Why was it Kevin and not Cooper who joined Team Tennyson in Alien Force

coreofthesun

This has always been something that has mystified me. Cooper Daniels was introduced into Ben 10 right at the back end of the original series in the “Negative 10” 2-parter...and one would assume from this that he’d have a pretty significant part to play in what came next - especially since Alien Force was starting to be produced at this time and Cooper was the first kid shown in the OS besides Ben and Gwen to have powers. Heck, he even has a number “3” on his outfit, was that meant to be foreshadowing?

But eventually we ended up with Kevin as the third member of the trio and upon rewatching the OS and AF I’m confused as to why. Here are some themes which we saw with Kevin in AF which could’ve been easily done with Cooper.

Kevin had a Plumber dad whom he wants to make proud - check. Cooper’s grandad is also a Plumber and it would definitely make sense for Cooper to want to live up to his grandfather’s name as a Plumber by helping defeat the Highbreed and protect the Earth.
Kevin has powers which are unique and different to Ben and Gwen - so does Cooper. His technopathy is very different to Gwen’s magic and the abilities of Ben’s aliens
Kevin has a romance subplot with Gwen - I mean that could pretty easily be done with Cooper and Gwen too, and it would be interesting to see a magic user and a technopath be involved in a relationship.
Kevin’s car - I mean Cooper is obsessed with mechanical things and technology, him having a car and having a similar relationship to it like Kevin in AF (mainly for comic relief purposes) would totally make sense.

Really the only thing that Kevin has going for him is the whole “bad boy” past and a redemption story to follow, which as much as I hate to say it, is just a bit cliché.

Not saying that I hate Kevin in UAF - actually he was my favourite of the trio by default and did have decent chemistry with the Tennysons, with his personality adding life to the team and Greg Cipes did a good job voicing him. It’s just that I’m sure that Cooper was originally meant to be the third member and I don’t know why that was scrapped. Something tells me that this wasn’t Mcduffie’s idea, was it possibly a demand from the network?

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npzman

@coreofthesun said in Why was it Kevin and not Cooper who joined Team Tennyson in Alien Force:

Kevin has a romance subplot with Gwen - I mean that could pretty easily be done with Cooper and Gwen too, and it would be interesting to see a magic user and a technopath be involved in a relationship.

To Gwen Cooper was a annoying stalker and also technology don't go well with Gwen's mana powers.

NEVERAGAIN

While I do think Cooper could have been cool and funny choice, I am glad we actually got Kevin instead.

coreofthesun

@npzman Cooper was only written that way by the AF writers because Gwevin had been established by that point in the story. If Cooper was the third member of the trio right from the beginning of AF (with Kevin remaining a villain/vigilante/antihero as he was apparently originally meant to be )then Cooper definitely would’ve been written much differently given that he’d be a main character rather than a side character.

Kevin works decently as a main character UAF but you kinda need to see him as a slightly different character to who he was in the original series since otherwise it makes no sense as to how quickly Ben and Gwen trust him.

npzman

Yeah if the writers of Alien Force paid more attention and spent more time understanding the original series, then the show we gotten in 2008 would be very different to what we actually ended up having.

coreofthesun

@npzman I mean I don’t dislike UAF - it was the era which I grew up with first after all, and there were some awesome concepts in it. The idea of the Highbreed was excellent, as were the DNAliens (given that they were innocent humans under mind control rather than your standard beat ‘em up bad guys). I respect Mcduffie’s writing and honestly, as its own series Alien Force (and by extension Ultimate Alien) works really well as a show.

What I will say though is that UAF was not a great *sequel * to the original series. People love to complain about Omniverse’s retcons and plot inconsistencies when they really started all the way back in Alien Force. The Plumbers being changed from a secret organisation dedicated to protecting Earth from aliens into an intergalactic peace force, Kevin being an alien rather than a mutant and most of all the functionality of the Omnitrix being super inconsistent. If the writers had watched the original series properly the sequels would probably be way more watchable.