Creation
Jenny was created by Scott McCloud for the first color volume of Zot!, in issue 1.
While the comic is named after Zot, Jenny is really the main viewpoint character for most issues.
Major Story Arcs
The Sirius IV Conspiracy
Jenny Weaver is the sister of Butch. They and their parents move to a new town after living in Los Angeles. They have moved around a lot. Jenny is an introspective thinker/feeler. Butch is a beefy, sometimes-bully kind of guy. She is 13 and he is older.
One day Zot shows up. He is a hero from another dimension. He defeats some robots and describes how he is looking for a Golden Key, a sacred object for the people of the nearby planet Sirius IV, for its ability to open the Doorway at the Edge of the Universe. One robot turns out to still be active and almost takes out Zot, but Jenny grabs his gun and destroys it, saving Zot.
Butch finds the Key sitting around nearby and shows it to Jenny. They follow Zot back to his universe, which is a utopian 1965-style Earth. Jenny gets a crush on Zot, who is a celebrity here. She can’t get enough of this new world, which seems so much better than her own. They can stay as long as they want because time works differently here.
They bring the Key to an interplanetary council so it can be returned to Sirius, but Jenny realizes she has lost it. However, the De-Evolutionists, a group committed to turning everyone into monkeys and returning to a life in the trees, breaks in and starts shooting people with their de-evolutionary ray guns, which turn people into monkeys.
Butch is hit by one of the rays and turns into a monkey. Zot manages to defeat the De-Evolutionists and grabs their ray gun. He reverses it and turns almost everyone back into human form. However, he smashes the gun before realizing that he forgot to revert one person: Butch, who can only speak in monkey.
They decide to ask Zot’s Uncle Max, a scientific genius, to help fix and reverse the de-evolutionary ray gun. Max is happy to help but he needs more time to figure out how to reverse Butch’s body. As Jenny gets to know Zot better, however, she realizes that he doesn’t like to talk about his parents; there’s some trauma there and he won’t open up about it. She also enjoys talking with Max, who appreciates the way she is slowly opening up Zot’s suppressed feelings.
They take a tour of the area. They get to watch some virtual reality games, including one called Survivalax. The player of the game turns out to have the Key. Zot manages to get it after a fight. Jenny and Zot also take a virtual reality ride of their own, which again awakens Jenny’s sense of wonder.
They go back to Max’s and meet up with Zot’s friend Vic, who it turns out is the one who originally stole the Key from Sirius IV. He says there is a conspiracy to use the Key to start a war with Earth. Sirius’s Prince Drufus also shows up and also wants the key.
Some of Dekko’s robots attack Max’s house. The friends defeat some of the ‘bots but then Dekko shows up with more.
While monologuing to the heroes, Dekko, who is not very mentally stable, sees Max’s painting of Sarah, his ex-girlfriend. He starts hallucinating that she is talking to him. Ever his moral compass, she tells him to stop his violence. Dekko submits to “her” plea and leaves.
The heroes go to Dekko’s base in Antarctica to get the Key back. They split into two groups. Dekko captures Max, Jenny, Butch, and some others. Dekko again begins to hallucinate, this time thinking that Jenny is Sarah. Max has Jenny further this delusion by reminding Dekko of their love, and of his love for nature. This is a key moment where Jenny really makes an important contribution in defeating a major villain. These memories frustrate Dekko and eventually break his programming. He has one last sane moment of recognition before Vic turns him off. Vic takes the Key and leaves.
Jenny and the others follow Vic to Sirius. She is excited to fly on a space ship. She also finally elicits Zot’s origin story out of him, as well as the fact that his parents disappeared years ago.
Now that Dekko is captured, there is another reason to find the Key. A conspiracy, comprised of General Schrapp, Grand Inquisitor Luther Von Clokmann, palace advisor Weevis Swimbler, and bureaucrat Sam Twik, want to take over the leadership of the planet and to start a war with Earth.
Their goal is to use the Golden Key to open the Doorway. There is a prophecy that whoever does this will return with a Great Mission for the people of Sirius. The members of the conspiracy intend to proclaim that the Great Mission is a Holy War on Earth, something they think will unify the populace, which they see as dumb and easy to fool.
Once Jenny, Zot, and the others arrive on Sirius, she is saddened to see that the population is very poor and under totalitarian control by the King, who is not much better than the conspiracy that wants to replace him.
The members of the conspiracy kill the King and his son Prince Drufus. Max, Jenny, and some others meet to talk about what they can do to stop the conspiracy. However the conspiracy sends soldiers to capture them, and shoot Peabody. Jenny grabs a blaster and gets away.
At the same time, the conspiracy sends their assassin, 9-Jack-9, to kill the Queen as well. Jack tells Zot during their fight that he also killed Zot’s mom and dad. This is the first time Zot or Max finds out what happened to them. Jack is about to kill Zot when Jenny blasts her way in. She short-circuits Jack with a bowl of water, saving Zot. While Zot is the hero of this universe, Jenny has by now saved him at least as often as he has saved her.
Zot, Jenny, and the Queen meet up with the Queen’s brother, and former annoyance to Zot, Zarbim. They all formally join the resistance now. As they escape in an air-car, Jenny does well shooting down the ships that are chasing them. They decide to hide out at the Sacred Cathedral on Shotaro island, run by Father Kimm. It would be blasphemous to attack it, so they will be safe there. Before they go in, Jenny and Zot rescue Max and Vic’s dad, Raymond, from the conspiracy.
Max figures out that there are underwater tunnels that lead outside, so Zot can run sorties against the conspiracy without them knowing. Zot and Jenny get the Key away from Von Clokmann (who got it from Vic) and he and Jenny fly to the Doorway. Zot tries the Key, but it won’t open. Jenny has to explain that it’s a pull, not a push door. Then when they open it, there’s a brick wall in the entryway. Jenny figures out that it’s just an illusion and they go through.
On the other side is an even more utopian future, where they meet many heroes of Sirius whose spirits have been implanted into robots in order to honor them and allow them to live fuller lives. These heroes include King Gregory the First, Zot’s mom and dad, and now Jenny and Zot. The spirit of the planet has made this all possible. They eventually leave through the Back Door and go back to present-day Sirius.
Zot rescues Vic, who had been captured, and they fix Peabody, who had been shot. They go back to the Cathedral. However, 9-Jack-9 is able to take over Peabody and he shoots Vic. Then the conspiracy breaks into the cathedral and captures Jenny, Zot, and all the others. However, Butch and the De-Evolutionists counter-attack and free them. After various events, only General Schrapp is left from the conspiracy, but he declares himself the ruler of Sirius.
Max and Zot make a plan to stop him. Zot fights Schrapp and gets him to confess to his crimes while Max, Jenny, and Butch take over the fortress’s communications center, using Vic’s robot remote, Floyd, to broadcast his confessions to the rest of the planet. Jenny meets up with Zot and helps beat up Shrapp, kneeing him in the nards and punching him in the face. Schrapp punches her back and Zot finally knocks him out.
The people of Sirius want Zot to be their new leader, but he and Max recognize that they are just misplacing their religious devotion (caused by Zot fulfilling the prophecy of the Doorway). (It somehow slips the notice of the population that Jenny also fulfilled the prophecy.) Zot says the people should learn to lead themselves. Max does think it would help if Zot at least gives them some guidance now and then.
Max sends Jenny and Butch (who turns back to a human after stepping through the portal) back to their Earth after Zot promises to visit in the future.