Zoomers are common wall-crawling enemies from the Metroid series that make occasional but significant appearances in Metroid: Third Derivative.
Zoomers[]
"Hut hut hut"
A species of small scavengers native to Chozo-settled planets such as Zebes, SR388 and Tallon IV. These creatures are noted for their spine-covered backs, large mandibles, and ability to attach to and crawl along walls and ceilings as effortlessly as they travel across the ground.
Zoomers are usually docile but territorial, spending most of their lives in a small area. When searching for food, they will abandon this tendency and travel long distances in packs (or "glorbs", the proper term for a group of Zoomers), communicating with a language of gutteral noises. Typically, they subsist upon the decaying remains of other creatures in their ecosystem. As such, they have earned a reputation of being the unofficial cleanup crew of the planets they live on.
Zoomers are occasionally kept as pets by Space Pirates. It is uncertain if this is a wise decision.
Phazon Zoomers[]
"Up yours!"
A Phazon-mutated subspecies of the Zoomers, these creatures are not typically found in their natural state. Phazon Zoomers are far more aggressive to living creatures than regular Zoomers, and much more prone to hivemind tendencies. By adopting a system of neutrino transmissions, they are able to communicate more efficiently with each other than regular Zoomers. Using this technique, glorbs are able to use their adhesive appendages to form amorphous blobs that are effectively ruled by a single intelligence when threatened.
Appearances[]
The first glorb of Zoomers in the comic makes its appearance in #29. After cleaning up the bodies of a group of Space Pirates that Samus has dispatched, they knock her down from behind and carry her off. Despite Samus's best efforts to dispatch them, they continue unimpeded, stopping only to place some of their number on a few floating platforms along the way, thus solving the mystery of how they reach such heights.
Eventually, they reach a pool of Phazon. Coming into contact with the mutagen does not destroy them (or Samus), but causes them to mutate into their Phazon equivalents. Samus takes the opportunity to break free and attempt to finish them off, but finds the Phazon Zoomers stronger than first expected. She eventually finishes them off with Super Missiles, but not without expending most of her energy, missile reserves, and breaking her arm. As a reward for her efforts, her suit studies the neutrino transmissions of the Phazon Zoomers and uses them to reactivate its High Intensity Neutrino Transceiver (HINT) System.
The Zoomers remain lowkey for a long time after this sequence. A lone Zoomer is the star of #119. A glorb shows up in #231 to clean up the remnants of Samus and Joey's fight against a pair of TRGT Space Pirates, and one of them relays a TRGT's final message to a few other Space Pirates in #234.
The Phazon Zoomers makes another significant appearance in a sequence of strips starting with #302. Samus, forced to travel around in Morph Ball form due to her malfunctioning Power Suit, comes across and is picked up by a particularly large glorb of Phazon Zoomers. They, finding her suit unpalatable, decide to carry her along with them.
When she discovers that her suit's HINT System is capable of translating their neutrino transmissions, she tries convincing them to not eat her and to instead head for the nearby Space Pirate base. Surprisingly, they agree, as they are rather bored and hungry. Combining their massive numbers and powerful mandibles with Samus's talent for shooting open blue doors, the glorb is able to storm the base and take out most of the Space Pirate defenses (in a sequence reminiscient of the "Ride of the Valkyries" scene from Apocalypse Now). This gives Samus the opportunity she needs to find JD and ask for his assistance, although the presence of the Phazon Zoomers is also sufficient cause for him to be hesitant.
The fate of the remaining Phazon Zoomers in the base is currently unknown, but they have not been seen in the base since #326.