Posts made by coreofthesun

@Tactical-Ochoa Given that MOA and the other writers were the ones who created him, they probably understand him better than any of us do. And apparently that's the direction which they were going to take Kevin and Charmcaster in the inital sequel Hero Generation. Even when Dwayne McDuffie was brought on he at first wanted to take that same direction with Kevin but then CN mandated Kevin being on Team Tennyson. I don't think that it's completely out of the question that Kevin improves slightly for the better but he would never realistically get close to Ben and Gwen. Perhaps vigilante is the wrong word to use but Kevin doesn't work as a world ending stakes villain as much as he does a personal rival to Ben. Perhaps they're not always purely antagonistical of each other but Kevin works when he challenges the very person whom Ben is.

If I had to redo Alien Force would've actually given him his own arc to parallel the character development which Ben goes through. Perhaps something to do with his past and how he was treated back then . Perhaps there would've been a better way to implement his shattered relationship with his own family. Though rather than going down the path of love and light like Ben does, Kevin would probably take the other road of darkness and anger.

Good Bye and Good Riddance is a fun episode and as just a final episode to the OS without thinking about any of the sequels, it is a satisfying conclusion. However I think that Ben having a secret identity in his home town was just too good an opportunity to pass up, and it's a shame that the writers barely touched on it.

I personally think that the final episode of the OS should've been akin to GBaGR with the summer ending, but maybe not the unexpected return of Vilgax (which is never explained) or Ben's identity being revealed. It could've been a character-focused episode where they reflect on going back to normality, or something along those lines.

Secret of the Omnitrix is easily my favourite thing to ever come out of the franchise because I think that they nailed the personal stakes and character growth for Ben as well as keeping the adventure and fun of Ben 10.

Alien Force's finale attempted to be a more character-driven finale and it was interesting to actually see Vilgax achieve his goal and win, as well as Ben willingly sacrificing his Omnitrix for the greater good, but there are plotholes and things which don't make much sense. Ultimate Alien's finale is almost universally accepted as terrible due to a bad antagonist, the lack of personal connection to Ben as well as the lamest final battle. Omniverse's finale was at least more exciting but it didn't hit me as hard as either of the OS finales because again, we didn't get character-driven moments. I think that this finale would've been a whole lot better if there were moments between Ben and Rook to show how close they've grown as friends, or if the final antagonist was actually intimidating and somewhat relatable, and most of all if BEN HAD ACTUALLY SEEN THE CONTEMALIA AS GRANDPA MAX AND NOT MR SMOOTHY MASCOTS.

I think that it really was unnecessary for Devin to exist. Aside from his role as a Plumber tying in to the huge Plumber retcon in UAF, why on Earth did they make him Max's partner? It makes Max the world's biggest scumbag for not even trying to help Kevin or acknowledging himonce in the OS. Despite Kevin apparently being his ex-partner's son. And as npzman said, what are the chances of Max just happening to come across Kevin in NYC, and then doing nothing?

And then there's the whole false memories thing in the Omniverse Rooters arc which attempted to fix this but made things even more confusing because of the story arcs involving Kevin in UAF which directly contradict it.

Devin seemed to be the main motivation for Kevin turning good in UAF. I'd argue that it is a really cliche motivation which wasn't necessary and required unnecessary retconning of the past to achieve. IF Kevin has to go through a redemption, I'd rather have him change due to him seeing the error of his ways himself and becoming a better person under the influence of Ben and Gwen who act as character foils to him. Then again, I think that vigilante/villain Kevin is a way better direction to take his character than being a hero.

@Tactical-Ochoa K, thanks for letting me know. I think that I'll stay clear of any of this as well.

I am very confused right now. What happened with Ebomnitrix?

@Tactical-Ochoa Very detailed post with some great points all round.

100% agree with Albedo. With regards to Eon I certainly believe that he would've been more effective if they'd actually delved into his backstory a bit more. To show us how he became that way, and to highlight just how much he contrasts with Ben. There were probably opportunities in Omniverse to do so but they didn't really capitalise on it, potentially out of fear of making the story too dark. Actually I think that he would've made a far more effective villain than Maltruant if they'd done so.

The differences between Ben and Kevin also really show "nature vs nurture" at its fullest. Ben and Kevin share a lot of similarities as people, but Kevin represents the path which Ben could've gone down if he hadn't grown up around such good people with a proper sense of right and wrong. Kevin's backstory is honestly quite tragic , he was born with abilities which he didn't want and his family rejected him and chucked him out of the house for being a freak.He's someone whom you can understand but yet someone who you cannot forgive at the same time. "Kevin 11" is one of the darkest and most thought provoking episodes of the original series for this reason. Heck, even when they do have to work together in "Grudge Match", at the end of the episode Kevin saves Ben's life, but only because he wanted the pleasure of killing Ben himself. If that doesn't give out Joker or Green Goblin vibes then I don't know what does.

A lot of people defend his redemption in Alien Force because they say that Ben is always willing to forgive and give people another chance, and that with Kevin maturing he realised the error of his ways. People say that Ben and Gwen teamed up with him at first out of absolute necessity because he had alien tech, knowledge of Forever Knight operations and trades , and then this eventually it grew into mutual trust. UAF then retconned him into a half-Osmosian, with his Osmosian father being Max's Plumber partner (and if this is true then Max is an utter jerk for never reaching out to his partner's son at all in the original series. Not to mention how the space Plumbers are another retcon by themselves). Then they came out with an explanation that absorbing energy drove Osmosians insane beyond their control, but was completely reversible. This was meant to be a way of justifying Kevin's redemption but it just meant that he had no responsibility put on him for his actions. Kevin was clearly the writers' favourite character in UAF and they put so much effort into further developing his redemption story when it really did not fit his character and setup at all. People - especially teenagers - do change over time. And UAF Kevin by himself is a very entertaining character who is given a lot of depth. Just...why did Kevin have to get a redemption out of all characters? Someone like Charmcaster was far more deserving of making the transition to becoming good.

Don't get me started on Gwevin. I'm not into shipping at all but the Gwevin ship was unbelievably rushed and not thought out at all. It really made no sense otherwise given that neither showed any kind of care towards each other in the original series, and then all of a sudden in Alien Force we have these cringey romance moments in the very first episode? Isn't Gwen meant to be smart? I think she'd know better than to trust someone whom she last encountered like this. What a loving, caring couple they'll be in the future, right?.

Apparently Dwayne Mcduffie actually planned for Kevin to be going through an anti-hero/vigilante arc in the background which would've been better, and for Cooper to be the third member of the trio, but Kevin being good was mandated by CN for reasons which we'll never know...

I don't think that Kevin has to be a full blown villain. I think he'd probably also work well as someone who isn't definitely good or evil and walking the fine between. I think that him going through something similar to what Charmcaster did in UAF and OV would be far more fitting. The most important thing however is that he acts as a dark mirror image to Ben. That's what made him a good character in the original series and I think that he'd be effective as a means to show how Ben grows as a character, especially if he gets his own character arcs to parallel Ben's. His conflicts with Ben will always be personal as opposed to the vast majority of other villains. I believe that Ben would keep trying to give him chances and I can see them teaming up very temporarily in pursuit of a common goal (eg. stopping the Highbreed) but Kevin would be more likely to ditch them/backstab them when he gets the chance. I actually think that Michael Morningstar (with some tweaks) is actually a pretty good representation of whom Kevin is, what with him being addicted to absorbing energy and not giving a damn about anyone else other than himself.

I will say that I think that reboot Kevin going through a good guy transition similar to Alien Force's could work, as could his bond with Ben and Gwen given that he didn't try to hunt them down or kill them for no reason. But it does not work one bit for Original Series Kevin.

@Angela he's a fun villain and quite unique. Not one who would have much impact coming back repeatedly but he was entertaining.

I like Omniverse’s artstyle in general and the background art in particular is superb although I prefer the Classic’s artstyle. But yeah the aliens can sometimes look ridiculous and not in a good way. As a young kid I remember seeing Big Chill for the first time in Omniverse and being horrified at what they’d done to his appearance, especially since that he was aesthetically the best looking alien from UAF imo and then they turned him into a bodybuilder. The stylisation works on some designs admittedly well though.

@KineceleranGirl I love all of Perkins’ aliens as well but a few of them are probably too freaky even for Ben 10.

@KineceleranGirl I really like the effort put into the Omniverse real-time morphing as well, and it makes the fast paced action scenes much better.

It does seem a bit weird that they let Morningstar off the hook so easily. He was a character who was clearly made to be an analogy to a sexual predator and given his disturbing obsession with Gwen and addiction to power, the trio really should've locked him back in the Null Void. Or at least had him arrested by Plumbers since they all know full well how dangerous he is to others. He's not someone you'd trust to run free...although maybe the writers didn't pay attention to this as much as they should have.

@npzman

His Twitter is here (https://twitter.com/MuskitoDev) and his Youtube Channel is here(https://www.youtube.com/c/Muskito/featured). Both are in Brazillian Portuguese but he does update them both regularly. He was recently testing out Ripjaws in-game.

Although he does have an English speaking channel (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1_s80m-mW1OjJaf4n_SwuQ) which he has uploaded a game showcase on. Given that he is probably not earning a penny from making this game, I am very impressed by progress so far.

@KineceleranGirl I'm really sorry for what you had to go through due to being a supporter of Bwen. Nobody should be slandered to that extent for their opinions on the characters of an animated series. The argument of simply shipping them together being paedophilia is stupid. This therefore means that shipping Phineas and Isabella from Phineas and Ferb is paedophilia, or shipping Ash and Dawn from Pokemon is paedophilia, and so on (I'm not really into shipping either and I imagine that there are countless other examples). Yes there are the weirdos in every fandom who get kicks out of looking at NSFW fanart of underage characters going at it like jackrabbits which I also find absolutely disgusting, but simply shipping two fictional characters isn't creepy by itself.

Although I'm not a Bwen shipper, I can perfectly understand why people ship them and given that a large amount of the fanbase is from the US, it is the taboo against cousin relationships which causes such outcry. Another part of the "ew" outlook towards Bwen seems to be the infamy that the fandom has acquired because of the R34 fanart of the 10 year old versions of Ben and Gwen doing...inappropriate stuff. What people don't understand is that there are Bwen shippers like yourself who ship them not because of the NSFW stuff, but because you care for them as characters first and foremost.

@Tactical-Ochoa Exactly. The reveal in "Max Out" was mind blowing and it really is a shame that they didn't take that into consideration. The closest that we got was in "Inside Man" where Ben had to choose between saving the infected Tyler or stopping the DNAliens from carrying out their plan. I think that him reluctantly choosing the latter option would've been a pretty heavy character moment but he doesn't in the end.

What really annoyed me is that in the S2 Finale, Cooper managed to build DNA repair guns...and the main characters still killed tons of DNAliens. Ben himself flip-flopped between being unwilling to hurt them and killing them with no issues whatsoever in the heat of battle.

@Tactical-Ochoa The Diagon arc is my least favourite arc of UA (and probably the whole franchise) for many reasons but did have some potential. I think that George was moderately interesting but the entire arc was just poorly executed and boring. I didn't really feel that intimidated by Diagon and he felt really generic. I thought that it would've been an interesting plot twist if the Diagon was actually just a trapped and scared creature and that George was actually the villain all along. Yet overall I'd rather forget the Diagon arc.

I think that there are lots of different ways to approach magic in a sensible way without making it an easy way for the main characters to solve everything. I would've actually liked to see a few more alien sorcerers. The closest that we got to that was Adwaitya in Ultimate Alien.

@Tactical-Ochoa Interesting. I was thinking along those lines as well - the more capable a sorcerer is, the less they’ll need to rely on artifacts, which explains why Gwen and Charmcaster are pretty capable of doing magic by themselves as well as Hex’s constant longing for the Charms of Bezel. The colour of the auras is a nice detail - and could actually explain really well why Gwen’s powers changed from blue to violet. The only thing is that future Gwen is shown using primarily yellow/golden coloured magic (at least in the OS future). I would also like to see diverse and different branches of magic which I think would be pretty cool.

An alternative Anodite idea is to have them as magical beings residing in Legerdomain. That would make far more sense than them being aliens and I believe that this would be a good compromise to keep Anodites in the universe at the same time as not diminishing the magic side of the universe.

I can’t help but feel that UA blew the chance to have a magic-focused storyline heavily involving Gwen in the Diagon arc. George was the only interesting character in that arc and it is true that the LM version of him is better, as well as Ascalon being a magical sword which is way better than it being technologically advanced.

Given that Ben 10 was a show based upon aliens first and foremost, it was rather interesting to see the creators bravely shake up the status quo by introducing magic into the series. Our first glimpse at a sorcerer was Hex in the OS episode "Lucky Girl". Honestly he was badass and gave the protagonists a new challenge due to his ability to tap into this mysterious mystical power. It just added another layer to this growing universe. This was further done by introducing Hex's niece Charmcaster into the series, who served as a direct rival to Gwen in the episodes which she made an appearance in ("Tough Luck" and "A Change of Face").

At the centre of all of this was Gwen. Every episode involving magic shifted the focus to her rather than Ben, and after taking Charmcaster's spellbook at the end of "A change of Face", she begins to learn magic herself and become an active combatant just as much as Ben and Max. Which was awesome. This was done in quite a sensible manner as well, with Gwen initially struggling to grasp magic resulting in a number of mishaps, but then becoming more proficient to the point where she can hold her own in a duel against Charmcaster at the end of the series. I'll also say that the magic in the original series was very creative, with a combination of elemental magic, mind tricks, magical artifacts and so many other diverse uses for magic. We even got to see her future self who armed with the Charms of Bezel, was now a master sorceress.

When Alien Force came around, Gwen's powers were noticeably different. She was no longer saying incantations out loud or using a spellbook, and while both of these could be attributed to a far increased proficiency in magic, her powers did not have that much scope and variation anymore. They were basically limited to mana blasts, Green Lantern-esque constructs, life signature tracking and mana shields which apparently had the same durability as glass. And for some reason her magic was pink rather than blue now. There's nothing inherently wrong with her using these powers but the variety just isn't there if these are what she always relies on. In the episode "What are little girls made of?", this was explained to be because Gwen and Ben's grandmother Verdona was apparently an alien known as an Anodite, and passed her powers onto Gwen. I'll be honest, this was far and away my least favourite episode of Alien Force S1-2 for two reasons. Firstly, because it completely retconned magic out of existence (at least for a while) because it was explicitly stated that there was no such thing as magic and that Gwen's powers were entirely Anodite based. That's a blatant retcon because we very clearly saw Gwen as well as Charmcaster and Hex use magic in the original series. It is also important to note that the future Gwendolyn Tennyson whom we saw in the OS was very clearly using magic and no Anodite powers. If Verdona was still meant to exist, she would've found Gwen and told her about her Anodite heritage, or else Gwen would've probably figured out herself as her Anodite powers manifested. My second reason for not liking this episode is because making Gwen an Anodite just takes away her relatability because really, she was a regular girl (albeit quite gifted intellectually) who learned magic through hard work, and with her Anodite heritage now being the source of her powers and, it doesn't feel right. The Anodite plotpoint was an attempt to give Gwen relevancy in Alien Force but fell flat because it took away one of the most interesting things about her.


There are a ton of criticisms to be made of Alien Force Season 3, but one of the things I think was for the better was them unretconning the Anodite retcon just enough to allow magic to exist again. Gwen being an Anodite was now the reason for her early magical proficiency rather than the sole source of her powers which was a bit better but my point about it taking away the value of Gwen's hard work still stands. It was cool to see Charmcaster again, as well as to see Gwen using actual spells again. However she still mostly used her Anodite based powers with the range of her spells being very limited and exclusively using pink aesthetics. Still though, it was a step up.

I feel that Ultimate Alien Season 1 was the peak of Gwen's magic in the UAF era. Although her regular powers were still preferred, she did use a lot more magic in this season. However the creativity still wasn't completely there, and it felt that she mostly only did very specific spells to solve very specific problems, but I still appreciated her using magic. Charmcaster continued to appear and use magic and the introduction of Ledgerdomain was actually pretty cool and finally something which added to the magical side of the Universe.

Omniverse tried to bring back magic by increasing Gwen's use of it in conjunction with her other powers. They never once mentioned Anodites as well as making giving Gwen a partial Anodite transformation which could be interpreted as a magical buff. I appreciate this but unfortunately Gwen didn't appear much, and she didn't do all that much whenever she was in battle which sorta sucked, though I guess they had to nerf her because of how powerful her Anodite form was in UAF. They also tried expanding on magical lore by having Charmcaster and Legerdomain appear again as well as introducing Bezel, the creator of the charms named after him. He was unfortunately a bit of a buffoon whom you couldn't take seriously.

Overall I think that the original series handled the mystery and uniqueness of magic the best and it was chucked out of the window in the sequel series in favour of explaining everything away as aliens. While Omniverse did try and rectify this they couldn't do much without completely rewriting everything about Anodites in UAF. Personally, what I would've done is show Gwen progressing on her journey to becoming a master sorceress like the future Gwndolyn whom we saw in the original series. I totally understand the concerns that a magical system is not easy to implement at all, and I certainly don't support magic becoming completely balance-breaking and broken either. However with some effort, that can be done. I read a book series a number of years ago called Skulduggery Pleasant where magic is the core of the story, and although it is a book series rather than an animated series, film or comic, I still think that the idea can work. The idea in Skulduggery Pleasant is that there are lots of magical disciplines, from elemental magic to teleportation to symbol magic to necromancy. Young sorcerers are capable of doing all of these with enough practice (albeit not very proficiently), but there comes an age where they go through what is known as "The Surge" after which their magic can only be used in one main discipline and thus is the way in which the author of the series prevented most sorcerers from becoming too powerful by learning a spell for everything.

Now that's just one example of how you can implement magic into a universe without make it balance-breaking, and I believe that something similar could've been done with Ben 10. Perhaps teenage Gwen could have a fatigue limit when it comes to spellcasting explaining why she doesn't just use magic to sort every problem. Maybe wielding all the Charms of Bezel grants a sorcerer access to a wide range of powers without so much of a limit which explains why future Gwendolyn is quite powerful. Perhaps some magicians like Hex could have their power mainly tied to a magical object (eg. Hex's staff) which leaves them far weaker if that object is destroyed. Heck, even Anodites could be implemented but perhaps more as an expression of a spellcaster's magical soul rather than an alien species, almost a "Super Saiyan" form for magic users which buffs their power but takes a physical toll on them. Magic can work in harmony with the science-fiction and alien universe of Ben 10 if approached in the right waynd I wish that its importance was continued throughout the series.

@Tactical-Ochoa It’s more of a personal headcanon than anything. Galvanic Mechamorphs are comprised entirely of nanites and aren’t biological at all. Perhaps hybrid is the wrong word to use, but given that Ben’s voice stays the same when he turns into Upgrade as well as how he needs to use existing tech rather than turning into machines like most Mechamorphs, I don’t think that Upgrade is entirely Mechamorph. The idea of him having a few machines which he can turn into is interesting, especially with @Jamma ‘s suggestion of limited memory of those, but I prefer Upgrade to be used creatively and this would mean that his weakness away from technology wouldn’t apply as much. With Ditto I do understand your point.

Ben being creative with his transformations in conjunction is something shown whenever Ben (or Ben 10,000) has master control. I think that they could’ve used quickchange in UAF a lot better to make use of ‘combo moves’ as I like to fall them.

@Jamma said in Alien Power Headcannons (Part 1):

Here's a bunch of headcannons about powers I think some the aliens should have. Mostly for giving buffs to underused ones in order to make them more versatile. But some for they sound cool to have!

Upgrade:

• Can now transform into a select range of previously-fused technology, with the amount of choices limited by his internal memory. The more complex the form, the more space used. The forms can be rotated out, although there’s a delay before they can become usable. He can also morph into non-technology shapes like a ball.

• Now has enhanced intelligence. While not as smart as Grey Matter or even Brainstorm, he can quickly compute the most advanced math equations and understand how any code functions by just skimming it.

Grey Matter:

• Is now the size of a human toddler. He can shrink down to his small size via a function built into his Galvan jumpsuit.

• He also now has access to a GUI that can be emitted from his jumpsuit, as well as hyperspace pockets that contain various Galvan tools and even weapons.

Cannonbolt:

• Can perform the spin dash like Sonic; curling into a ball then revving in place before launching at high speed. He can also do the drop dash from Sonic Mania.

• He can make small quakes by bouncing around while curled up.

Ditto:

-He and his clones are no longer linked. Injuring one will not hurt the others, making him much more viable. As a trade-off, he can only clone so many times before tiring out.

• Now has an elastic body. While not a full-on Plastic Man-type shapeshifter, he can stretch and deform himself for extra agility.

Ripjaws:

• Can now breathe on land as well as underwater. He’s most at home in the water though, as he can swim at speeds much faster than he can run on land.

• Now has the abilities of various Earth sea creatures, such being able to inflate like a blowfish to throw off those grabbing him and grow protective spikes.

Let me know what you think of these, plus suggest extra abilities you think certain aliens should have!

The thing is that Upgrade is technically a human/Mechamorph hybrid and so I think that it makes sense that he cannot make machines without fusing to existing technology. As for the second power I'm fairly sure that once fused Upgrade can already process equations and code like a supercomputer. It think that this limitation is what makes him balanced, and besides, even without any technology near him he still has a laser and is incredibly flexible. He's my favourite alien and could've been used so much more though....

I like what you're going for with Grey Matter but given that he's not a techno-organic being it is probably not the best idea to make him too dependent on his clothing.

I'm fairly sure that Cannonbolt can already do everything that you said, though if he can't it would be a nice addition which doesn't make him overpowered.

It did always bother me that Ditto could clone infinitely without trouble (even with the shared pain drawback) so I think that it's a fair trade-off to remove the shared pain but limit the duplication, although the rule about one Ditto's death meaning all of their deaths should still apply. The lack of this drawback is one of the reasons why Echo Echo was so OP.

I always thought that it was stupid that they never gave Ripjaws a breathing brace but again, it is one of the things which makes him balanced. I do like the idea of extra protective measures though.

Overall these suggestions are cool but would probably be more suited to Ultimate Forms than the base forms as npzman said.

@npzman Nice. I don't play console but one of my friends got a PS5 recently and he also had the issue of storage on his PS4, so he's been playing a lot of Spider-Man and Rainbow Six Siege recently.

I think that every series in the franchise had their good points as well as things that they could've done better, so I'll try and present my opinion on all of these. This will be a very long post so bear with me.

Original Series
Pros: For me it was the best show when it came to character development and growth, and the three protagonists in Ben, Gwen and Grandpa Max were great. Ben and Gwen are imperfect and that's what makes them relatable, it makes you root for them, and they balance each other so well as characters (I know that a lot of the fandom hate their bickering but I think that it's pretty much how siblings would act). Max is a great mentor figure even before his reveal as a Plumber, and after that it is fascinating to learn about his past and the Men In Black-esque organisation which were the Plumbers. The universe felt so diverse with magic, mutants, aliens, bounty hunters at the same time as remaining grounded, and Ben's rogues gallery were all unique, even the one off villains like Clancy, and the writers got really creative with the range of plots while not making it too outlandish (except for that cursed Christmas episode) The aliens were at their most unique, balanced and interesting here as well and it felt so exciting to see Ben use them, and the Omnitrix looked cool. This is a personal preference but I think that the art style was the best in the original and just added to the experience. I just have a lot of praise for the original and there are so many other things which just add to why this series is my favourite out of all of them.

Cons: Ben suffered a character regression during season 3, and while I think that developing a bit of an ego is natural for a kid after kicking butt as a hero, they pushed it way too far sometimes even for a 10 year old's standards. The episode based structure of the show also started to become less viable towards the end of the OS which is why the final season felt a little underwhelming sometimes because there was basically no build up towards the Negative 10 two parter (though Secret of the Omnitrix was fantastic.). Also, the Forever Knights really could've been done better, and while Enoch was alright, Driscoll sucked even with his apparent past ties with Max and his high up status as the Forever King. It also wasn't explained how Vilgax got frozen after being defeated by Ben for the first time, or how he escaped the Null Void by SOTO, and there are occasionally instances where the classic series doesn't fully explain events, but I think that this is mainly tied to the episode based format.

Alien Force Seasons 1-2
Pros: It was 100% the right move to go towards a story driven structure after the original series and Alien Force did that well. I think that the setup that the series promised was excellent too: the Highbreed were unique villains and the whole secret invasion thing that they had going on was really intriguing. The DNAliens were really interesting as well given that they are in fact innocent humans under parasitic control and could've led to some compelling moral conundrums. Some of Ben's new aliens had pretty cool designs, and the fact that Grandpa Max wasn't beside them made the story more interesting. After the summer fun adventure of the original, the stakes were raised here in a story set up in the Tennysons own home town with an invasion of aliens who have bodysnatchers at their disposal who can use ID masks to blend in to society meaning that not many can be trusted. Tons of potential which was sometimes fulfilled (for example, "Alone Together" in my opinion was a masterpiece of an episode and really showed what the writers could do), but sometimes the execution did not match the quality of the ideas. Also Paradox was awesome and to this day is still my favourite character - partially inspired by the Doctor from Doctor Who but maintaining his unique personality and backstory.

Cons: It felt too try-hardy especially in the first season. Basically every episode was set at night which made the series look dreary, Max was apparently killed off in only the 6th episode, Ben became too serious and felt like a different character, they turned Gwen into a boring token female , and then there was Kevin who went through a transition which can best be described as the Joker suddenly becoming Han Solo. Rather than being the insane dark counterpart of Ben, Kevin is now the 'bad boy' who does illegal deals in the black market, has a body build befitting of someone 5 years older than him, with a cool car and an apparently dark past which he is trying to move past. His redemption should've never made sense but it would've been more believable if it were stretched out over the entire of S1, and it was cringe to see how they rushed the Gwevin ship even while completely ignoring the context of the original series. The alien designs were good tbf and I really liked some such as Big Chill and Swampfire. However in terms of powers they were pretty much fusions of the original aliens except more powerful, making the original aliens feel redundant and less special because the new aliens were stupidly overpowered. The retcons sucked - particularly the Plumbers retcon which turned them from an earth only organisation into an intergalactic police force (am I the only one who thinks that the AF storyline would've actually worked better with the Earth plumbers? ). And in the first two seasons there was no sign of Gwen using any magic and instead using Green Lantern-esque constructs, which was explained to being the descendant of a species of aliens called Anodites which explains her power. I think the episode involving the reveal even straight up said that magic did not exist in this universe which sucked. Ben shouting out the names of his aliens was cringey and was pretty obviously there for marketing purposes.

Alien Force Season 3 ( deserves a different section since it changes so much from the first 2 seasons)
Pros: This season was a bit more balanced when it came to setting, with a good number of episodes being set in the day to dispel the dark theme a bit. The plots were a lot more varied and we did see the return of some familiar faces and old aliens which was nice. The characters (especially Ben) are not so one dimensional anymore which can be good but that could work both ways…I’ll get to that. The main thing that I am incredibly grateful to Season 3 of Alien Force is how they unretconned their previous retcon of Gwen’s powers just enough to allow magic to exist again with the reintroduction of Charmcaster, with Gwen’s Anodite heritage explaining her innate ability at magic rather than being the sole basis for her powers which is a bit more acceptable although I am still not a fan of Anodites in general. Some of the episodes were admittedly good, my personal favourite being “Above and Beyond”. Also, despite looking like what happens when you fuse Tony the Tiger with Wolverine, Rath is easily one of the best parts of season 3 and UAF in general because of his personality.

Cons: Plotholes. Lots and lots of plotholes along with some more retcons. Why is the Omnitrix suddenly a wireless receiver connecting to Primus when it was clearly established that it was a DNA storage device? Why can the Omnitrix now just slip off Ben’s hand like a regular watch despite the fact that it is bonded to him? How did Ben's aliens manage to escape the Omnitrix when they tried to hack it? Kevin is now also an alien rather than being a mutated human. This itself isn’t that bad but the reveal of Max’s old partner Devin Levin just begs the question: why did Max never reach out to 11 year old Kevin in the original series and try to help his ex-partner’s son? Then there's Ben's personality - he does a complete 180 from being a mature and serious individual to an arrogant and immature jerk who's full of himself. Now granted, I like how this Ben isn't Mr Perfect anymore and has flaws, but S3 Alien Force Ben makes 10 year old Ben feel like a mature hero in comparison - one of the reasons that I liked "The Con of Rath" is because Ben himself was only on screen for about three minutes lol. While some of the S3 stories were good, some were just awful such as "Fool's Gold". And AF Vilgax was generic and boring without any of the menace that he had in the original series.

Ultimate Alien
Pros: By this point you've basically got used to the trio and I think that they felt so much more like real people rather than cliches like they did in Alien Force. They blended Ben's heroic nature with his cockiness and fun-loving nature pretty decently most of the time, Gwen was far better since she was now feisty again like she was in the original while also being the level headed and smartest, and Kevin was as snarky as ever. Their interactions and chemistry with each other is pretty much the main thing which drives Ultimate Alien and differentiates it from Alien Force. I liked the themes that they were going for such as Ben dealing with fame and the consequences of that, and personally I actually found the one-off episodes such as "Video Games" pretty enjoyable with the problems only arising when they came right in the middle of a story arc. The Andromeda 5 were interesting aliens and each of their episodes is unique in its own right, Aggregor was a solid villain and the Andromeda 5/Map of Infinity arc was probably the peak of Ultimate Alien and its storytelling. I also appreciate how they attempted to give Charmcaster her own arc.

Cons: Oh boy...I have a few. It once again felt like it was trying too hard to be dark and gritty, with the main offender being the Ultimate Kevin arc. To this day I still have no clue why Ben was willing to spare Vilgax in AF, save the guardian of the Perplahexahedron at the cost of getting the last piece of the Map of Infinity, but then just suddenly decides that Kevin needs to die despite having more personal connection to him than any of the others? The Ultimate Kevin arc did have potential and I see the ideas which the writers were trying to go for - perhaps even suggesting Ben getting dangerously close to becoming the coldhearted Ben 10,000. But once again it is the ideas vs execution aspect which UA does not deliver on, and the fact that Kevin is never at all held responsible for his actions because "the powers made him do it" is frankly stupid - surely that should apply to other insane superpowered characters in fiction like the Green Goblin? There were numerous other plot holes which just kinda ruined the story a bit, and the Diagon arc was a massive snooze fest with the only interesting part being Old George (before he was revealed to actually be a good guy). The rest of the Diagon arc had the most generic villain, Vilgax being shoehorned into the plot and the lamest final battle, ending with the eternally memeable line: "You....stabbed me!" because that's all the fight consisted of. The Ultimate Aliens felt like something out of a fanfiction and asides from Ultimate Echo Echo they were a little underwhelming, not to mention how we only got about 8 Ultimate Aliens and they were scarcely used despite literally being in the show's title. The animation also got a bit clunky though I can't blame the animators much given that their budget wasn't that high.

Omniverse
Pros: I appreciate how the series tried to inject some fresh air and adventure back into the franchise. Most of the episodes were now set at day and the ones which were at night still looked good possibly because of the artstyle and colour pallete. The concept of Undertown was genius and it is a very nice transition phase from the present day to Ben 10,000s future where aliens and humans are living together pretty much in harmony. Some of the new rogues and villlains were great - Khyber was very unique and threatening in the earlier seasons of Omniverse and although some people don't like the Nemetrix, I thought that it suited Khyber's needs and gave Ben a new challenge. Malware was excellently implemented and the arc involving him was one of the best story arcs that the franchise has ever had, especially in terms of Ben himself growing as a character. There were some really interesting ideas in there such as the concept of Ben 23 who highlighted just how important Grandpa Max was to Ben's growth, especially when you compare 23 side by side with Prime Ben. They tried to add a lot of diversity back to the universe which again, I appreciate, at the same time as giving almost every alien from across the franchise some screen time. Rook was also a surprisingly good character and was someone whom you could root for.

Cons: While UAF felt like it was trying too hard to be dark, Omniverse felt like it was trying too hard to be humourous. For example, Ben always shooting for Humoungasaur but getting a different alien. Granted this was sorta funny until when the Omnitrix gave him Humoungasaur for the first time in the season 1 finale (which was admittedly a sweet payoff) but after that it got VERY annoying. The most infamous example of this is the Contemalia scene in the final episode where Ben sees these beings as the closest thing to his heart. You'd expect that to be Grandpa Max, or his parents, or Gwen, or even Rook, right? Nope, they appear as godamn Mr Smoothy Mascots. This exaggerated focus on humour dampens a lot of moments in the series and makes it less impactful. Ben himself feels aloof as a character and doesn't seem to recognise the gravity of a situation most of the time. I like him being cocky and taunting villains but a lot of the time he feels more immature than his 10 year old self which is incredibly frustrating since he has been through so much and to see him regress like that feels wrong (though imo he isn't quite as bad as AF S3 Ben). It has it's fair share of plotholes and retcons as well, which are more commonly hated by the fandom than the UAF because the OV team were blatantly obvious about them. The most infamous of these is the Rooters arc and while I understand that they were trying to make it more like the original series with mutants and magic and whatnot, fixing retcons with more retcons is not right.

Overall every series has its strong points as well as areas where they could've improved upon, and although my favourite is the original I like how all of them brought something new to the table.