Weightless (Chapter)

This article is about the Comic, you may be looking for the Episode

"Oh great, a black hole. Just what we needed."

Chapter 6: Weightless is the sixth chapter of 5 Years Later.

Plot Summary[]

Eon and Dr. Animo find the Hands of Armageddon from Invader Zim’s Universe buried in the Keshawn Desert. Dr. Animo makes plans to start setting up Eon’s Machine, while Eon contacts Zim for an update. Zim responds, altering Eon that Vlad and Technus are successfully defeating Zim’s ship from Danny, Ben, and Gwendolyn, as it continuously drains the Dwarf Star’s energy.

Ben, using UltraViolent, defends the Plumber Ship against Vlad, while Danny and Gwendolyn try to restrain Technus. Gwendolyn summons Winston, to which Technus responds by repurposing half of the Plumber Ship’s technology to form a large mecha body. With some resistance from Technus, the mech is destroyed by Danny’s Flaming Howl. The ship’s destruction leaves Kevin and Rook stranded, running out of oxygen.

As Ben and Vlad continue their battle, Ben resorts to UltraViolent’s most powerful attack, the Cosmic Drill, sending Vlad into a nearby moon. Vlad survives by using his ecto-cape, without any damage done to him. After teasing Ben about Danny’s ability to surpass him, Vlad makes an escape once he reveals he is not the true mastermind behind all of their plans.

This urges Ben to finish their mission fast, so they can begin their search for the true mastermind. Gwendolyn uses a spell to trap Technus, while Ben Upgrades the damaged Plumber Ship to bring himself and Gwendolyn right up to Zim’s ship. Meanwhile, Vlad and Danny are facing off once more.

Ben and Gwendolyn’s attacks are unable to pierce the ecto-shield Zim’s Ship has, which pushes Ben to use Lodestar and rip the entire ship clean in half. Zim’s PAK creates a spacesuit for him as he is now floating away. He contacts Eon for assistance but is quickly captured by Gwendolyn.

The immediate disconnection between Zim’s Ship and the Dwarf Star creates a black hole. Gwendolyn summons Evita to carry the damaged Plumber Ship away. Ben uses NRG to try to counter it with an equal amount of radiation. As everyone scrambles to escape the black hole, Eon arrives to rescue Vlad, Technus, and a sample of the Dwarf Star that survived. Ben witnesses this, realizing it has been Eon behind everything this whole time. Eon then vanishes, leaving Zim behind.

Ben is unable to produce enough radiation in time and is now trapped close to the event horizon. Danny arrives, using his intangibility to resist the hole’s suction, and offers Ben his ecto-energy to convert to radiation. Ben agrees. The result is overwhelming and painful to Ben, as he is overloaded with energy. The black hole collapses, then explodes, creating a small nebula as Ben and Danny unconsciously transform back to their original forms, and drift through space.

Back in the desert, The Alliance begins their next phase.

Details[]

Major Events[]

Skirmish in Invader Zim's Dimension
- The Alliance has successfully obtained one of the Hands of Armageddon and a sample of a Dwarf Star.
- Eon reveals himself to The Heroes as the true mastermind.
- Zim has been separated from The Alliance and captured by the heroes.

Characters[]

Heroes[]

Villains[]

Transformations[]

Guardians[]

Hamilton (Debut)
Evita (Debut)

Mythology[]

Gwendolyn's character box in this chapter indirectly mentions her and Ben's grandmother, Verdona, though this is only in the Archaic version.
Zim mentions his never-ending conquest to take over the Earth, which is the main premise for the Invader ZIM series.
Ben mentions his transformation Atomix, who will later appear in Chapter 8.. He also mentioned Gravattack, who was previously shown in Chapter 3.

Differences From The Archaic Version[]

An event known as 5 Years Later: Recalibrated took place in preparation for the Motion Comic Counterpart, where Kuro went back and refurbished the first eleven chapters of the series. A large portion of the artwork was edited or completely redrawn. Many scenes were replaced, cut or extended. Dialogue was fine-tuned and rewritten, while most typos and grammar errors were corrected. Attributes that became standard to 5YL’s general art style were retroactively added in, such as a stronger difference between Ben’s lime green and Danny’s turquoise green, colored outlines and shading, refined facial features for most characters, square dialogue boxes, and the signature floating dots around ecto-energy. Every transformation used by Ben is now accompanied by an Information Hub, and each alien has colored text. While nearly every panel has been altered, these are the significant changes:

Unlike the previous five chapters, the cover was completely redesigned, now resembling a traditional action comic book.
The Keshawn Desert has been completely redesigned. It now features red skies, tall rock structures, and more dead trees. The location text now reads “Zim’s Dimension: The Keshawn Desert.”
Eon’s holographic display changes from green to pink, and during his call with Zim, the layout is more consistent to the previous one.
Eon no longer says “Begin the next phase” to Dr. Animo.
Continuing from the last chapter, the entire layout of space has been redesigned to add more planets and cleaner star textures.
The background behind UltraViolent’s arm when he stabs one of Vlad’s clones changes from yellow to purple.
The direction in which UltraViolent’s arm curls around another of one of Vlad’s clones has changed directions to be consistent with the other panels.
The background when Vlad fires his large lightning attack changes from pink to a deep red.
Technus’ text boxes are now black with a green outline and blue text when he absorbs pieces of the Plumber Ship.
Danny now briefly thinks to himself before using his Flaming Howl.
The panel displaying Gwendolyn’s concern of Ben’s whereabouts has been moved to the bottom of a new page, which now highlights Danny’s growing abilities after using the Flaming Howl. Kevin then jokes about Ben’s destructive tendencies.
The background during UtraViolent’s barrage of punches changes from white to yellow.
Vlad’s combo attack with his own clone has been redesigned to appear more powerful.
UltraViolent’s thoughts evaluating Vlad’s power have been rewritten.
UltraViolent’s Cosmic Drill was redesigned to combine all of the colors his attacks have previously used, and to resemble a drilling motion more closely.
The planet UltraViolent drills Vlad into is much larger, and now blue instead of purple.
When Vlad is tied up by Ghostfreak’s tentacles, his dialogue is altered, as is Ghostfreak’s thoughts once again questioning Vlad’s power.
Gwendolyn’s shield trapping Technus, and later Zim, has been redesigned.
An Omnitrix logo is prominently featured when Ben changes from Ghostfreak to Upgrade.
Upgrade now has his purple reflective textures opposed to his original black highlights. While the textures appear blue-ish due to the atmosphere of space, you can see their true colors when Kevin observes from inside the ship.
The multiple “Shatter!” onomatopoeias when Danny attacks Vlad with his own device have been removed.
Upgrade now calls Zim’s Ecto-Energy shield “Ecto-Junk.”
The text box for Lodestar and NRG shouting their names have been removed. However, they can still be heard shouting their names in the episode version.
The borders displaying the formation of the black hole have changed from black to white.
Rook now emphasizes that the black hole can be detrimental to the surrounding population of planets.
The text box for NRG’s “*gasp*” has been removed, though you can still hear him gasp in the episode version.
Eon’s teleportation effect has been redesigned.
Gwendolyn specifying the exact amount of time it takes for Ben to change aliens has been removed and retconned. Rook dialogue afterwards has also been altered.
Danny and NRG’s combo attack has been redesigned, and is now spread over two pages to emphasize the action. The panel of NRG’s reaction to his pain has now been flipped and is on the opposite side.
Like Episode 3, Ben’s Omnitrix now warns him of NRG’s transformation failing. Though this time, the security protocol also fails, and Ben does not change back to human.
Location text reading “Zim’s Dimension: The Keshawn Desert” has been added when we rejoin The Alliance.
The position of Dr. Animo’s text boxes about Eon’s horrible appearance have changed.
An additional panel of Dr. Animo asking about the Dwarf Star has been added opposed to him asking off-screen.
Eon’s dialogue disapproving of Vlad and Technus’ mission has been altered.

Trivia[]

While Ben does not use Heatblast in this chapter, Ben is shown transforming into him on the cover.
Kuro felt that this chapter benefited the most from the Recalibrated Event, notable for the new artwork of the desert and space background.
The Archaic version was the first to use the second 5YL logo, though all versions now use the third and current one.
Vlad shows he is aware of Alien X's existence, along with many other traits about Ben, presumably through Eon.
The Keshawn Desert is named after Hurshie’s second middle name.
This is the first time Vlad’s human form is shown since Chapter 2, and the first time his present-day human form is shown. In Chapter 2, Eon only showed Vlad an illusion of his younger, human self.
- On the contrary, both Danny and Ben’s human forms are only briefly shown.
Many characters demonstrated a new ability:
- Gwendolyn shows her ability to summon Guardians from Legerdomain.
- Danny combines his Ghostly Wail and Phantom Flame, creating the Flaming Howl.
- Ben shows off the third 5YL original alien, UltraViolent, who was previously teased at the end of Chapter 5.
- Vlad uses his ecto-cape; an installment in the new suit he obtained in Chapter 4.
- Technus uses the left wing of the Plumber Ship to form a mech suit.
  - The mech suit is based on the unused Technus 3.0 Concept from Danny Phantom.
On March 31st, 2018, Kuro leaked a fake page of Chapter 8 involving Rex Salazar, revealing the following day it was an April Fool's Joke. This caused controversy among fans, so Kuro released a sneak peek of this chapter as an apology.
Disk Jockey was going to appear in the end when Ben was knocked unconscious, but he was removed because Kuro thought that it would take away the moment.
Originally, Eatle was supposed to appear and eat the device draining the Dwarf Star, but this was changed when the idea for Lodestar's scene was thought of.