot plays the game much more idealistically than the others. They try to be wild and creative, acting in a way that’s different from their everyday lives. His character has heroic ideals just like he does in reality; his real life is already his fantasy life, he doesn’t need to pretend to be anyone different.

Brandy has a boring date with Spike, who just wants to watch schlock horror movies. She has a nice time with Woody until he thinks she’s sexually coming on to him, at which point she rejects his advances. She has a platonically nice time with Zot as he shows her how he can fly. No one else knows, but Brandy is anorexic and quite poor; her life is a lot harder than the other kids. However, after she asks Zot about whether his world is really a Utopia, like Jenny says, she says she actually prefers an imperfect, real life than something that’s too perfect. Zot agrees. Then she goes on her final date, with Ronnie, which is truly romantic date.

Terry has been questioning her sexuality for some time. Her anxiety over her lesbian fantasies is brought to a head by some recent violence at the school, where a boy who was incorrectly accused of being gay was permanently deafened by a firecracker that went off near his ear. His sister, Pam, happens to be the target of Terry’s affections. None of the others realize this.

The friends talk about how Zot managed to stop a mugger the day before. Then they discuss the case of Harry, the boy who was injured. Jenny tries to persuade Woody to write an editorial against gay-bashing but he’s too scared. She starts to lose respect for him, because he won’t stand up for what he believes in, unlike Zot. Terry leaves in a panic about her identity. Zot is the only one in the group who realizes Terry is gay, and he follows and consoles her. After she tearfully asks whether gay people are “normal” on his world, and clearly shows how traumatized she is by the punishing expectations of her world, Zot famously says, “look at you. Look what they’ve done to you.” Unlike most people, he sees that the sin is how others treat her, not who she is. Soon after, Terry gets up the courage to start a relationship with Pam.

Woody also gets the courage to write the article about gay-bashing, and Jenny is proud of him. Woody does get bullied about it, but Zot helps him out. When the bully punches Woody, Woody punches him back, and an invisible Zot knocks the guy many years away up into a tree. After that, the rest of the bully’s gang leaves him alone.

The friends all watch some movies together. Afterwards, Woody tells Jenny that he’s no longer going to try to contend for Jenny’s affections; he can’t respect himself for always being in second place that way. He’d rather be in a clear-cut friend relationship. Jenny understands and they part amicably.

Jenny and Zot discuss what Woody said before he gets ready to go to his box. Zot says he’s happy that she chose him. Then he asks if she wants to have sex.

Jenny was not ready to confront this question so directly. She and Zot have a long talk about it. Zot is quite clear that he would like to have sex, but doesn’t want her to do it unless she’s comfortable with it. Jenny is both uncomfortable having such an overt conversation about it and with the question itself. They both say they love each other, romantically, for the first time. Jenny is partly thrown for a loop because she sees Zot as so purely innocent. She asks if he’s a virgin and he says yes, other than masturbation, which she is also completely uncomfortable discussing.

She manages to put him on the defensive when she asks what he thinks is sexy about her. He doesn’t want to admit that it’s her breasts. She’s not surprised but perhaps a bit disappointed that he’s so much like other boys that way. She admits she’s thought about him sexually too. Finally, she says no. Zot says that’s fine, he’s gone 16 years without sex. To be clear, in terms of ages of consent, he turned 15 in issue 18 and is now 16 in issue 35. McCloud later wrote that Jenny is “a couple of years older by this point,” but it’s unclear whether he’s referring to Jenny’s age in comparison to the age of how own real-life teenage daughter, who he had just mentioned, or if she’s a couple years older than when she started the series (which is the case; she was 13 at the beginning and is at least 15 as of issue 26 or 29) or perhaps he means that she’s a couple years older than last noted, and thus around 17, but that seems unlikely given the flow of the rest of time in the series. Zot says that he’ll go back to his box for now, and invites her in like he does every night. This time, she says yes, and climbs in, ending the issue. McCloud wrote that his editor thinks they slept together at this point, and his wife Ivy thought they didn’t.

Zot continues to want to fight crime in Jenny’s world. He tells her he wants to go to the city. She tries unsuccessfully to stop him. He says he’ll be back by 6 a.m. At 6:50, he’s still not back. Butch walks in, drunk after a night out. She tries to get him to help her find Zot. He insists on throwing up and going to sleep, but eventually agrees, showing that he really cares for her after all, especially in the once-again absence of their parents.

Jenny and Butch use Jenny’s lightning necklace to track down Zot. They find him in a hospital, badly hurt. He was accidentally shot by the police while he was trying to convince the people in a crack house that they could lead better lives. Jenny calls Woody and the friends all get together to drive in to support her. Jenny is not only distraught about Zot, she sees this as a further sign of the awfulness of her world compared to his. Zot finally wakes up but is still in bad shape. He gets multiple surgeries. Jenny and Butch go home to sleep.

She wakes up to see Zot by her side, fully healed. It turns out that Max was finally able to find them. He got Zot and healed him at home, which also took place in a sliding time scale compared to Jenny’s world. Jenny is overjoyed. Max invites Jenny and all her friends to visit Zot’s world to relax. All of her friends have also been under a lot of stress recently so it will be good for all of them.

When they step through the portal, they’re all amazed and full of wonder. Jenny shows up last, carrying suitcases. She’s ready to move in permanently. Zot says she’s running away from her problems. He says that if he hasn’t given up on her world, she shouldn’t either. If she goes to his world forever, he’ll stay in her world. For him, it’s about not giving up on people. Finally she agrees with him to only visit. Woody thinks he was bluffing, but Zot says that he doesn’t lie.

Jenny’s mom shows up right as Jenny and Zot go through the portal. They bring her along too. They all join in on the great escape into Zot’s Utopia—at least for a while.

Hearts and Minds

Zot shows up at Jenny’s new house, explaining that Dekko has escaped his mental hospital, 12 people have been kidnapped, and the Devoes are on the loose.

Jenny, Zot, and Peabody hear that Dekko has a new fortress off the coast of Cape Cod and prepare to go investigate. Zot is also excited about a new Ice Cream Apocalypse location. However, after the police call him and ask for his help, Zot agrees to stop Dekko first.

When they arrive, the fortress fires on them, hitting Zot’s jet car. Peabody is ripped in half and Jenny and Zot fall a long way before Jenny is able to wake Zot up. He manages to use his antigrav boots to save them right before they hit the ground.

Zot is concerned about Peabody because he costs a lot of money. Jenny is surprised he isn’t more personally hurt but they have his personality backed up at home.

Jenny stays on the beach to watch with the chief of police while Zot breaks in the fortress, along with some police officers.

The police are all knocked out by a robot. Zot can’t beat the robot but escapes down the hall. Zot finds the hostages but is attacked by a swarm of robot bugs. They lose the drone camera signal.

When Zot wakes up, Dekko is monologuing about the portraits he painted of each of the hostages. They sit in a circular room. Zot hangs upside-down by one wall. Jenny is free.

Dekko explains that some cannons will shoot each of the hostages. However, Jenny sees that Zot’s gun is on the ground. She grabs it and threatens Dekko. Dekko points out that Zot shot all 10 of his shots, so the gun is empty. He demonstrates by pointing it at his head and pulling the trigger, which blows his head off.

When they go to Ice Cream Apocalypse afterwards to celebrate, the TV reporter Chet Barker interviews Zot in an over-the-top manner. Jenny is surprised that Zot isn’t excited to eat. He can’t figure out why there was still a shot left in the gun. He thinks Dekko may still be alive.

Some girls come up and fawn over him, asking for his autograph while Jenny fumes.

The De-Evolutionaries attack. They are against the idea of refrigeration. They no longer use their monkey-ray guns and now attack with grenades and sledgehammers. Multiple people over the course of the story comment about how they were much better when they used their ray guns.

Zot defeats them by shooting a hole in the floor, dropping them into the ice cream cauldrons below. One of them throws a grenade at Zot, which he catches. Then it explodes in his hand. In the aftermath of the explosion, Zot, and everyone else, is shocked to see that the remains of his arm are robotic.

They go to Max’s house and do some scans and discover that Zot’s entire body is robotic. Max theorizes that Zot’s brain and body are elsewhere and are remote-controlling the robot body. They also guess that the dead Dekko wasn’t the real one. The hospital reports that the hostages are all remote-controlled robots too.

While Max fixes Zot’s arm, Zot has a dream about Dekko. Dekko explains that he has given the gift of eternal life to Zot and the hostages. Now that they’re robots, they’ll never die, just like Dekko.

Dekko explains that he now understands that he can’t destroy reality. But he can create order. He sees humanity as the best chance to help bring order to the universe. But to do so, they need to be improved—by, for instance, having eternal robotic life.

Zot points out that they may not all want this gift, but Dekko is sure they will come to like it.

Zot wakes up and explains the dream to Max and Butch. Max has fixed Peabody and repaired his personality as well.

Jenny, Butch, Zot, Max, and Peabody fly to find Dekko.

They find him and Zot demands to have his body back. They show Dekko a video call where the hostages all want their bodies too. Dekko is shocked that they are turning down his gift.

Dekko blasts them, then runs off. He stuns Zot’s robot body. In return, Peabody blasts Dekko’s hand and remote. He sends more giant robots after Zot. Meanwhile, a horde of Devoes invades the beach. The robots and Devoes fight.

Zot tracks the hostages on infrared. When they arrive, Dekko flips a switch and says death is all that’s left. Zot assumes that means he did something to kill them, but in reality Dekko just let them go without his robotic gift of life.

The Devoes break into the room and one throws a grenade right at Dekko. The ceiling falls on him. They assume he’s dead, but he survives and secretly escapes.

Jenny and Zot look for Zot’s real body and find it.

Chet Barker again nonsensically interviews Zot about his experience. Zot explains that once again, he wasn’t the hero. Dekko let them go and the Devoes defeated him, and then Zot and his friends ran away from the Devoes because there were too many of them.

Alternate Versions

Within the world of "Dimension 10 1/2," the stick-figure alternate universe created by Matt Feazell and running in the back of the black-and-white issues of Zot!,

Zot meets with Jenny so he can visit her school. Godzilla shows up and Zot stops him. Jenny is proud. They go to Max’s; he has invented a growth serum and a shrink serum. Dekko arrives with the evil Dr. Pweent. They rust Peabody solid. Cynicalman comes in as a guest star. He spills some growth serum on himself. He squishes Dekko. When Godzilla shows up again, he uses the shrink serum on him and then on Dr. Pweent, who they put in a jar.

Jenny and Zot are watching videos on TV when 9-Jack-9 appears on the screen and attacks. They try to fend him off but eventually decide to escape to Jenny’s world. They open the portal but Antisocialman appears in it. He’s excited to watch old tv in Zot’s 1965 timeline. He manages to scare off Jack by using a 220 volt converter, imprisoning him in a Three Stooges video.

The Devoes attack Jenny, Zot, Butch, and Peabody and try converting people to monkeys. Zot calls Cynicalman and asks for help. The Devoes are unable to devolve Cynicalman because, as a stick figure, he is already as primitive as possible. The heroes manage to reverse all the negative effects.

Antisocialman is still around. They get tired of him and kick him out. He discovers that Zot’s world is a Utopia and thus the opposite of what he likes as an antisocial person. He starts annoying people to create fun for himself. Jenny and Zot show up to send him home, but he sprays them with Antisocial Serum. They become antisocial.

Jenny and Zot annoy each other with their antisocialness. Jenny goes home in frustration. There, she turns back to normal. Zot shows up to meet Antisocialman and his friends expect them to fight, but now he is friends with Antisocialman and knocks his old friends’ heads together. Jenny calls Cynicalman for help but he pretends the number has been disconnected. However, two members of his fan club, Spud 'n' Ernie, show up in a van.

Antisocialman continues to spread his dissent and annoyance around Zot’s world. Zot helps by forcing people to work and generally trolling them. Jenny and Butch get in Spud n Ernie’s van and use Dr. Pweent’s technology to go to Raleigh, where Cynicalman lives. He agrees to help. They go to Zot’s universe. Butch turns into a monkey again and Jenny reverts to being antisocial. They run into Zot’s friends, Digger, Josh, and Vic, then go to Max’s, but he’s not there. They all work on ways to stop Antisocialman. Antisocialman continues ramping up his annoyances. When the military tries to stop him, he calls in Zot to help. He seems unstoppable.

Josh makes an antidote and uses it on Jenny, who turns back to normal. They find Zot and turn him normal as well, using pies in the face, which are spiked with the antidote. They create a new plan: they all dance, and Antisocialman shows up to stop it. It looks like they can get him, but then all of Zot’s old villains show up. Antisocialman tricks Zot and takes his gun, but it’s out of batteries. Then he tricks him again and gets boogers on Zot’s hands. The friends get together and defeat the other villains in various ways. After some more back and forth, Zot pushes Antisocialman and the bottled-up Pweent through the dimensional portal, back to Jenny’s Earth where he is stuck at a televangelist convention.

Jenny and Zot go flying with antigravity boots. Bellows shows up and knocks them around. Zot and Jenny fly after him in a biplane and Zot catches him by leaping from the plane. Jenny catches up, using her antigrav boots and holding the plane.

Jenny shows Zot how to ride a bike, but he crashes into Woody and Terry and they meet for the first time (in this dimension). Woody gives Jenny flowers, which she is embarrassed about. He mentions a robot show at the museum and they all go.

At the museum, they see a demonstration of a robot called Worker Unit. It goes out of control. It grabs its own remote control, breaks out of the museum, and starts doing people’s jobs for them. Jenny wakes up Zot who had been knocked out. Employers are unhappy because they like to see their employees being forced to work.

However, the professor who created the robot makes a plan. He asks everyone to stop working. That way the robot won’t know to do their work. Meanwhile Jenny and the others do work at the museum, hoping to attract Worker Unit’s attention.

Worker Unit does show up, and they try to catch him. Zot has a hard time beating him so Jenny thinks that they should have a distraction. Terry gives him a bunch of sticks to throw. Zot traps him. Then all the people in power want to use Worker Unit for their own needs. Zot releases him, and he flies into space to charge his solar batteries.

Jenny and Zot plan to go to art class. However, Max’s machine sends them to a blank universe. Jenny uses her art supplies to draw on the walls of the blank space. Dekko shows up and doesn’t like it. He erases all her art because he only likes perfection. He tries to delete them too but Zot draws a door and they escape.

Zot and Jenny go for a walk and see a cat in a tree. It falls out and dies. They try to find the owner. They can’t find them and the weather gets bad. They can’t decide what to do with the cat’s body. Woody shows up and wants to ride bikes. Zot says he’ll bury the cat and Jenny leaves with Woody. Zot gets sick from the cat and starts to die, wondering why Jenny left. Then he wakes up—it was a dream.

One of Max’s experiments leads to Zot and Cynicalman switching minds and bodies. Cynicalman’s mom makes Zot-in-Cynicalman’s body clean his room. Cynicalman-in-Zot’s body accidentally runs into Peabody. Then everyone thinks he has amnesia instead of switching bodies. A doctor recommends he do things Zot normally likes to do so he goes to an amusement park. Zot does errands for Cynicalman’s mom. They both try saving a cat from a tree with different reactions from the people that know them. Max finally switches them back to their own bodies.

Zot, Jenny, and Peabody fly around the countryside in a hovercar. They crash and a farmer tows their car in to get fixed, but it will take a couple days. They stay with the farmer. They have a good time but when they find out he’s going to be foreclosed on, and that the bank is trying to sabotage the farm to speed up the process, they help. They believe the bank stole the farmer’s best cow. They try to get in using Zot’s direct approach but when that works, Jenny makes a plan to act as lightbulb inspectors and they get in. They find the cow and sneak it out in a copy machine. They make it to the cow content just in time for it to win.

Dr. Pweent makes a computer virus to make people stupid, using Stupidboy as an example. Butch becomes stupid from the virus. Jenny and Zot try to turn him back to normal. However, everyone they run into is stupid. They ask Cynicalman for help and he gets Professor Quidley. He discovers that it is Dr. Pweent’s virus. Unfortunately Jenny, Zot, and the others get infected by looking at their digital watches. Dr. Pweent also accidentally infects himself. Professor Quidley makes a cure that helps Stupidboy and then everyone else. But then Quidley reveals that his cure is just water, and everyone is just the same, but now they think they’re not stupid, and that’s enough.

Zot’s grades drop and he isn’t allowed to stop crime while he improves them. However, everyone keeps calling him up about problems that need to be solved. He wants to go help but Peabody won’t let him. He finally finishes his homework and helps solve all the problems. Then he goes on a date with Jenny, blaming his homework for why he’s late.

One of Max’s fellow scientist friends, Dick Allen, loves dinosaurs. He makes a flu vaccine to stop them all from going extinct. He goes back in time and saves them. That results in everyone in Zot’s time turning into a dinosaur. Zot and Jenny are still human because they were in her universe when it happened. They go back in time to stop Allen. The ride a dinosaur and then find Allen and explain what happened. Then they run into a tour group of people from the future, and then people who are strip mining the planet and others who are storing their radioactive waste there. It turns out that it was this radioactive waste that killed the dinosaurs. They return home and everyone has reverted to human. Dr. Allen, however, brought back a dinosaur as a pet.

Zot and Max visit Dekko in the mental hospital. A penguin from the South Pole shows up and says Dekko is far behind in his rent on his Antarctic fortress. Max wants to figure out how to help Dekko make money. They try to get him a variety of jobs but Dekko ruins them all. Nothing works out. Dekko complains that all he wants to do is paint. The mail comes, and Dekko gets a check for $3 million for one of his paintings. It turns out that he has an agent who sells one of his paintings every week for similar amounts. Max and Zot are happy now that they know he’s taken care of.

Max tells Zot and Jenny that their jetcar has an artificial intelligence voice box hookup in it. They decide to get the voice box from the toaster to see what the car says. It drives Jenny and Zot around but is kind of wild and has an attitude. They go to a drive in the country before it crashes. They manage to drive it back to town. It drives through a car wash with the top down and they get the full treatment in person. Next it gets in a road race with a gang. Finally they get home and remove the voice box, putting it back in the toaster. Jenny still says she had a great time.

Jenny and Zot visit Max—in this dimension they are not stuck on Jenny’s Earth. Max gets a letter informing him about his high school reunion. He had a terrible time in high school and doesn’t want to go. Jenny and Zot persuade him that he should stand up to his fears and go. He agrees. Jenny and Zot are surprised that the other alums aren’t impressed with Max’s accomplishments post-high school. 9-Jack-9 shows up. He also went to this school and was a dorky friend of Max’s. Jack goes around harassing everyone that bullied him. Zot and Jenny decide that he’s going too far. They tease him about what’s in his yearbook. Jack is going to defeat them but Max brings Jack’s parents to the reunion and they embarrass him into leaving. Back at home, Jenny and Terry bemoan their own current high school experience.

Zot’s friends worry that he hangs out too much with Jenny instead of them. They decide to fix her up with Cynicalman to distract her. Jenny is having a date with Woody. Woody is trying to impress her with his sensitivity but Zot shows up and impresses her with his heroism. As Jenny tries to decide between them, Cynicalman shows up. He seems to have such a bad life, Jenny goes out with him to try to help him. Woody is despondent but Zot doesn’t care. Jenny goes out with Cynicalman so long that she becomes cynical. She just watches reruns of TV now. Woody and Zot try to brighten her back up but nothing works. Zot gets his friends to help. Now that he’s around all the time, he always wins at everything, so they want him back with Jenny now. They create a giant set-up so it seems like life is a big Truman Show. Cynicalman believes his life has been a fake and smiles at the thought. Once Jenny sees him smile, she believes that she helped him by dating him, and she returns to normal. They all go out for hot dogs.

All of Woody’s friends get together to play their role-playing game. Zot plays as himself. The others play other weird characters. Woody despairs to see Jenny and Zot holding hands. When Brandy agrees to go on a date with all the boys, like in the main reality, Jenny says she can hook her up with Cynicalman. However, the boys really set her up with Stupidboy, who pretends to be an alternate-reality Zot. When Zot and Jenny go to a movie, they see a crime taking place. Zot tries to help but the other guys switched his gun out for a squirt gun and they are both captured, along with many of their other friends. Stupidboy eventually saves them. Jenny kisses Stupidboy as a reward but stays with Zot.

Jenny, Zot, and Woody go sailing. As usual in this reality, Jenny is much more infatuated with Zot than Woody. They end up in Beanworld. They meet several of the local Beans, like Professor Garbanzo, Beanish, and Mr. Spook, and try to help with a problem: Reality Rot. They help them catch some beans—Zot in particular works with Mr. Spook on this—and bring some of them back to Zot’s world. They show them around to various parts of their lives. Jenny shows the Professor her convenience store job and all the junk food there. Eventually the Beans figure out their problem and leave, but Jenny and Woody are left with existential questions. Zot, however, is at peace.

Several of Zot’s villains conspire to work together. Jenny and Zot visit a TV station. The manager explains how they do cheesy things like colorizing old movies or use computers to digitally replace old stars with new ones. The villains show up and stick Jenny and Zot in a movie of Naked Lunch. Zot is William Burroughs, reciting stoned dialog. At home, Butch is watching TV and sees Jenny in a show. Jenny and Zot manage to get out and catch Pweent. However, they have to help fix all the old movies, one by one.

Jenny, Zot, and all their friends go to a movie about Zot. River Phoenix plays Zot. Zot doesn’t get any money because he didn’t trademark his name or costume, but the producers will donate some money to charity. They get some snacks. Chaos ensues as Dekko and his family show up, along with the other villains. The actor playing Zot, River Phoenix, turns into Dark River Phoenix. Finally all of them are defeated. Zot decides to no longer be in commercial media like movies or comics.

Powers and Abilities

Zot is a typical human, although he occasionally exhibits superhuman strength and durability—for instance the capacity to be hit multiple times by super-strong robots and to smash them in turn. As the series progresses, especially in the Earth Stories, he seems to have normal human stats and is often hurt by normal humans.

However, Max and his friends reference the fact that Zot seems to be able to always win as long as he is confident in himself. He also seems to be able to make others feel confident in his ability to win. Whether this is actually a power, or just a natural side effect of his charisma, is ambiguous.

Gear

Zot has a ten-shot blaster pistol capable of blowing up robots or holes in walls. Zot is a fairly good shot, capable of shooting multiple robots in quick succession, disarming people, and shooting quickly-flying targets.

Zot’s gauntlets have multiple devices built into them, including:

• Null gravity effect: This allows him to negate someone’s gravity while he is in contact with them, making them fly up into the air. He can also just lessen the effects of gravity to make things lighter.
• Screen for watching TV, doing video calls, or viewing things through Infrared.
• Controls for teleportation portals, allowing for both interplanetary and interdimensional travel.

Spectro-filter goggles: These can see forms of invisible energy.

Invisibility gadget: This seems to be a small gadget that he carries with him, and not something that is part of his gauntlets. It allows him to stay invisible for long periods of time. It can also turn others invisible as long as he’s touching them.

Spatial distortion box: This contains a small room that feels full-size for those inside it. It contains a spy camera to see outside, a computer that can create food for him, and other devices.

Flying boots: He starts off with mechanical Jet boots and then eventually switches to Antigravity boots. He can fly with a high degree of agility with these boots and is able to keep up with the jet cars of his world. He can hover as well as fly.