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20px-Cquote1.png Forward cannons now at full power!
— Almighty Tallest Red giving the order to destroy Earth and Zim for good, Enter the Florpus
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Almighty Tallest Red
Homeworld Irk
Rank Almighty Tallest
Gender Male
Eye Color Crimson Red
Equipment The Massive
Affiliation(s) Irken Empire
Notable facts Co-leader of the Irken Empire, before his death
First appearance The Nightmare Begins
Voice Actor(s) Wally Wingert (English)
Paco Mauri (Spanish)
Jan Spitzer (German)

Almighty Tallest Red is one of the three main antagonists (alongside Almighty Tallest Purple and Dib Membrane) of the 2001-2006 television series Invader Zim and one of the two overarching antagonists in the 2019 Netflix film Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus.

Almighty Tallest Red is the co-ruler of the mighty Irken Empire. As their title suggests, Red and Purple oversee and dominate their species as they spread their reign across the universe. Although they are nearly identical in appearance, their personalities are starkly different: When there is a crisis, Tallest Red is the most likely of the two to solve it. While Purple is in charge of the Irken Empire's social aspects of leadership, Red is in charge of military actions and important decisions in such. In terms of authority, however, both Red and Purple are little more than figureheads.

The Control Brains hold all the real power; even the Tallest must accept their rulings.

Appearance[]

Red overview

Red's design from the middle of the first season and onwards.

Along with Purple, Red's design and body structure is much different from that of a normal Irken: He has a slender build.

His arms end in unusually bulgy gauntlets, he has only two thin fingers (instead of the normal three for an Irken), and an unusually thin waist and neck.

His feet may also be different from that of an average Irken, but it is hard to tell since he is always levitating. This appears to be the case for all of the Tallest, as concept art of the cancelled characters Almighty Tallest Miyuki and Almighty Tallest Spork showed them as having the same design.

Almighty Tallest Red Waves to You

Almighty Tallest Red in The Nightmare Begins

Both Tallest were re-designed in the middle of the first season; Jhonen Vasquez decided for unknown reasons to make their torsos disproportionately thinner, as well as other major updates to their suits and overall physical appearance.

Before the middle of season one, Red sported a pink, purple, and white outfit instead of dark red, black, and gray-white, as well as pink eyes. The torso is also remarkably thicker. His PAK is also light gray with pink spots prior to the change, after which it is light gray with dark gray spots.

Personality[]

Shock from discovery

Red is seen snacking very frequently.

Red is implied to be the more serious and capable half of the Tallest, though he is still shown to be inept and unfocused. In "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars", he tried to take control of the problem, whereas Purple opted to panic.

He is also more independent than his co-Tallest, as he is seen more often than not making crucial decisions for the Irken Empire, like choosing to change Invader Larb's mission from Blorch to Vort, deciding to turn the Slaughtering Rat People's homeworld into a Parking Structure Planet, deciding to send Invader Tenn the Megadoomer X-3 Combat Stealth Mech, and sent Zim far away to Earth, among other things.

Red has a tendency to punch or throw objects at Purple, seemingly without much forethought and simply for his own enjoyment. However, as shown in "The Nightmare Begins", there may be some functional purpose to this. He seems to enjoy playing the showman, dominating in speeches and asserting his role when Purple stops to take a pause. Red does occasionally physically assault his co-Tallest; however despite this, he and Purple do get along in a brotherly manner and enjoy many of the same things, such as eating snacks, tormenting others shorter individuals (typically other Irkens), watching puppet shows, and ruling the Irken Empire.

157

Red casual after Purple is zapped in the eye by a laser.

While he enjoys the spotlight, he is not the most adept with wordcraft; in "The Nightmare Begins", he struggled to remember the word for the 'Armada' (opting to call it a "Big... Space Ship... Gang.") Furthermore, in "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars", while seemingly aware of the general goings-on of the Massive, he ineloquently ordered for "some kind of... laser thingy..." to be fired.

This implies that Red may be absent minded at times or ironically maybe even lacks the vocabulary that the leader of the Irken race should have in order to lead his people, something that surprisingly Purple has no problem with as he is seen correcting Red in such rare cases of ineloquence.

Red is also generally more tolerant of Zim's shenanigans than Purple is, this can be as a result of the fact that he also has to deal with Purple who is also quite immature and therefore has a lot of experience dealing with people who are annoying.

However, as alternately portrayed in Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus, Red is shown to have forgotten about Zim since he didn't contact the Tallest for quite some time, and when he did call them, Red showed great frustration at seeing him alive. Even when Zim tried to remember Phase 2 of his latest plan, Red shouted that they didn't care, showing that he still disregards Zim's efforts to please his leaders, having such a negative opinion of him that he thinks any plan Zim provides is doomed to fail.

Strangely, despite normally being portrayed as the smarter and more mature of the two Tallest, in the movie Red shares Purple's childish obsession with keeping the Armada on a straight line, and lack of concern over the fact that they're flying towards a Florpus Hole. Like his partner, he's more focused on blowing up Earth to finally get rid of Zim, and is so relieved when the planet is teleported away again that he doesn't care about the Armada flying into the Hole—not caring that he would be sacrificing the lives of his own people in the process.

Role in Invader Zim[]

Main article: Almighty Tallest
19

Red enjoying his status.

Like Purple, Red has supposedly ultimate power. He and Purple are the ones who assigned the Invaders to their respective planets, sent Zim to his exile on Earth, and created GIR.

They oversee the progress of the Invaders on their mission planets, as well as the overall Irken grip in the universe. However, they are far less productive than would be expected, typically preferring to lounge around eating snacks and soaking up the luxury of their positions.

Purple and Red laughing hysterically

Red and Purple laughing uncontrollably after hearing Zim's statements.

The cancelled episode "The Trial" would have revealed that Red and Purple have known Zim since childhood, and that they were in the same class in the Irken military academy on Devastis, subsequently becoming Irken Elites at the same time.

Despite Red's hatred for Zim, Tallest Red is more patient with him than Tallest Purple is, since in "Walk for Your Lives", despite saying he hates the Irken Defective and questions if they should inspect him, he still allowed Zim to try and amaze them with his "time stasis field." He was even patient enough to listen to Zim cry "MY TALLEST!" (the proper, respectful way to address the Tallest) for three hours straight waiting for them to respond, as seen in "Backseat Drivers from Beyond the Stars".

Despite his general incompetence, both Purple and Red usually underestimate Zim's destructive abilities; even though Zim is far away from Operation Impending Doom II, he still finds ways to ruin it. Sometimes other aliens (who are slaves to the Irkens) sabotage their operations, such as The Resisty.

Their hatred for Zim has led to their own disasters (even causing the Irken Empire to be endangered when Invader Tenn got malfunctioning SIR units instead of Zim, which caused Tenn to fail her mission on planet Meekrob. In "Hobo 13", he was also shown to be a (slightly) better liar than Purple, managing to cover up Purple's multiple slips of the tongue without arousing Zim's suspicion.

In Enter the Florpus, Red and Purple are shown to have completely forgotten about Zim due to how long it's been since he last contacted them. When he finally does so, Red is the one of the pair shown to be more openly angry, before shifting to apathy and boredom.

Forward Canons at full power

The Tallest ready to destroy the Earth just to get rid of Zim once and for all.

Later, when Zim teleports Earth into the Armada's path to force the Tallest to visit him, Red is as equally upset as Purple is at the possibility; ignoring the Comms Officer's suggestion that they just change course to go around Earth (as he doesn't want to break their straight line), Red decides instead to blow up the planet in order to finally get rid of Zim. When Earth teleports away at the last minute, Red is so relieved that he doesn't care about the Florpus Hole they're flying into, and as a result is turned into a puppet and left in a dimension of fire.

Facts of Doom[]

  • Starting with the episode "Germs", both Red and Purple received a major redesign after their first appearance; along with the more unusual body structure, Red's colour scheme was changed from pink and red to a darker red and black.
  • The voice of Almighty Tallest Red was done by Wally Wingert, who also did the voice of the Cluster Ambassador (who is also red-colored) in one episode of My Life as a Teenage Robot, another Nickelodeon series that was canceled. Wally also voices Renji Abarai in Bleach (who has red hair).
    • Wally was also the announcer on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. He is well-known for voicing the Riddler in all the Batman Arkham games.
    • He was also the voice of Carl Wheezer in the Jimmy Neutron 2002 PS2 game.
  • Red was the one to hastily make GIR in "The Nightmare Begins".
  • An Irken who looked similar to Red appeared in Jhonen Vasquez's comic, Squee.
  • Later in the series, the crew had Red be more of a commander, thus making him seem more intelligent than his counterpart.
  • Red is never referred to by name in the actual show, (except in the end credits) he and Purple being collectively referred to as The Tallest by everybody else, despite the previous Tallests being referred to by name. As a result, both the fans and the Invader Zim production crew have taken to calling Red and Purple by these names. However, Purple's name was finally confirmed as such on the show in the cancelled episode "The Trial", as well as in the beginning of Issue 4 of the comic series, implying that likewise, his partner's name is indeed Red.
  • In "Backseat Drivers From Beyond the Stars", before he finds out where the signal controlling the Massive comes from, it shows a side shot and also he appears to be standing instead of the usual levitating.
    TallestInFlorpusHell

    The Tallest trapped in the Florpus moments before they presumably die.

  • Jhonen Vasquez has confirmed that both Red and Purple are deceased, having died in the Florpus Hole in the dimension of fire, and presumably met their end shortly after Zim's transmission with them disconnected.
  • Ironically, despite Zim's total obedience of them, Red and Purple are arguably bigger antagonists to Zim than Dib is.
  • According to Steve Ressel, if the Tallest were to tell Zim the truth about his mission, he wouldn't believe them since he is too arrogant.

Gallery[]

See also[]

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