Mortos der Soulstealer is a demon warlock from the "spooky realm" who is released every thousand years when Taoola and Charcunga are aligned. He is obligated to grant one human a wish every thousand years before returning to his dimension, and was befriended by Dib for this reason. However, Mortos claimed that in order to use his catastrophic powers, he must recharge (by ridiculous means).
These include hugging puppies, consuming huge quantities of food from MacMeaties (which would have been how recharging one's energies is usually done), and clothes shopping.
Although Dib intended to use Mortos to steal Zim's soul and finally finish him, the plan backfired when a passerby wished for ice cream. Mortos granted his wish, and departed to the spooky realm. The ice cream was soon discarded upon the revelation that it contained raisins.
Before he became evil, he used to have a friend who sang to him, but broke his heart. Dib also described Mortos as being a mooch, since he had to pay for all of Mortos' "recharging" of his life force (the dinner at MacMeaties).
He seems to enjoy the feel of tombstones on his face, and wears boxer shorts with hearts on them. He also hates the "Ancient Pamphlet" that binds him to wish-granting, as he wants to grant people many wishes. His only friends are the dark energy of the universe and a girl named Darlene, though he once had a friend who sang to him often, but broke his heart.
Similar to Jambi from Pee-wee's Playhouse, Mortos grants people only one wish. As mentioned, Mortos wants to break the hold that the Ancient Pamphlet has over him and be able to grant more wishes.
His voice was based on "[the crew's] in-office Mortiis impersonations".[1]
Since he is obligated to grant one mortal a wish, if Zim had been aware of the power the soul stealer had, he would have wished for world domination, although it's unknown if Mortos would have granted him the wish seeing as he isn't human but still a mortal.
While not completely evil or antagonistic and more selfish than anything else, Mortos possessed dark powers, which he could and would use for evil purposes. He himself stated that he "likes evil", suggesting he wouldn't feel remorse if he granted a wish that was meant to cause mass destruction or suffering to people.
Mortos is one of the two supernatural beings that is aware that Zim is an alien, the other being the Shadowhog.
Mortos made a cameo appearance in TruthShrieker (Issue 0) on the "classifieds" section. He's apparently looking for a date.
Mortos' cameo in the final issue
According to Eric Trueheart's book, Mortos was originally going to turn out to not be a supernatural entity, but just a failed musician pretending to be one as a new gimmick. Dib would have only realized this at the end of the episode when Mortos failed to take Zim's soul, and would have beaten Mortos up as revenge for conning him.
The book further elaborates that the idea for the character was sparked by a Mortiis album and conversations about a character with the appearance of a supernatural entity that mostly just sponged off of others.
Unlike most one time characters like Keef, Tak or Mr. Dwicky, Mortos didn’t make a large impact on the IZ fandom at all and in fact despite his supernatural powers, he’s viewed as an uninteresting character that only existed as a sloppy plot device for Dib to finally defeat Zim. However, he got a lot of GIFs on Tenor in 2025.
This makes sense as his debut was “throwaway episode” meant for the show’s staff to eventually save money for bigger episodes like “The Trial”.
His soul-stealing powers make him similar to Ermac and Shang Tsung from the Mortal Kombat fighting game franchise.
Mortos appears in the final issue of the comic series as part of the montage of people being caught up in the time loop.
