Plab

Plab
Name	Plab
Species	Plim
First Appearance	Issue 42
Voice Actor(s)	None

Plab is an alien who first appears in Issue 42 of the Invader Zim comic series.

Summary

A member of the Plim species, Plab has like the rest of his people been stranded on their homeworld ever since a field was put up around the planet that shorts out the electronics of any ship that tries to pass through it.

However, like the rest of the Plim, Plab believes in a prophecy that a hero will fall from the sky and remove the field, leading them to the stars.

When Zim and Dib crash on Plim during a chase, Plab is a member of the hive where Dib lands, and therefore assume that he's the hero.

However, since the prophecy only mentioned one hero, the Plim can't decide whether Dib or Zim is it, so they decide to give the two a week each to prove which of them it is. As Dib was unconscious for two days after the crash, Zim already has a massive lead in the polls, despite Plab trying to help by broadcasting him sleeping and providing narration for the video.

Plab continues to try and help Dib, but is constantly distracted by the Feed, the Plim's television-like entertainment system. As he explains to Dib, Plim society is entirely automated, so they have nothing to do but watch the Feed; even the prophecy is an algorithm-created program broadcast by the Feed, which is the only reason the Plim all believe in it.

Between this revelation and the fact that Zim is easily winning over all the Plim (even Plab) with little effort, Dib decides to just give up and find a way to fix his ship and leave. However, he changes his mind when Plab reveals the existence of a vault containing ancient weapons that Zim would have access to if he's selected as the prophesied hero. As Dib becomes increasingly desperate to win, Plab continues to help, despite not wanting to disagree with the Plim majority.

First, he lets Dib access his Feed brain implant, allowing Dib to determine what the Plim like the most and try to win them over with that. When this fails due to Dib being unwilling to lie about knowing how to take down the planetary field, Plab takes him to the planet's archives, which contain all the records from the planet's automated systems. There, Dib discovers that it was the Plim's ancestors who created the field, and left behind the controls for it, which Dib uses to shut down the field, instantly being declared the hero as a result.

However, almost immediately it's revealed that the field was created to hide from the Irken Empire, who arrive and quickly conquer the planet. As Dib prepares to leave the planet, he asks Plab to help him steal the weapons from the vault before the Irkens gets them, only for a confused Plab to clarify the earlier misconception - the vault doesn't contain weapons, but archived Feed programs.