Characters / Ben 10: Main Characters

Ben 10 franchise character index
Main Characters (Ben Tennyson) | Omnitrix Aliens
Villains premiering in: The Original Series (Vilgax, Forever Knights) | Alien Force | Ultimate Alien | Omniverse | The Specials | The 2016 series
Supporting Characters

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Ben Tennyson/Ben 10

See his own page.

Gwen Tennyson

Gwendolyn "Gwen" Tennyson (Lucky Girl)

Voiced by: Meagan Smith (Original Series), Ashley Johnson (Alien Force to Omniverse), Montse Hernandez (Reboot)

Portrayed by: Galadriel Stineman (Alien Swarm)

"They can't torment Ben like that! Only I can torment Ben like that!"

Ben's cousin and original sidekick. Despite being the same age of him, Gwen is a Child Prodigy surprisingly mature and smart for her age, mastering various classes as school and with some practice in martial arts. Her snarking, rational personality often clashed with Ben's, causing their relationship to be very explosive. Eventually, she calmed down as Ben matured and they ended up with a more affectionate relationship.

Though she initially had no power of her own, Gwen happened to discover herself aptitudes for magic over the course of her adventures with Ben, eventually stealing a spellbook from Charmcaster and using it to improve herself. It was later revealed her magic skills came from her grandmother Verdona, who was a Mana-manipulating Energy Being from an alien species known as the Anodites.

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All Series

• Action Girl: Even before she gained powers of her own, she could kick butt. As the series progresses, she grows into one of the world's most powerful superheroes.
• Academic Athlete: She has good grades and knows judo.
• Alternate Continuity: Omniverse and a "What If?" episode in the original series revealed that there is at least one universe where Gwen is the one who gains the Omnitrix.
• Animal Motifs: She had a cat motif as a child, between her trademark cat shirt, large green eyes, abilities with magic and cat-themed costume as "Lucky Girl".
• Arch-Enemy: While most villains in the series either target Ben or his whole group, Gwen's most personal feuds are with Charmcaster and Darkstar. Charmcaster is the original owner of Gwen's spellbook and her main rival in magical prowess, while Darkstar has a particular lust for Gwen's beauty and powerful mana.
• Barrier Warrior: At the beginning of Alien Force Gwen uses energy to make shields and barriers to fight, though as time goes on she starts using spells again and pure energy blasts.
• Big Sister Instinct: Despite their constant arguments, it's made clear on several occasions that Gwen does in fact care for her cousin and will always try to help him when needed.
  Gwen: They can't torment Ben like this! Only I can!
• Birthday Buddies: She and Ben share the same birthday. This fueled their conflict with each other in the original series era.
• Blonde, Brunette, Redhead: She's the redhead to Lucy's blonde and Sunny's brunette.
• Blue Is Heroic: Outfit-wise, she's generally associated with the color blue.
• Closet Geek: For all that Ben is the superhero fanboy, Gwen was the one who made a superhero costume.
• Damsel in Distress: Especially in the original series, as for all her abilities, she's still a young human girl and often needed to be rescued. In the later series she's a more competent fighter, but her mana shields often break in battle, rendering her unconscious and forcing either Ben or Kevin to save her.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Unleashing the full extent of her Anodite powers potentially makes her even more powerful than Ben, being powerful enough to defeat the Highbreed singlehandedly and utterly annihilate all of Ben's Ultimate Forms at once. However, since she hasn't gone through the 75 years of formal training required to fully control these powers, doing so for extended periods of time will destroy her identity and memories of her family.
• Dating What Daddy Hates: Word of God is that Gwen's parents don't approve of Kevin, but are painfully aware that trying to tell him to stop seeing their daughter would be Bullying a Dragon. With that said, neither Frank nor Natalie express any distaste towards Kevin when they meet him in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
• Demoted to Extra: In Omniverse, where she's now attending college for her academics, in which her partner Kevin joins her.
• Deuteragonist: Until she gets Demoted to Extra in Omniverse, Gwen is only behind Ben himself as the show's most important character. Even after this, she's still the most prominent female in the series.
• Graceful Ladies Like Purple:
  • Occasionally, she's seen wearing her first few Lucky Girl costumes (which have purple accents on them) from the original series to Ultimate Alien.
  • An inherent example: because she's part-Anodite who possesses the power of Mana, not only she's able to use such power as a late bloomer (such as projectiles), but can also physically transorm into a purple being herself (which garnered its greatest prominence in Omniverse whenever she's in her Lucky Girl persona).
• Full-Contact Magic: Gwen is an expert martial artist, and almost all her spells and energy attacks are accompanied by gymnastic moves.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Gwen's a prodigy who can instantly master anything, be it athletics, academics, and even the Omnitrix in a "What-If" episode, in which she's instantly better at using it than Ben ever was.
• Imagination-Based Superpower: Her mana abilities are very similar to the Green Lantern, allowing her to form almost any kind of construct she can think of.
• Improvised Platform: She can generate platforms made of mana energy for mobility in a pinch.
• Kung-Fu Wizard: Gwen is trained in both magic and martial arts.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Not at the same extent as Ben, but despite being strategic and intelligent by nature, there are times where she recklessly charges herself, even if she risks her life, in spite of anyone's objections.
• Living Lie Detector: She can see through other people, either Ben or Kevin. Justified, since she is skilled on magic and with her magical powers she can tell whenever some is lying or telling the truth.
• Magical Girl: In the Original Series, she found a magical trinket which granted her magic powers, donned a costume, and called herself "Lucky Girl". The only thing she was missing was the Transformation Sequence. In Omniverse, she replicates the costume with her Andodite powers.
• Magic Is Feminine:
  • Ben 10: Gwen starts learning magic after acquiring Charmcaster's spellbook and serves the role of the heroes' magic expert from then on.
  • Ben 10: Alien Force: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" reveals that Ben and Gwen's grandmother Verdona is a member of an alien Mage Species known as the Anodites who can naturally manipulate Mana and that Gwen inherited her magical powers from her. Ben 10: Ultimate Alien introduces a female cousin of Gwen named Sunny who has also inherited magical powers from their grandmother. Verdona, Gwen, and Sunny are the only Anodites seen in the shows.
• Mana: This is what she gains (and what she's made of) in the sequels, thus making her a late bloomer in being able to use it completely. Because she's part-Anodite through her grandmother, Verdona, she has the ability to manipulate mana, or life energy. This also explains why she was able to do magic in the original series - magic is actually mana manipulation, and being part-Energy Being makes one like Gwen really good at it. It's also why she's more powerful than spellcasters like Charmcaster despite the latter studying, something that Charmcaster envies her for.
• Ms. Fanservice: Obviously not in the Original Series, also averted (she was 10 after all and this is not that kind of show), Alien Force has her wear a bikini a couple times.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: Her magical spells can be used to achieve anything the plot needs, which often leads to her pulling off ridiculously powerful feats that she inexplicably never uses again.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Technically, she is a Magical Girl Half-Human Hybrid ascended from a species of Aliens Mana-manipulating Energy Beings and a skilled martial artist to boot.
• One-Winged Angel: Being half-Anodite, Gwen is able to transform into a much more powerful Anodite form, but it's risky as the first time she nearly goes Drunk with Power.
• Out of Focus: In Omniverse, after she leaves Bellwood to go to college.
• Power Echoes: When she casts magic, her voice is accompanied by an echo filter.
• Recessive Super Genes: Gwen is revealed to possess the "spark" allowing her to manipulate mana. She inherited this from her Anodite grandmother, even though her father's generation was skipped.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: She's always the blue to whoever else, as the calmest and most logical member of the team.
• Significant Green-Eyed Redhead: Exactly What It Says on the Tin. She has green eyes, red hair, and is the Deuteragonist of the franchise as a whole.
• The Smart Girl: Both academically and situationally. Even at 10 years old, she was much smarter than the average kid.
• The Smurfette Principle: Gwen is the only girl in Ben's team.
• The Spock: Gwen is consistently portrayed as the most logical thinker of the group, regardless of series, although ironically, she's more of The Kirk in the original series when considering that show's main trio (alongside Ben and Max).
• Story-Breaker Power: The magical powers Gwen learns, and her alien heritage giving her innate superhuman capabilities that only further supplement that magical power, can basically do anything, from dimensional warps to dousing rods to straight up enough power to destroy enemy forces more efficiently than most of Ben's own forms can. The primary things holding her back are that she lacks formal training in all of it and thus is significantly limited, the full use of her powers can potentially kill her self-identity, and that she's still a Squishy Wizard who is very human in reflexes and durability; many antagonists opt to Shoot the Mage First so that she doesn't bend the plot and fights over her knee. Later series outright have her occupied elsewhere if her magical power is in the current story, such as having other sidekicks in her usual position.
• Super Power Lottery: Gwen's Anodite abilities give her a plethora of abilities.
• Teleportation: She can use teleport spells, but with the side effect of having a killer headache afterwards.
• True Blue Femininity: Save for Ultimate Alien and Alien Force season three, she's almost always in blue (including her Lucky Girl costume in Omniverse), and is the most prominent female in Ben's team.
• Tsundere: Type A when she was younger. She does care about Ben, but she seems to be near unable to express her affection for him other than by arguing with him. She even mentioned twice that no one can treat him like trash but her. Starting with Alien Force, she becomes a Type B tsundere, mainly towards Kevin and Ben.

Original Series

Classic (2005) series

• Badass Normal: For the first two seasons before taking Charmcaster's spell book and learning magic. Even before that, she wasn't useless, thanks to her far above average intelligence and exceptional athleticism and fighting skills for a 10 year old girl.
• Boyish Short Hair: Her hair only goes down to her neck, and it helps to reflect her brashness, snark and temper.
• Child Prodigy: She is really intelligent and aces school, she has great athleticism and martial arts training, and usually takes quickly to anything new she does, like learning magical spells or even how to use the Omnitrix in one alternate timeline episode. She's still not accepted into Bankcroft Academy, however.
• Cool Aunt: Implied to be this by her nephew in the future in "Ken 10".
• Designated Girl Fight: When facing the Negative 10, Gwen always goes one-on-one against Charmcaster, except the one time Rojo tried to get into the fight.
• Empowered Badass Normal: After she starts learning magic.
• Fiery Redhead: While she's actually quite level-headed most of the time, she can easily be angered by Ben's antics or by the Villain of the Week.
• Hypocrite: Played for Laughs mostly, but for all the times she scolds Ben for thinking of using his powers for his own benefit, she quickly changes her tune when it benefits her.
  • In "The Big Tick" she chastises Ben for trying to get himself a burger, but when she sees that the only thing to eat are worms Max found under a tree trunk, she immediately tries to dial the watch to get Ben to transform.
  • In "Under Wraps" she mocks Ben for not doing his chores only for Max to point out she didn't do her either (and immediately come up witha Ben-like excuse) later on she intially scolds Ben for trying to use the omntrix to cheat at his chores only for her to immediately cave in and let Ben do all the chores using his aliens while she relaxes.
  • In "The Unnaturals" Despite calling Bne a cheater for using Grey Matter to wina Music Pad, she has no problem keeping it herself at the end of the episode despite not winning it either.
  • And as shown that when she gets powers of her own (The Omnitrix in "Gwen 10", the charm of bezel as Llucky Girl and her own magic spells from Charmcaster spellbook), she has no problems using them for her own benefit or to goof off.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: Gwen when defending her cousin against Kai essentially just tells her that she (Kai) can't talk to Ben in the rude, condescending way she just did. Only she (Gwen herself) could do that.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: A different kind than Ben; she is short-tempered, abrasive, and often quite smug toward him, but her heart is in the right place, and she genuinely cares about him.
• The Kirk: For this show's main trio, she falls into this due to the mixture of her responsible and haughty attitudes.
• The Lancer: She's essentially Ben's number two most of the time. This creates a bit of a complex and even some conflict between the two when she tries to ascend from this role as Lucky Girl.
• Little Miss Badass: She starts off a Badass Normal, using her martial arts skills to take on a reanimated dinosaur and even knock out Rojo with one kick. Keep in mind, she's 10. Then she starts to learn magic towards the end of the series after obtaining Charmcaster's spell book and she becomes more badass from there.
• Little Miss Snarker: She's a 10-year-old girl and drops constant sassy one-liners, especially toward Ben.
• The Load: In the first season, her lack of powers and experience mostly relegated her to being a Damsel in Distress and an opposing voice to Ben. She does have her moments, however.
• No Man Should Have This Power: After claiming all five Charms of Bezel at the end of Lucky Girl, she notes how powerful she is now.
  I could fly, shoot out bolts of electricity, bring trees alive: I'd be unstoppable! Or, I guess I could just be me. (Proceeds to slam a shovel down on the Charms to destroy them)
• Overshadowed by Awesome: Often feels this way when comparing her to Ben and his Omnitrix. This becomes a plot point of "Be Afraid of the Dark" when her and Max try to prove they are as good a help as the watch is.
• Sarcastic Devotee: No matter how much she mocks Ben and criticizes his immaturity, she will always be there to help him when there is an actual danger. It goes so far that when Ben had a crush on Kai, Gwen mercilessly mocked him, yet did everything she could to help him and took his defense when Kai treated him like a pet at the end of the episode.
• Shorttank: A Tomboy with a Girly Streak who serves as the co-star to Ben, and while they, of course, aren't in a relationship, their constant argument really borders on Slap-Slap-Kiss.
• Temporary Bulk Change: In “Game Over”, when she gets stuck inside a Sumo Slammers game, a power-up gives her the body of a sumo wrestler for a few seconds.
• Token Wizard: Gwen was originally only acting as support to Ben's full-on muscle given to him by the omnitrix. After they manage to defeat Charmcaster, Gwen manages to get ahold of her spell-book, Gwen becoming proficient in the mystic arts.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: In the original series, she's usually the tomboy to another one-shot girl character.
  • She’s the tomboy to Kai's Girly Girl in "Benwolf". While she later became more snarky and sharp-tongued in Omniverse, in the original series Kai was quite soft-spoken and mellow. This, along with the fact that her role was being the love interest to Ben in the episode, contrasted strongly with the snarky and sharp-tongued, short-tempered Gwen. Kai also spent the episode getting captured a lot and played the role of Damsel in Distress while Gwen was a lot more active in joining in the action, even running straight towards the werewolf at one point.
  • In the episode "Ghostfreaked Out", she tries to enroll at Bankcroft Academy, where she plays the obvious tomboy to Tiffany's girly girl. Tiffany is a stuck-up, high class snobbish girl who doesn't take kindly to the antics of what she calls a "quality family". She hides her prejudice and harshness through a facade of welcoming politeness (which is easy to see through), as opposed to Gwen who just lets her anger and snarky comments out in the open. Tiffany wears lipstick, has long hair, and wears a skirt, as opposed to Gwen's more tomboyish appearance. Like the Kai example, Tiffany plays Damsel in Distress, being held hostage by the Circus Freaks, whilst Gwen gets in on the action and even manages to take one of the freaks down.
  • Later in season four, she first meets her cousin, Lucy Mann, the Flower Girl in the wedding episode. While she only appears briefly, her sheer level of femininity compared to Gwen is immediately clear and obvious. This dynamic between them would eventually continue to be present when they interacted again in Omniverse.
• Tomboy with a Girly Streak: She is short-tempered, willing to take parts in fight when she has the power to fight back, knows martial arts and spends her free time on a computer. She also enjoys shopping, learned how to dance, and was very eager to take part in the wedding of her cousin during Big Fat Alien Wedding.
• Took a Level in Badass: She goes from a powerless girl and occasional Damsel in Distress to a Magical Girl.

Alien Force & Ultimate Alien

Alien Force

^{Click here to see her Season 3 design}

^{Click here to see her Ultimate Alien design}

• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Develops an attraction to Kevin, eventually ending up in a relationship with him. Though she's also interested in his softer side, and would usually get mad after his "bad" side. Although Word of God stated once that this was a case of her liking "a project", eventually it was revealed in the flashback episodes of Omniverse that Gwen had always had a crush on Kevin since they were kids.
• Back from the Dead: In The Enemy of My Frenemy, Gwen's soul is offered up with every living being in Ledgerdomain, with Charmcaster trying to resurrect her father Spellbinder, who is eventually revived and while he is initially happy to be reunited with his daughter, he soon becomes disappointed in her for the price she paid to bring him back and willingly offers himself in exchange for the return of the souls, which is granted.
• Brainwashed and Crazy: When the Dagon takes control of her it leaves her mentally scarred afterward.
• Brought Down to Normal: This happens to her when Charmcaster drains her mana, leaving her powerless.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: She acts this way in Ultimate Alien toward Jennifer Nocturne and Sunny.
  • Subverted back in Alien Force, when she's angry about Kevin and Charmcaster kissing. She then reveals she's not angry at Charmcaster for kissing Kevin as she knows that was just part of an Evil Plan, but she's angry at Kevin for kissing her back.
• A Day in the Limelight: "It's Not Easy Being Gwen" is this, revolving around a day in her life.
• Dead Alternate Counterpart: When Gwen goes back to time and prevents Kevin's mutation, it creates an alternate timeline where Gwen is killed by Charmcaster.
• Deadpan Snarker: Post-Flanderization.
• Dude Magnet: In Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, she has attracted the infatuations of Kevin, Cooper, Michael, and Winston. However, Kevin and Cooper are hinted to have had a crush on her ever since the original series era when they were younger, which is confirmed in the flashback events of Omniverse.
• Energy Being: She has the ability to turn into one as part of her Anodite powers, though she rarely does it.
• Fiery Redhead: Moreso in the third season of Alien Force and Ultimate Alien.
• Flanderization: In the first two seasons of Alien Force, Gwen started off as a calm, soft-spoken and responsible person with occasional Tsundere outbursts. However, from the third season onwards, she has turned into a sternly serious, moody, stubborn, snarky, and occasionally aggressive teenager.
• Girliness Upgrade: She is significantly more feminine than she was back when she was a preteen.
• Glass Cannon: Her mana attacks and magical spells allow her to throw down with countless villains, but as she rejected her grandmother's Anodite offer, she's still human. Smashing her shields leaves her wide open to any opponent.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Moreso as time went on and her Tsundere traits were flanderized.
• Half-Human Hybrid: 1/4 Anodite. Anodites don't have DNA, so she's genetically full human.
• Heroic RRoD: Most notably happens to her when she uses her teleportation spell, which causes her to faint after use, due to exhaustion.
• Human Popsicle: Has the distinct misfortune of getting frozen on two different occasions, once◊ in Alien Force, and another time◊ in Ultimate Alien.
• Letting Her Hair Down: In the first two seasons of Alien Force and when wearing a plumber suit.
• Loose Lips: In "Hit'em Where They Live", after facing Zombozo again, she blurts out about Ben being used to be scared of clowns, despite not remembering him (or so it seemed). Kevin, upon learning of this, mocks him for it.
• Magic Skirt: In the first two seasons of Alien Force and in Ultimate Alien.
  • Averted in the episode "Andreas' Fault" where we see a view up Gwen's skirt. Though because she's wearing tights, it's just the outline.
• Ms. Fanservice: Gwen is all grown up, with a new outfit and noticeably bigger breasts and, as a time-displaced 10-year-old Ben noted, a bigger butt. She even has several scenes in swimsuits.
• Red Is Heroic: Switched out the blue in her outfits for red in Alien Force season 3 and Ultimate Alien.
• Shipper on Deck: She's very supportive of Ben and Julie's relationship in "Pier Pressure" and (literally) pushes Ben to ask her out.
• Team Mom: Ever since she became more mature than before as a teenager herself, she becomes this to both Ben and Kevin, keeping then both in check whenever they've encountered some form of trouble.
• Tomboyish Ponytail: In the third season of Alien Force, she starts tying her hair in a high ponytail, which ties in with a more short-tempered, tomboyish personality like she had in the original series.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: As of the third season of Alien Force, Gwen has regained some of her original Deadpan Snarker status and becomes short-tempered again. She also didn't show any remorse when she poured her smoothie on Ben, instead laughing at him, however, she still cares for everyone. In "Andreas' Fault" and "Couples Retreat" she became more bitter and uncaring towards Kevin, she also didn't care about his well-being.
• Took a Level in Kindness: Compared to the Original Series, she was much nicer and less abrasive toward Ben at the beginning of Alien Force. Then Season 3 happened...
• Voice of the Legion: Her Anodite form.
• The Worf Effect: She sometimes gets knocked out when her opponent breaks her mana shields.

Omniverse

Omniverse

^{Click here to see her 11-year-old design}

• Alternate Continuity: Gwen getting the Omnitrix was previously only a "What If" non-canon episode, but Omniverse reveals that there is an alternate timeline where Gwen gets it.
• Berserk Button: Getting pranked by her cousin Lucy would always frustrate her.
• Clark Kenting: As Lucky Girl, she wears a shirt with the exact same cat motif as her casual clothes, and yet most people don't even notice.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Defied; when she learns the details about Kevin being engaged with Princess Looma, she actually feels sorry for Looma and blames Kevin for playing her just for a piece of his car.
• Compressed Vice: In "Mud is Thicker Than Water", Gwen suddenly shows an Irrational Hatred for her cousin Lucy to the point of which that she flat-out assumes with no real proof Lucy must be The Mole inside the Plumbers. Nothing in the Original Series suggested anything about this hatred and it's brought up only so Gwen can learn An Aesop about it only to never be mentioned again.
• A Day in the Limelight: Although she's Demoted to Extra, episodes that mainly takes place in Friedkin University focuses around her (Mystery Incopreal, Charm School, Third Time's The Charm). This is was supposed to lead into a potential spin-off about Lucky Girl. Also, in "Mud is Thicker Than Water", the episode focuses about her and her supsicion of her cousin Lucy.
• Demoted to Extra: It’s not as much as Kevin, but this only applies to some episodes involving 16-year-old Gwen. With that being said, she is still often an important character when she shows up.
• Dude, Where's My Respect?: Downplayed. While the students at her university admire Lucky Girl, it's not as much as their admiration for Ben, much to her annoyance. He even gets a college degree before her without even attending!
• Flanderization: Moreso than the third season of Alien Force, making her moodier.
  • In addition, her character design in this iteration takes the concept she had back in the original series (intelligence) and highlights it even more boldly through the fact that she is now freckled and sports glasses to compliment her nerdy girl theme.
• Insistent Terminology: Prefers to be called by her full name, Gwendolyn when she starts attending college. This matches up with the original series, where future Gwen said that she'd been going by Gwendolyn since college.
• Mind over Matter: She regains the Charm of Bezel that gives the user telekinesis.
• Poorly Disguised Pilot: Her college episodes were this for a potential Lucky Girl spinoff for CN Asia.
• Put on a Bus: In the first episode, along with Kevin. She leaves for college and Kevin goes to live near her.
• Secret Identity: "Mystery, Incorporeal" shows that she's still fighting crime as Lucky Girl, and is trying to keep her identity secret. However, she does publicly use her abilities as Gwen, but Lucky Girl serves more of as a Second Super-Identity.
• Teen Genius: Goes to college early in the first episode and takes Kevin with her.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Moreso than in the third season of Alien Force. Her jealousy toward Ben gets more emphasis, she is much more likely to get angry and threaten to hurt either Ben or Kevin (she throws them off a flying ship in “Showdown, Part 2”, though this was played for comedy), and “Mud is Thicker Than Water” retcons her having a borderline Irrational Hatred of her cousin Lucy (though thankfully she gets better by the end of the episode)
• Took a Level in Kindness: She mellows out in her appearances toward the end of the series after she decides to start going by "Gwendolyn".
• Youthful Freckles: Both her 11-year-old and 16-year-old designs in Omniverse.

Reboot Series

Reboot (2016)

• The Ace: Averted, with her being less prone to immediately succeed when trying new things compared to her previous incarnation; when she was stuck in Ben's body, she couldn't use the aliens well without his coaching.
• Action Survivor: She attacked Vilgax with a fire extinguisher and lived to tell the tale.
• Adaptational Nice Guy: While still more mature than Ben, she is much less sarcastic and patronizing towards him, with the two now behaving like close friends and openly enjoying each other's company. This is in stark difference to the regular fighting and snark that formed their dynamic as children in the classic continuity.
• Adaptational Wimp: While she's still incredibly athletic and takes part in the action, she never gains superpowers of any kind by the end of the show's run, unlike in the classic continuity where she became a prolific magic user. This goes on to become a source of insecurity, as she occasionally wonders how much she's actually contributing to any given adventure.
• All Love Is Unrequited: She has a big crush on Ryan, Simon's older brother. Not only he is clearly not interested, but she can barely make him realize she exist.
  • She ironically subjects Kevin to this, showing no sign of reciprocating his crush on her.
• Animal Motifs: Cats. The reboot completely runs with Gwen's cat motif from the previous timeline: she attends a cat-centric convention at one point, enters a game show while dressed as a cat (an outfit she uses again from time-to-time), loves cat-themed paraphernalia, and even ends up with a cat-themed set of Powered Armor in the season three finale.
• Arch-Enemy: To Charmcaster after "The Charm Offensive" despite not having magical powers. Gwen is both thrilled and scared about it.
• Big Damn Heroes: Attacking Vilgax just as he was about to finish Ben surely qualifies.
• Big Eater: In "Assault on Pancake Palace", she won a pancake eating contest against several adults.
• Cat Girl: In "Rath of Con", she cosplays as one while at a con dedicated to them.
• Cheated Angle: Wherever the back of her hair points to depends on the direction she is facing.
• Cool Big Sis: In spite of being only 7 seconds older than her cousin, she serves this role to Ben in many occasions.
• Cute Monster Girl: As Stinkfly in "Innervasion".
• Decomposite Character: An odd example. In the classic series, Lucky Girl was an alias she created to fight crime. Here, it's a magical girl series that she's is a huge fan of.
• Didn't Think This Through: One episode has Gwen advising Ben to use Heatblast in an underwater fight. Subverted as she wasn't counting on the monsters grabbing Heatblast and bringing him to the water.
• Does Not Like Spam: In contrast with Ben, she doesn't like waffles, preferring pancakes instead. An earlier episode has her wonder if a hotel has a waffle maker, suggesting she does like them, but not as much as Ben.
• I Just Want to Be Special: In "The Charm Offensive", she laments the fact that while Ben can transform into super-powerful aliens, she is just normal.
• No-Sell: After the first time, she learns to resist Morningstar's energy draining.
• Not So Above It All: She is much more prone to join Ben on his shenanigans in this version, while still posing as his voice of reason.
• Oblivious to Love: She is totally clueless about Kevin's Precocious Crush on her. Even Ben notices and repeatedly talks about it, but she dismisses it as one of his bad jokes.
• Oh, Crap!: She is initially enthusiastic about having Charmcaster as an Arch-Enemy… until she realizes she (Gwen) has no powers of her own.
• Only Sane Woman: Not as much as the old version, but she still got a lot of advice to give Ben.
• Spanner in the Works: In "The 11th Alien": Vilgax would have obtained the Omnitrix from Ben, had she not discovered the natural disasters were caused not by Shock Rock, but the Weatherheads.
• Took a Level in Badass: In "Innervasion", when she uses the Omnitrix to transform into Stinkfly and fight the High Override.
• What Would X Do?: She had Max put a laser cannon on their boxcar and use it to fight the Fulmini and enter the Omnitrix because it seemed like "The Ben thing to do".

Kevin Levin

Kevin Ethan Levin (formerly Kevin 11)

Voiced by: Greg Cipes (Alien Force, Ultimate Alien, Omniverse), Yuri Lowenthal (Cartoon Network Punch Time Explosion XL)

"I've done stuff that I'm not proud of. Stuff that if you knew, you'd probably never trust me again."

Kevin was originally a street troublemaker kid with the ability to absorb energy, who got regularly bullied and considered as a freak. Following a short-lived partnership with Ben he accidentally absorbed energy from the Omnitrix, causing him to mimic Ben's shapeshifting powers, but eventually lost control of them, causing him to end up trapped in the form of a grotesque, chaotic amalgam of Ben's ten original aliens. Blaming Ben for this, he went on a vendetta against him and dedicated himself to try to kill him, only to eventually end up trapped in the Null Void. Following the Time Skip between the original series and Alien Force, Kevin eventually recovered from his psychosis and mutation while in prison, and was able to go back to Earth where he starts working as a Con Man. Events led him to meet with Ben again and be forced to team up with him. Despite a harsh beginning, the two eventually reconcile, and Kevin becomes a valuable ally as well as Gwen's Love Interest.

For tropes relating to him as Kevin 11 in the original series, visit the Ben 10 Villains page.

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Alien Force & Ultimate Alien

• Anti-Hero: Though he fights for good, his checkered past makes him a great deal shadier than Ben and Gwen and willing to make deals with criminals such as Argit and Vulkanus to help in their missions. He's also dead set on murdering Ragnarok to avenge his dead father.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite living in a world with aliens, Kevin doesn't believe in magic, and keeps saying Gwen's powers come from alien bloodline. He is partially right. This seemed to fade over time. During "In Charm's Way," he told Charmcaster (disguised as a girl named Caroline) that Gwen was "made of magic."
• The Atoner: He officially becomes this after seeing Magister Labrid die and turns over a new leaf as a promise.
• Back from the Dead: In The Enemy of My Frenemy, his soul is offered up with every living being in Ledgerdomain, with Charmcaster trying to resurrect her father Spellbinder, who is eventually revived and while he is initially happy to be reunited with his daughter, he soon becomes disappointed in her for the price she paid to bring him back and willingly offers himself in exchange for the return of the souls, which is granted.
• Beyond Redemption: Near the end of season 1, when he's remutated by absorbing energy from the Ultimatrix to defeat Aggregor. The result: Kevin becomes an Ax-Crazy Power Parasite who goes on a rampage absorbing the powers of everyone he comes across. After trying to reason with him and failing, Ben eventually becomes convinced that Kevin's too far gone and they have to put him down. When Gwen approaches Grandpa Max for help on the subject, she's shocked when Max agrees with Ben's approach, despite admitting that he never thought Ben would go that far.
  Ben: He's never gonna stop- unless I stop him. For good.
• Big Bad: Is driven insane by absorbing Aggregor's powers in the first season of Ultimate Alien.
• The Big Guy: He serves as the muscle on Ben's Team and has a tendency to act before thinking.
• Body Horror: Suffers from this 3 times in the series as a result of being exposed to the Omnitrix's energy (1st in the original series, 2nd in Alien Force, and 3rd in Ultimate Alien, 4th in Omniverse). He manages to revert back to normal as each series progresses.
• Book Dumb: Plays at this, but is in fact not. Gwen notes that he's good at math and a top-notch engineer, as well as having a knowledge of history. It helps that he literally hasn't gone to school since the age of 11, and most of what he knows he learned on the streets by doing rather than from books by studying. However, some terms like "Sacrelige" confuse him.
• Brilliant, but Lazy: He has a very laidback approach to life and could probably do a lot better if he put in some effort. In Omniverse, he does just this and manages to get a paying job.
• Cool Car: His green sports car is the signature vehicle of the Alien Force/Ultimate Alien era, and is constantly being updated with Plumber tech and criminal tech alike. It also tends to get destroyed a lot in battle, much to Kevin's chagrin.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Starting with Alien Force, he pulls a Heel–Face Turn despite his Dark and Troubled Past and mainly black color scheme.
• Deadpan Snarker: Even in a trio where all three members are snarky teenagers, Kevin is easily the biggest one of the three, dropping sarcastic comments at nearly every opportunity. His dry sense of humor ends up as the main source of comic relief throughout Alien Force and Ultimate Alien.
  (a DNAlien crashes onto Kevin, turned metal, while running) "That's a work-related accident. You can sue!"
• Disappeared Dad: Devin Levin. KIA, courtesy of Ragnarok. Or so we are led to believe. Omniverse retconned Devin Levin into a false memory implanted by Servantis to manipulate Max into watching over Kevin. The identity of Kevin's father is unknown; though a photograph of Devin does suggest that he was a real person, the explanation for his disappearance is most likely far more mundane.
• Distressed Dude: He tends to get captured on occasion due to now being the weakest of the group.
• Ditzy Genius: While being an expert in mechanics and alien tech, he's clueless and naïve when it comes to subjects here on Earth.
  Gwen: If it isn't about his car... excuse me, his "ride", or some alien tech, he's pretty much oblivious.
• Due to the Dead: His Heel–Face Turn was influenced in part by his improved mental state, but the thing that kickstarted it was wanting to honor Magister Labrid's Heroic Sacrifice.
• The Engineer: Serves as this role on the team, as he's the go to guy for alien-tech.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Kevin notes in "Save the Last Dance" that even when he was at his most insane and evil as Kevin 11, he never liked Ghostfreak very much, which explains why he never used any of the Ectonurite's abilities during the Original Series.
  • Despite being a staunch Anti-Hero who's done some shady things in his life, Kevin is so horrified when he witnesses Jarrett of the Pantophage eat the Tiffin that he actually faints.
  • In the sixth episode of Ultimate Alien, Kevin backs out of freeing P'Andor from his suit when he realizes the amount of radiation he would be releasing would be incredibly deadly for Earth.
• Fire-Forged Friends: He goes from being one of Ben's worst enemies to one of his closest friends. As Ben puts it in the episode "Perplexahedron", Kevin went from the little kid trying to kill him every week to the older brother he never had.
• Freak Out: Kevin goes insane again in Ultimate Alien after absorbing the aliens in the Ultimatrix, nearly killing Aggregor and threatening to absorb the baby Celestialsapien for himself.
• Genius Bruiser: He is the team member who relies on brute force the most, and his powers enable him to gain Super-Strength and durability. However, he is also exceptionally knowledgeable about alien technology and is a Gadgeteer Genius.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Half human, half Osmosian. This is a retcon from the original series, which intended for him to be a mutant. Omniverse goes closer to the intention from the original series by retconning Osmosians into being a human subspecies, not aliens.
• Heel–Face Return: He's a small-time crook with a heart of gold who is easily persuaded to join Ben and Gwen in the first episode of Alien Force, which is a far cry from how he was when last left off in the original series.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: Went from neutral to evil shortly before his debut, turned good at the start of Alien Force, turned evil again 3/4 through Ultimate Alien's first season, then reverted back to good in the Season Finale.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Non-fatal example. He saves the universe and defeats Aggregor, but at the cost of his sanity.
• Heroic Willpower: A flashback in Ultimate Alien reveals he had to concentrate to get back to normal from his transformation in the original series.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: He tries to keep up his ruffian attitude, but he has genuinely changed and is now a force for good.
• Knight of Cerebus: During the "Ultimate Kevin" arc, where he becomes one of the darkest villains and the show takes on a new level of seriousness. During this time he becomes a deranged, relentless, Power Parasite who absorbs the powers of everyone he comes across. Ben also displays a darker side where he becomes determined to put Kevin down.
• Long-Haired Pretty Boy: His hair reaches his shoulders. By Omniverse, it's a full-blown mullet.
• Lovable Rogue: Downplayed. He still gets involved with the criminal underground every now and then, but less and less as the series goes on. Still, even when he does, his charisma and wit almost always keep him entertaining.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: Quoted verbatim against Ragnarok, who killed Kevin's now-retconned father. Then invoked a second time in Ultimate Alien for his old mentor Kwarrel.
• Punny Name: Kevin E. Levin can also be read as Kevin 11, his old supervillain name from the original series. Also doubles as Rhyming Names if you don't count the "E".
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He's the red to both Ben and Gwen's blue, as the most hotheaded and aggressive member of the trio.
• Redemption Demotion/Redemption Promotion: Both at once! While he doesn't use the powers he had in the original series, and is the most likely of the trio to get beaten up in battle, he's become smarter during the Time Skip and continues to show it as he spends more time with Ben and Gwen. This especially shows halfway through Ultimate Alien's first season.
• Reformed Criminal: Mostly. By his own admission, he's not entirely trustworthy—and a lot of the tech he has in the back of his ride is stolen. Though in his defense, most of the ones he stole from were enemies they were fighting.
• The Resenter: When he goes insane again after absorbing the Ultimatrix's power Kevin reveals a great deal of resentment towards Ben. Ben always beat him when they were kids, Ben becomes a world-famous superhero while Kevin gets turned into a monster, Ben gets a happy homelife... it's always Ben who gets everything. It's not really made clear how much of this is just the energy-driven insanity speaking and how much of it is real.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After being driven insane in Ultimate Alien he decides to go on one of these whenever he's not absorbing other people's powers.
• Running Gag:
  • His precious precious car keeps on getting destroyed.
  • "Not my ride!"
  • Omniverse lampshades and justifies it by revealing the reason he was still able to always repair his car despite all the wrecking it took is that he used an indestructible piece of Tetramand tech he got from his engagement with Princess Looma.
• Same Character, But Different: It's hard to deny that Kevin is an entirely different character than what he was in the original series — he went from being a sociopathic, sadistic monster to a shady and sarcastic but good-hearted Jerk with a Heart of Gold. Its to the point where his villainous persona has its own seperate page on this very site. Alien Force and Ultimate Alien go to great lengths to explain this drastic change, most notably through the reveal that Osmosians go insane when they absorb energy.
• Slasher Smile: When he's re-corrupted with energy in Ultimate Alien, these return.
• Shape Shifter Mode Lock: Throughout Alien Force's third season, Kevin is trapped in a mutation made of various materials he had absorbed over the first two seasons.
• Speed Demon: Kevin has shades of this from Ben 10: Alien Force onwards, where he is obsessed with his Cool Car which he modifies with alien tech to make it one of the fastest cars on the planet.
• Superpowered Evil Side: His energy-crazy persona comes off suspiciously like this. His personality reverts almost entirely to what it was as Kevin 11, as if they had different memories, and only comes out when he absorbs energy and becomes more superpowered.
• Super Power Lottery:
  • Energy Absorption: His original power. Ultimate Alien explains why he never uses it again after the original series.
    • Combo Platter Powers: Absorbing energy from an alien will cause him to gain some of the alien's characteristics and powers. When absorbing energy directly from the Omnitrix, he will eventually turn into a monstrous, chaotic amalgam of several aliens.
    • Voluntary Shapeshifting: Initially, when he absorbed energy from the Omnitrix the first time. Didn't last however...
    • All Your Powers Combined: He at first had Ben's ability to transform, but after getting frustrated with Ben just giving up on him, he turns into an amalgamation of the original ten aliens.
  • Power Copying: He can also steal the powers of others, and integrate them into himself.
  • Material Mimicry: Capable of turning his body into various metals and/or solid materials that he touches, due to being part Osmosian. Ultimate Alien reveals he learned this from Kwarrel.
    • Super-Strength: When absorbing tough materials like stone, steel, or Taydenite, his strength increases immensely. He once casually blocked a punch from Vilgax, and in another episode, he picked up a car and hit a raging Ultimate Humungousaur so hard he went flying across the block.
    • Rubber Man: He once turned his body rubber after touching the tires of his car.
    • Midseason Upgrade: He gets shape-shifting powers in "The Vengeance Of Vilgax" that make him stronger, which he retains even after being restored to human form. It made a plot point in that if he hadn't got them as they'd have been unable to save the world from Hex. This really helps increase his usefulness to the team.
    • Healing Factor: It's revealed at one point that Kevin's armored form also has regenerative powers, much like Diamondhead. This comes in handy when he gets his arm cut clean off and is able to restore it in seconds.
• Tall, Dark, and Handsome: After the Time Skip, Kevin has become a well-built, dark-haired pretty boy, who Gwen falls for almost as quickly as he does her.
• Tall, Dark, and Snarky: As stated above, teenage Kevin is tall, good-looking, and dark-haired. He's also the biggest Deadpan Snarker of the series.
• Teens Are Monsters: Inverted, he was evil as a child, but turned good after becoming a teenager.
• Token Evil Teammate: Starts out as this in Alien Force, getting involved in shady affairs with criminals and generally showing dodgy behavior, but he quickly grows past it.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: In the third season of Alien Force, Kevin is more of a jerk than usual. Much of this is caused by the angst of his new mutation, but there are also episodes that relapse him into his criminal past, such as when he profits off of a warring planet by selling them weapons.
• Tritagonist: He's the third member of the Power Trio up until Omniverse, and plays an incredibly important role in its dynamic.
• Troubled, but Cute: He starts Alien Force as a shady con artist with a lot to atone for, but Gwen can't help but be attracted to him anyway.
• Tsundere: Type A. He's hotheaded and angsty, and refuses to ask Gwen out despite their obvious feelings for each other. Fortunately, he does become more emotionally open by the second season.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In "Hit'em Where They Live", when, Ben chastises Gwen for letting Zombozo's alliance kidnap his mother, Sandra when she was supposed to protect her. Kevin calls out on Ben's callousness when Gwen regrets failing to protect her aunt. Afterward, Ben backs down and apologizes to Gwen for his harsh behavior.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: Used in Ultimate Alien to rectify his extreme change in character as a kid. He falls off the proverbial wagon again later on.
• The Worf Effect: He's usually always the one who gets his ass kicked the most in battle.

Omniverse

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• Abusive Parents: Word of God is that Kevin's real father was abusive towards him (like suggested in the original series), and that he ran away from him. After the Rooters were defeated, Kevin's memories of his real father returned.
• Anti-Hero: Kevin's still a hero at the end of the day, but his few focus episodes in Omniverse tend to focus on the darker parts of his past, such as his Con Man years with Argit and his history with the Rooters. "Many Happy Returns" also has him pawn off his engagement with Looma onto Ben with no remorse.
  Kevin: Ben's like a brother to me. Even when I don't deserve it.
• The Chew Toy: Many of his appearances involve him getting injured... a lot. The Alien Force/Ultimate Alien era showed spades of this, but Omniverse really drove it home.
• A Day in the Limelight: Even though he is less important than Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, he has some episodes dedicated to him such as "OTTO Motives", "The Rooters of All Evil", "Weapon XI: Part 1", and "Weapon XI: Part 2" which he appears in the flashbacks and present.
• Demoted to Extra: Even when he does come back, he usually accomplishes even less than his Alien Force/Ultimate Alien self. For example, in "Showdown", his role in the whole episode consists in... befriending Khyber's pet. and in Mud Is Thicker Than Water he only makes a cameo appearance along with Rook who go to an auto show instead of helping Ben, Gwen, and Lucy with Pysphon and his thugs. However, he does have a few episodes focusing on him.
• Didn't Think This Through: In "OTTO Motives" both his car and Rook's truck got totaled in the fight between Ben and Villain of the Week OTTO, who stole Warlord Gar's collection of the most valuable cars in the galaxy. As a sign of gratitude for saving the collection, Gar gave the car of his choice to Kevin, who chose the one made of solid taydenite. As he explained later he planned to sell it, so both he and Rook could rebuild their own rides. However, as Ben pointed out, it'll be very hard to find a buyer for something that expensive.
  • However, he eventually realizes he can transmute himself into taydenite, use his molded weapons to chip a bit off the car, and use the bits as money.
• Fake Defector: Servantis notes he could never quite read or control Kevin's mind. Kevin uses this to his advantage by pretending to join him, then betraying him at the last second while freeing the Amalgam Kids from his control.
• Fake Memories: The Rooters are revealed to have implanted some in his head to get him close to Ben. One of these false memories is his Osmosian father, Devin Levin.
• Flanderization: His character design in this iteration takes the concept he had back in the original series (ruffian) and highlights it even more boldly through the fact that he now wears tattered clothes with eyeliner and looks like he just got back from a mosh pit show.
• Good Scars, Evil Scars: Receives an X-shaped scar on his chin from being whipped by Swampfire. The same scar he had as Kevin 11,000 in the original series.
• Half-Human Hybrid: Retconned. He's not an alien at all, "Osmosians" are just humans with a unique genetic component (mutants) that gives them powers, Kevin's being energy/matter absorption.
• Manchurian Agent: Proctor Servantis altered his memories to get him close to Ben.
• Never My Fault: Seems to have developed this problem again. When Princess Looma first shows up, he makes up many excuses as to why he bailed on her before finally just saying "It wasn't my fault!" Even by the end of the episode, he hasn't learned any better.
• No Yay: In-universe, his reaction to seeing Bullfrag flirting with Attea is to nearly throw up.
• Out of Focus: He accompanies Gwen when she leaves Bellwood to go to college, thus is absent for most of the series.
• Put on a Bus: In the first episode, Gwen leaves for college, and he leaves to live near the campus.
  • Not as You Know Them: When he comes back, he now has a stubble, paler skin, some alterations in his outfit like dark stripes along his sleeves, and a shadier, more unpleasant attitude toward Ben and Rook.
• Tomato in the Mirror: He finds out that just about everything people know of him and what he knows of himself is wrong and based around false memories planted in him by Proctor Servantis of the Rooters. He naturally takes this pretty hard.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: It's not as bad as Ben, but still, he is portrayed as even less thinking his actions through and with a chance of his schemes backfiring that rivals Argit. He also is the only one who fails to guess that Bullfrag is Ben in The Frogs of War.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Possibly, in an attempt of Revisiting the Roots, Omniverse portrays him as more of jerk by revealing his backstory with Princess Looma and having him pulling out a Batman Gambit to get rid of her by giving her to Ben. Even Argit seems to think he exaggerates.
• Unwitting Pawn: To the Rooters due to false memory implants. As it turns out, all of his Character Development of growing to care for the Tennysons was a part of Servantis's plan, though it ultimately backfires on him now that Kevin and Ben are True Companions.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Still continues this type of friendship with Ben. He's also this with Rook.
• "X" Marks the Hero: He gains an X-shaped scar on his chin during a fight with Swampfire, a nod to the one Kevin 11,000 had in "Ken 10". However, unlike that alternate future, Kevin is a hero.

Rook Blonko

Magister Rook Blonko

Voiced by: Bumper Robinson

"Rook Blonko. I'm your new partner."

Ben's new partner in Ben 10: Omniverse. A Revonnahgander from Revonnah recently integrated in the Plumbers and sent by Max to team up with him after Kevin and Gwen had to leave Bellwood. A skilled, if inexperienced Plumber, Rook has been impressed by the legends around Ben's heroic accomplishments, and came to Earth partially to see if the boy lived up to the legend. Despite being an alien, he possess no special powers, instead relying on his skills, training, intelligence and a device called the Proto-tool that can transform into various weapons and equipment.

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• Aliens Speaking English: While most aliens in the franchise are explained to be using Universal Translators, Revonnahganders are established to have a specific rule against English contractions, suggesting Rook legitimately speaks English.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite being an alien in a world with various alien species running around, high-tech weapons and many other things, he believes Alien X is nothing more than a legend. He does see him in "So Long and Thanks For The Smoothies" but his memory got erased when Alien X had to recreate the whole universe. He finally sees Alien X for real in "Universe Vs. Tennyson," and proclaims him to be "awesome."
• Ascended Fanboy: He admires Ben; his personal reason for coming was to see if Ben lived up to the legend. Because of this, when Albedo swaps places with Ben and appears to be taking Rook's advice, he wanted so badly to believe that it really was Ben that he never questioned him being an imposter, letting Albedo do as he pleased and keeping the real Ben in plumber prison as a result.
• Badass Bookworm: He is extremely well-read and knowledgeable about galactic history, science, and technology.
• Badass Normal: While he's very physically fit and agile, Rook lacks any abilities that could be considered super-powered by human standards. This doesn't stop him from kicking ass.
• Bash Brothers: With Ben. They were specifically assigned each other as partners to cover each other's weaknesses, and as the series progresses, they eventually grow just as close as Ben was with Gwen and Kevin. Naturally, they're also every bit as good at kicking ass together.
• Berserk Button:
  • As seen in "So Long, and Thanks for All the Smoothies", seeing the Vreedle Brothers makes him pissed due to the fact that the two destroyed the Plumbers Academy and forced him to take his final exam in a space trailer.
  • Extended time around Pax is shown to irritate him to an un-Rook-like degree.
    Rook: I am suppressing a very strong urge to knock you out!
• Beware the Nice Ones: While polite and considerate, he is still a highly trained law-enforcement officer armed with some of the best equipment in the galaxy. He also has some Berserk Buttons you don't want to press.
• Blue Is Heroic: Rook's main color scheme is blue.
• Bond One-Liner: Played for laughs; due to Ben's Deadpan Snarker tendencies, he believes he's supposed to say something witty after subduing a criminal. The results are usually lame.
• But I Read a Book About It: Rook doesn't have much experience dealing with actual bad guys but claims he has studied them extensively, however this makes it easier for the villains to fool him.
• By-the-Book Cop: Rook is described as "all training, no experience". He also treated Ben as a superior rather than like a friend when they first met, acting respectful toward him and calling him "Sir", until Ben asked him to just call him Ben. However, unlike the usual example, he is less experienced than Ben.
• Captain Obvious: He tends to point out obvious things to Ben quite frequently:
  Rook (after witnessing Albedo disguised as Ben betraying them): That is not Ben!
• Cat Boy: His species are humanoid felines, as proven in "Tummy Trouble" when he was nearly hypnotized by Nyancy Chan (though luckily, he resisted). It's also shown in "Arrested Development" that Rook had a tail as a child, and that his species's tails fall off at puberty.
• Characterization Marches On: While later on it's established using contractions is the Revonnahgander equivalent of swearing, as evidenced by the quote above, he wasn't engaging in Spock Speak when he debuted.
• Chick Magnet: "Bros in Space" states that girls flocked to Rook, but he only had eyes for Rayona. Even on Earth, he caught the eye of Fistina, Isosceles Vreedle, and three unnamed college girls in “Mystery Incorporeal”.
• Contrasting Sequel Main Character: Compared to Kevin and Gwen (Ben's previous partners), who are people with superpowers and improvised fighting styles with an established repertoire with Ben, Rook has no superpowers, went through academic training, and didn't initially know Ben at first. He's also more Literal-Minded and less snarky than either of the two.
• Convenient Replacement Character: Once Gwen and Kevin left Bellwood, that same episode has Rook stepping in as Ben's new partner.
• Cool Big Bro: Has a good relationship with his siblings, especially Rook Shar, going out of his way to get her a recommendation to the plumber academy from Ben.
• Country Mouse: He comes from a species of farmers and is the first of his kind to leave his planet.
• Crazy-Prepared: His proto-tool is ridiculously versatile, allowing him to have the right weapon at hand for almost every situation.
• Deuteragonist: He's Ben's partner in Omniverse, and gets a lot of Character Development throughout the series pertaining to letting go of his by-the-book nature and downplaying his Hero Worship of Ben.
• Ditzy Genius: It comes from naivete rather than any actual ditziness, but despite being a technological and tactical genius, Rook is often the butt of jokes due to his lack of understanding of Earth culture.
• Does Not Understand Sarcasm: He is socially awkward due to his lack of knowledge of Earth's customs and not understanding sarcasm.
• Farm Boy: His entire species' culture is built around farming. He mentions that he honed his skills battling the rather dangerous vermin plaguing his family's crops before joining the Plumbers.
• Foil: To Ben; he is a By-the-Book Cop with no actual experience, in contrast with Ben being Taught by Experience with little training. Moreover, both possess extraordinarily versatile pieces of technology, but while Rook is a Badass Normal that relies on his Swiss-Army Weapon, Ben is a Shapeshifter who relies on the Omnitrix's alien Superpower Lottery.
• Fur Is Skin: Being a cat-like alien, he has fur, but it looks like blue-and-white skin.
• Future Badass: In Ben 10,000's era, he is the one set to succeed Max as Magistratus (the supreme leader of the Plumbers).
• Gadgeteer Genius: He designed and built his Proto-tool; he also can operate a large amount of alien technology.
• Heroic Build: He’s very muscular and tall.
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Ben already considers him his best friend.
• Hyper-Competent Sidekick: Played with; Ben is far from incompetent and has much more experience, but Rook still displays much more impressive fighting skills as well as having more book smarts, patience, and common sense than Ben.
  • Deconstructed in "Of Predators and Prey"; after going around with Ben for a while, he ends up believing Ben doesn't live up to the legend and only saved the universe because he had people around to help him. This, plus Ben's Jerkass tendencies, led them to argue and split up, allowing Khyber to finally attack Ben alone. While this ultimately seems to have just been a ploy to lure out Khyber, Rook admits that he was actually quite serious during his "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
• Interspecies Friendship: He, a Revonnagander, with Ben, a human.
• In the Hood: He is introduced as a customer wearing a hood.
• It Has Been an Honor: In "Final Countdown", when it looked like they would die on the base via explosion, Rook tells this to Ben proudly. Ben just responds with a smile of his own. It's repeated in the series finale of Omniverse during the Darkest Hour in stopping Maltruant's plan.
• The Lancer: Rook now has this role to Ben, being the levelheaded voice of reason to balance out Ben's rash impulsiveness. He and Ben heavily contrast in their abilities, personalities, strengths, and weaknesses, but this helps them cover what the other lacks.
• Lantern Jaw of Justice: He’s one of the good guys and he has a huge chin.
• Last-Name Basis: Rook is the family name — Blonko is actually his given name. Notably, Ben actually refers to Rook's siblings by their given names, but continues to refer to his partner as just "Rook," likely out of habit.
• Literal-Minded: He has trouble with methaphors because of this.
• Meaningful Name: Rook is a rookie when it comes to being on the field.
• Mix-and-Match Critters: In "Outbreak", Rook is accidentally made into a half-Upchuck version of himself due to a glitch with the Omnitrix, leading to:
  • Big Eater
  • Breath Weapon
  • Extreme Omnivore
• Naïve Newcomer: Despite having read a lot about his task as a Plumber and trained extensively, Rook had never actually fought criminals before being assigned to Ben. As a result, he is naïve and inexperienced.
• Nice Guy: Rook is honest and heroic. In notable contrast with Gwen's and Kevin's snarkiness in the original series and Alien Force respectively, Rook is a nice person who genuinely admires and respects Ben, as well as acting polite and respectful to just about everyone he meets. He’ll even act polite to most of the villains he fights. In "It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad Ben World: Part 2", Ben even says that Rook is one of the most decent guys he knows.
• Non-Human Sidekick: Unlike Ben's previous partners, who were all humans, Rook is an alien.
• Not So Above It All: Despite his usual serious attitude, he took a lot of pleasure making Ben fall in water in "Malefactor". Also, in "Bros In Space", Ben is amazed to learn he has a Love Interest.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He will sometimes feign even less knowledge of Earth customs then he actually has, usually to escape an awkward situation. His future self also does it (mostly to punk Ben).
• Offhand Backhand: Deflects a laser with a spoon he was eating with!
• Older Sidekick: According to Word of God, he's a little older than Ben.
• One-Man Army: When first introduced, he neutralizes three alien criminals on his own with almost zero effort.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: "Rook Tales" when he learns that Kundo attacked his father, he tells his sister "You're staying here!" He used a contraction, something that Ben, Shar and Young One know he doesn't use and react in shock, meaning he is definitely not taking this news well.
• Rank Up: Because of his efforts in leading his team to stop Kundo from destroying the base along with millions of innocents, he is promoted to Magister by Grandpa Max.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He is the blue to Ben's red, with his by-the-book formality contrasting with Ben's headstrong and freestyle nature.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: He delivers one to Ben during their argument in "Of Predators and Prey":
  "How many times you have saved this Universe? By yourself? Zero! Every time, there has always been someone there to help you! [...] I have been there! I have already saved you countless times, and I have only been with you for a few weeks! I am surprised you made it this far!"
  • Take note that, Part 2 of "Of Predators and Prey" shows that Ben and Rook were pretending to fight, however, Rook didn't get part of that memo and was somewhat honest about that whole "saving the universe by yourself" bit.
• Shirtless Scene: He's shown shirtless at Plumber HQ in "No Honor Among Bros", which is one of the few times he's shown without his signature Proto-Tech armor.
• Single-Target Sexuality: Lampshaded in "Bros in Space" by his sister—Rook has only ever had eyes for his childhood friend, Rayona. However, he admits to being attracted, much to his and Ben's disgust, to Isosceles Right Triangle Vreedle.
• The Sixth Ranger: A much straighter example than Julie, who only helped Ben's Team on occasion, without any true dedication. Ben at first treated Rook with an attitude newcomers usually get. Later on, he gets promoted to The Lancer role.
• Skilled, but Naive: In contrast to Ben, Rook is extremely well trained but inexperienced in combat with actual opponents as well as Earth culture.
• Spock Speak: In the first three episodes, he used contractions, however, by the fifth episode, he begins to speak formally.
• Swiss-Army Weapon: His Proto-tool is described as "the most versatile tech in the known universe." It can transform into almost any kind of weapon, including:
  • Battle Bolas: He can fire a set of energy-bolas (which proves useful in catching fleeing criminals).
  • Cool Sword: Doesn't get much cooler than a plasma blade. His energy sword is his main weapon for close-range combat.
  • Deadly Disc / Luckily, My Shield Will Protect Me: He can project an energy shield that he can either block attacks with or throw Captain America style.
  • Energy Bow: The first weapon-mode he uses in the series. He can fire energy arrows with expert aim.
  • Grappling-Hook Pistol: One of his most common uses of it is to grapple onto far distances.
  • Shoulder Cannon: He can shoot rapid-fire energy bullets from its mount on his armor.
  • Static Stun Gun: Another very common use is for it to turn into a powerful taser.
  • Utility Weapon: The Proto-Tool has various tools for use outside of combat. "Gone Fishin" shows it can turn into a fishing rod, and "Showdown: Part 1" has it turn into a hose and a vacuum.
• The Team Normal: Due to being the only member who relies on training and equipment rather than special powers. This is quite ironic considering he is the only one amongst the main characters to be 100% non-human.
• Token Non-Human: As stated above, he is the only 100% alien member among Ben's main circle of friends and partners.
• Trademark Favorite Food:
  • His planet's Amber Ogia.
  • In "Breakpoint" he develops a fondness for meatball subs.
• True Companions: While Ben takes a while to fully warm up to him, as the series goes on it's clear they'll always have each other's backs. He also gets along with Max, Gwen, and Kevin if they happen to be along for a mission.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: With Ben. While they can sometimes argue, they would always resolve it. To a lesser extent, he has this type of friendship with Kevin.
• Weak, but Skilled:
  • Khyber pointed out during their fight that Rook's weapon was versatile, but lacked power. Rook wins anyway.
    Rook: Versatility does have advantages.
  • In general, he's this compared to Ben. Ben's superpowered aliens usually let him serve as the team's muscle, but Rook's skill consistently allows him to keep up with his partner in combat.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: He has a mild form of this with his traditionalist father who disliked him becoming a Plumber.
• Well-Trained, but Inexperienced: Rook Blonko is a graduate from the Plumber Academy who becomes Ben's new partner. However, he tries to be a By-the-Book Cop, not understanding how bad guys think or act outside of what he has read about them. In his first mission with Ben, he foolishly gave a villain back his helmet so he can breathe just because he said he would tell them what they wanted to know, not realizing he would just run away afterwards.

Max Tennyson

Grand Magister Maxwell "Grandpa Max" Tennyson

Voiced by: Paul Eiding (Original Series to Omniverse), David Kaye (Reboot)

Being a hero isn't about others knowing you did something good, it's about you knowing you did something good. Being a hero is its own reward.

Ben's and Gwen's Grandfather, as well as probably the most badass human being in the whole Ben 10 Universe. A former member of a government organization known as the Plumbers, Max Tennyson serves to his grandkids as a Mentor and Reasonable Authority Figure.

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• The Ace: To the Plumbers, he is a legend because he was one of the best. On a meta-level, he is one of the few Plumber characters who never was subject to Police Are Useless.
• Adults Are Useless: Averted. He has the experience, the tools, and the ability to take down villains with or without his grandchildren's help. He knows about the Omnitrix from the beginning, does his best to help, and, when informed by his grandchildren about aliens or other weird phenomenons, believes them.
• Badass Adorable: Back when he first met Verdona, he managed to be cute while still being badass. The early 1960s setting—so early that one would think it to be fifties if not for the Kennedy reference—definitely helped.
• Badass Normal: Seriously, how many non-powered humans are considered a threat by Vilgax?
• Big Good: A Grand Magister of the Plumbers and presumably he's the one in charge of the branch on Earth.
  • In the future, Max ascends to the rank of Magistratus before retiring, becoming this for the Plumbers as a whole.
• Big Ol' Eyebrows: A trait inherited by his sons and grandson.
• Captain Crash: During his military days, he earned a reputation for crashing planes, including managing two in one day. Why they kept letting him fly is anyone's guess.
• Career Not Taken: He was actually a candidate for the Apollo 11 space program, but never got that far. Considering his career as a Plumber lets him go to space anyway, he's not too broken up about it.
• Chick Magnet: Gained a reputation for this among fans because his love interets (Xylene and Verdona) are attractive alien ladies.
• Commuting on a Bus: He doesn't appear as often after the original series. Justified in that Ben and Gwen don't need him as much now that they're older.
• Cool Car: The Rust Bucket, an RV absolutely loaded with advanced Plumber tech. It was shown in one episode to have faulty air conditioning and plumbing (ironically enough), but is portrayed as an incredible vehicle in every other appearance.
• Cool Old Guy: Aging clearly didn't weaken him that much.
• Cordon Bleugh Chef: He is not a bad cook, he just has very... weird tastes in matter of food and ingredients (termites and squid to give examples). Gwen, Ben and most regular humans are creeped out just by looking at this, but some aliens, like Xylene and Rook, are quite fond of it.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Few people would expect this old, slightly obese, cheerful Lethal Chef to be by far one of the most competent Plumbers ever.
• Dead Partner: Devin Levin. Though Omniverse retcons this into being a fake memory; Devin doesn't exist.
• Demoted to Extra: As of Alien Force, he appears less frequently within the remainder of the franchise's original continuity.
• Depending on the Writer: The original series constantly went back and forth on whether Max was out of shape in his old age or fully capable of kicking ass despite it. From Alien Force onwards, he's almost always depicted as the latter.
• Flanderization:
  • A minor case, but Max's Lethal Chef tendencies have taken to such an extreme almost every time we see him in Omniverse.
  • He also seems to be getting more and more strict in Omniverse, at one point even threatening to send Ben to military school.
• Foreshadowing: Max is incredibly unsubtle about his experience and knowledge from the very first episode of the original series, right down to having to awkwardly cover up calling Heatblast an alien when Ben and Gwen stare at him for it.
• Future Badass: Not that he isn't a badass already, but his future self in the Original Series is depicted as having lost his arm and replaced it with a very powerful Artificial Limb, allowing him to help in defeating Dr Animo. Omniverse revealed he kept operating for an insanely long time, retiring only at the age of 96, and gained the grade of Magistratus.
• Gadgeteer Genius: He has an extensive knowledge in building numerous gadgets, most notably those that are useful in fighting or confronting against enemies.
• Go Out with a Smile: In "Max Out", Max pulls a Heroic Sacrifice taking off the focusing lens of his Null Void projector, turning it into a powerful hand-grenade, in order to take out all of the Highbreed and DNAlien army. He tells Gwen to cast a mana shield to protect Ben and the boys before saying farewell to them, then smiling and even giving off a wink when he sets off his makeshift explosive. Fortunately, the explosion doesn't kill him and instead transports him to the Null Void.
• Hawaiian-Shirted Tourist: Never seen without his Hawaiian shirt, unless he's in full Plumber gear. Pakmar even refers to him as a "colorful shirt man".
• Interspecies Romance: His two love interests were both aliens; Verdona, an Energy Being, is the mother of his children (since she's a Reality Warper, they are human through and through, save for Gwen). He and Xylene are currently the trope picture for Boldly Coming.
• I Was Quite a Looker: In the flashback episode to his early years, he fulfills this trope in spades. Yum yum.
• Jerkass Ball: In "Kevin 11". Though to be fair, Ben got them kicked out of a four star hotel that Max already paid for, and Ben insulted him saying that he doesn't always have to listen to him because he's not his dad.
• The Mentor: Max teaches Ben all the things that makes a true hero.
• Mentor Occupational Hazard: He fits the role of the old guard mentor figure for The Hero who appears to die later on.
• Missed the Call: The Omnitrix was sent to Earth with the intent of Max finding it, not Ben.
• Morality Chain: Sort of, to Ben; at least, he played a large part into making Ben a proper hero; "Store 23" shows us an alternate reality where he died just before Ben got the Omnitrix, causing Ben to become even more narcissistic than he already was, create a Telereality show focused around him, treat all aliens as evil and attempted to rip his dimension's Azmuth in half.
• My Greatest Failure: He always regretted putting Phil in the Null Void rather than just taking him to prison. This is made all the worse both times Phil returns, the second of which it is revealed that Phil is dead, meaning that Max will never get that second chance.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Most prominently in the original series, but still remains true in all the sequels. Max always does his best to respect his grandchildren, as well as Kevin and Rook later on, and serves as the voice of reason when their impulses get the better of them. He generally only becomes strict with them if the situation absolutely demands it.
• Retired Badass: Formerly retired. By Omniverse (as revealed in a flashback), he's come out of retirement to be a Grand Magister of the Plumbers. In the future, he retired again as a Magistratus!
• The Spock: In the main trio of the original series, he's the most level-headed among them.
• Token Human: Max is the only 100% human member of the main group, as even without alien technology bonded to him, Ben is still part-Anodite due to his heritage.
• Took a Level in Badass: The beginning of the series has him post-retirement from the Plumbers, and clearly not quite in the shape he used to be, even if he can still dive right back into helping Ben fight Vilgax and other assorted bad guys. The further in the original continuity you get, the more Max un-retires, and the more badass he becomes. To give an idea of his threat level, the DNAliens firmly believe defeating Max would mean no one else stood a chance against them.
• Two Roads Before You: Had the chance to be the first man on the moon, but then he was approached to join a certain interstellar organization.
• Unwitting Pawn: To the Rooters due to false memory implants. As it turns out, his false memories of Devin Levin were all part of Servantis's plan to make Max feel obliged to look after Kevin.
• You Don't Look Like You: A flashback episode in Omniverse had him looking more like Professor Paradox with a slim build and black hair, as opposed to the brown-haired strongly built appearance he sported in all previous flashbacks.

Reboot Series

• Adaptation Origin Connection: Inverted: In the Original Series he fought Vilgax long before Ben was even born. In this series, he was as surprised as everyone else of his existence.
• Adaptational Comic Relief: He acts a lot more silly than he used to be.
• Adaptational Wimp: If he was a Plumber in this version, he hasn't kept his skills in good shape. In fact, especially in Season 1, often he was simply not present for the action. Alien-X-Tinction hints that he was indeed a Plumber, but he's keeping that information from his grandchildren for unknown reasons.
• Forced Transformation: He was transformed into a chicken by Animo in "Chicken Nuggets of Wisdom".
• Doting Parent: His fighting skill went way down in this version. His love for his grandkids didn't.
• Lethal Chef: Averted. In this version, Max doesn't have the… unique taste he is usually associated with and has shown himself to look pretty good-looking food, even being confused at Ben and Gwen competing over eating the weirdest meal out of a cooking festival. He has no problem with eating burned hot dogs, however.
• Manchild: He can get excited about the things he enjoys as much as his grandchildren, sometimes even acting as a young kid. Lampshaded:
  Gwen: [groans] "Is this what we're like when we drag him to the amusement park?"
  Ben: "We probably shouldn't ask questions we don't want answers to."
  • Incredibly Lame Fun: Some of the things he enjoys include bird-watching, a ride for little kids at a park, and being in the "four corners", the place where the borders of four states meet. Not only Ben, but even Gwen (herself an example of this trope) finds most of his choices boring.
  Gwen: "Sigh... I remember fun…"
• Not So Above It All: In "Bounty Ball" he asked Ben to use one of his aliens to end the train tour quickly, as only Gwen was finding it exciting.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: He got past a firewall Gwen was struggling with by pretending to hit random keys.
• Out of Focus: Since the series is more about Ben and Gwen, there isn't a lot of space for him. Downplayed in season two.
• Took a Level in Badass: In "Innervasion" : he threatened Vilgax with a laser cannon, fought the Fulmini, and even transformed into Cannonbolt.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: He is afraid of goats, due to an accident when he was young.