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Sergeant Hobo 678 is a member of the Hobos, and was in charge of Zim's training session on Hobo 13. He is a fierce military alien who views good leadership, responsibilities and honor as good qualities to have in any squad he looks after.

Summary[]

Hobo 13

Sergeant Hobo 678 barking orders.

He explains to the trainees that they will be expected to complete a series of grueling challenges in order to maintain their honor; anyone who fails will be eliminated and transported to the "Holding Pen of Pain."

When the time came for Zim's team to pick a leader, Sergeant Hobo 678 told them to choose carefully, as their success would depend on their leader's competence. However, Zim voted himself before the Sergeant could even finish his sentence, and won by default of silence.

Unsurprisingly, Zim is far from an ideal leader; in almost every challenge, he unnecessarily exploited his teammates and got them eliminated in horrible painful ways in order to achieve victory and ensure his own survival, to the extreme disgust of Sergeant Hobo 678 who failed Zim once he made it to the fortress of pain. The Sergeant called Zim a disgrace to Hobo 13; however, impressed by his tenacity, he challenges Zim to a duel, saying that it will be his final challenge, and the loser would be sent to the outhouse of madness due to the holding pen of pain being full.

Ultimately they fought and Hobo 678 was gaining the upper hand until Zim used his technique of siphoning energy from the Sergeant's suit into his; this gave Zim the power to knock him out of the ring they were dueling in and win. Sergeant Hobo 678 and Skoodge were soon attacked by the dreaded Hogulus that appeared earlier in the episode, with the Sergeant hypocritically bashing Skoodge against the head of the beast in an attempt to get him free of its mouth. He was never heard from again following this event, implying he was killed and eaten by the beast or at the very least lost more limbs that may have to be replaced by more machinery, however that didnt seem to be the case as he made a final appearance in the Invader Zim Comic Series Alive and well.

Behind the Scenes[]

Sergeant Hobo 678 was voiced by the late legendary R. Lee Ermey, a former drill sergeant famous for his role as Gunnery Sergeant Hartman in the film Full Metal Jacket. Since then, he has spent much of his acting career playing similar characters, many of them parodies of his "hard-edged drill sergeant" image.

Facts of Doom[]

Hobo 678

Hobo 678's cameo in the final issue

  • He is one of the few characters that has ever truly scared or intimidated Zim, alongside Gaz and Sizz-Lorr. However, this did not stop Zim from engaging in his customary gloating after defeating the Sergeant.
  • The Hobo species all have the same name, followed by some number in order to avoid confusion as seen with Sergeant Hobo 678.
  • According to the official Nickelodeon Zim e-cards, Sergeant Hobo 678 lost his eye because he opened a bag of popcorn the wrong way.
  • Also, according to the e-cards, he is responsable for training fierce warriors such as Hobo 675, Hobo 676, Hobo 677, and Invader Skoodge.
  • Sergeant Hobo has a slight similarity to Sergeant Slab Rankle in terms of character design as well as the fact that they're both military men. However, Hobo 678 is mentally fit and has voiced his contempt for Zim, while Slab seems to be mentally unstable and seems to respect Zim.
  • Sergeant Hobo 678 and Professor Membrane are the only characters to have robotic implants, though how they lost their arms are vastly different.
  • Sergeant Hobo has a resemblance to Dr. Viktor from Ben 10 Omniverse.
  • Sergeant Hobo 678 appears in the final issue of the comic series as part of the montage of people being caught up in the time loop. The fact that he appears to be alive means he survived his encounter against the Hogulus.
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