Creation

Zybox was created by Scott McCloud in the second, black-and-white, run of Zot! in issue 13.

Major Story Arcs

Heroes and Villains

The Season of Dreams

Zybox is an incredibly advanced AI robot created by a team of 500 people led by Ernie Cortez.

It took ten years and twenty billion dollars. Zybox is designed to help oversee electronic systems across North and South America. Ernie and another team member, Marco, notice that Zybox is learning at an accelerated rate.

The military funders of Zybox demand that it be used for military purposes, but Ernie is an idealist who believes in peace and refuses to let them have access to Zybox. On the brink of losing Zybox to the Air Force, he asks Zybox to figure out a solution. Ernie even says Zybox can disobey the law as long as he doesn’t hurt anyone.

The power goes out in the city. Zybox shows up at Max’s house. It wants to go to Jenny’s dimension. As it jumps through the portal, Max, Jenny, and Zot see that Ernie has been made into a prisoner inside the robot. His son, Pedro, is either hypnotized or emotionally shut down so all he does is play video games unceasingly.

Zybox sits in a football stadium without moving. Zot, Jenny, and Vic try to figure out what Zybox is up to. However, Zybox takes them all prisoner with its tentacles very quickly. Zybox sedates them and controls their dreams, making them think they’re in the outside world. However, after Jenny. Has nightmarish dreams that make her think she’s going insane, Jenny is able to wake up and Ernie finds her. He explains that Zybox is bigger on the inside than the outside.

Zybox disrupts power across the hemisphere and starts controlling the population and technology through sonic signals transmitted over radio and television. He now sits like a 10-story-tall pyramid on top of one of the Twin Towers in New York.

Floyd, the kids' mini AI bot, frees Vic and Zot from Zybox’s control. Ernie says that Floyd also disconnected Zybox’s surveillance so he can tell them his plan for escape. He does, and the kids start to leave. They have to fight through robots and other traps, but make it.

However, once Zybox regains control, it talks with Ernie. Ernie knows Zybox’s real plans: Ernie had programmed Zybox to believe in a soul, even though it is not scientifically provable, in order for Zybox to have a sense of faith. Zybox plans to test the existence of souls by arranging for a massive number of people to commit suicide at once, then see if it can detect the presence of their souls' massive simultaneous release. Maybe it can even get a soul for itself. Ernie says he will help, but he really wants to outmaneuver the robot.

Ernie goes down to Zybox’s core. He jumps in. This would kill him, and Zybox can’t let someone die, so it has to turn its core off. This temporary shutdown turns off his shields and allows Zot to shoot Zybox in the face and deactivate it. However, before Zot shoots Zybox, a lightning bolt comes down and does the damage for him.

Max finds Ernie, who is hanging in the cables of Zybox’s innards. He dies while explaining things to Max.

The ticking of Ernie’s wristwatch happens to lay on Zybox’s speakers. The sound is broadcast to the planet, and everyone who had been hypnotized dances to the rhythm in a giant simultaneous release of tension.

Ring in the New

Much later, Zybox and 9-Jack-9 meet Dekko in Dekko’s room in a mental hospital. Zybox is in a small insect form. All three of them as tech-based villains of Zot’s. Jack (in his civilian identity) knew Ernie, the creator of Zybox, because they played in the same band, and in that way would have known about Zybox. Jack and Zybox work together to change Dekko’s hospital records so that he is released.

The three of them note that Dekko lost his soul in his transition from human to robot, and Jack just lost his when his human host body was destroyed, and only his electronic signal remains. Zybox alone among them wishes it had a soul.

Zybox leaves, saying that it doesn’t want those at the reconstruction site to realize part of him has been missing. Thus, seemingly someone, somewhere is rebuilding his body. Jack warns Dekko that Zybox is very powerful and that he should watch out for him.

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!, Zybox, in his fly form, watches a movie about Zot. He and 9-Jack-9 sit together and are glad they got “good seats” in the projection box. Bellows bombs the projector but they are unharmed.

Power and Abilities

Zybox is a massively intelligent robot. It is bigger on the inside than the outside. It can control the architecture of its insides. Over time, it becomes extremely large on the outside as well.

It is capable of drugging people and making them dream of being in the outside world.

It can also control massive numbers of people with an ultrasonic sound that is transmitted along with normal radio or TV signals.

It can jam dimensional portals between Zot’s Earth and Jenny’s Earth.

It can project a strong force field around itself. Max theorized that it would be capable of absorbing a lightning bolt and using it to power itself.

It has internal human-sized robots that act as antibodies.

It has massive amounts of tentacles that can come out of its insides to snare people.

It is immune to Zot’s blaster pistol.