So many enemies held in my grasp! Why? Because I am Zim! And I can afford to rent prison space. — Zim

Invader Zim Issue
Issue 34
Chronology
Previous:	Issue 33
Next:	Issue 35
Information
Publisher:	Oni Press
Publication date:	September 5, 2018
Creative
Story by:	Eric Trueheart
Art by:	Maddie C Fred C Stresing
Color by:	Warren Wucinich Fred C Stresing

Official Summary

Who’s in prison? ZIM’s in prison! What did he do to get there? No one knows! Not even him! But Moo-Ping 10 is the most notorious Space Prison in the whole of the Irken Empire, and ZIM better get out soon, or he could end up rotting in a space cell for the rest of the comic series, and that would be very, very bad for sales.^[1]

Release

Issue 34 was released on September 5, 2018.

Variations

Issue #34 has a total of 2 cover variations. 

1. Warren Wucinich with Fred Stresing standard retail cover
2. Miracle Mosley variant cover

Characters in Issue #34 (In Order of Appearance)

Synopsis

Zim visits Moo-Ping 10, a space prison operated by the Gellaxis, a gelatin race obsessed with right angles.

He pays the Gellaxis to imprison people for him (including Vortian Prisoner Number 777, Madness the Chihuahua, and a large alien he's mistaken for Sizz-Lorr), and regularly comes to gloat over them. Once he's done with this, he prepares to leave, only to be stopped by the warden as it turns out his bill for the Gellaxis' services has not been paid, a result of him putting GIR in charge of doing so.

Until such time as Zim can pay his bill, the Gellaxis imprison him, while offering to free his own prisoners now that he's no longer paying for their imprisonment. However, eager for revenge on Zim, they stay, while Zim is carted away to a cell. Zim tries to contact GIR and have him set up payment, but GIR is too busy laying robotic eggs and raising the robot birds which hatch from them.

While waiting in vain for GIR to pay, Zim attempts to dominate the prison, only to find himself repeatedly beaten up by the vengeful prisoners.

They keep reducing him to a waded mass, which upsets the angle-obsessed Gellaxis guards. Finally fed up with this, the warden assigns a massive guard to keep an eye on Zim at all times.

Realizing that GIR is never going to get him out, Zim begins to despair, until he finds a message under his bunk. Written by an anonymous "friend", it offers to help him escape from the prison. Zim initially ignores the offer, but reconsiders upon seeing his new guard.

"To be continued..."

Facts of Doom 

• This is the fourth multi-part story in the comic series, the previous ones being issues 1 and 2, issues 22 through 25, and issues 29 and 30.
• The prison Zim is sent to, Moo-Ping 10, was first mentioned all the way back in Issue 1 as where Vortian Prisoner 777 was relocated to from his original imprisonment on Vort. However, while the context of that issue suggested that 777 was relocated by the Irkens, this issue reveals that Zim personally paid to have him moved.
  • 777 mentions how Zim is holding his children hostage to ensure his loyalty, which was also established back in Issue 1.
  • In Issue 1, 777's eyes were blue instead of the red-pink they were on the show. Here, they're restored to their original color.
  • Despite Zim's description in Issue 1 of Moo-Ping 10 being "dirtier" than Vort, it appears to be quite clean.
• The prisoners Zim pays to have locked away include Madness the Chihuahua and a Sizz-Lorr lookalike whom Zim has mistaken for the real one.
• Some of the prisoners are characters that have not been seen on the series or in previous issues, this seems to suggest that Zim has had several "off screen" runs ins with other aliens across the galaxy.
• Oddly enough, the alien prisoners on Moo-Ping 10 wear orange jumpsuits like prisoners on Earth.
• Despite the fact that Zim pays to have his enemies locked up, Dib was not imprisoned.
• Recap Kid misnames Prisoner 777 as "Prisoner 666". It seems unlikely that they have done accidentaly, as it was possibly a way to sneak in the "Number of the Beast" on a children's comic.
• There is a Gellaxis guard named Biff, which may be a reference to Biff Tannen, from the Back to the Future trilogy.
• Moo-Ping 10 and the Gellaxis would later appear in Invader Zim: Enter the Florpus.

References