Toggle Random Buttons
TVTropes

YMMV / Ben 10

YMMVs for the franchise as a whole:

YMMVs for the Original Series:

  • Draco in Leather Pants: Kevin 11 and Charmcaster, in no small part due to their portrayals in later shows. While they do have some Anti-Villain traits in this series and Word of God says they were always intended to develop more Anti-Hero traits as well, they are still mostly straight-up villains who like doing evil and reject any offers of redemption, and with Kevin being straight-up Ax-Crazy to a sociopathic degree.
  • Ear Worm: The theme song. Despite all the disagreement in the fanbase, almost everyone agrees the Original Show had by far the catchiest theme song.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse:
    • Lucky Girl, who is ironically one of the leads in disguise. Her nemesis Charmcaster qualifies on the villain side of things.
    • Naturally, some of Ben's aliens are more popular than others, but the one who takes the cake (from the original series, at least) is Heatblast. He's enough of a dark horse than a Ultimate Alien DVD was titled the Return of Heatblast.
      • XLR8 is also pretty popular, which makes it extra baffling that they went and made Fasttrack.
      • Ghostfreak, mainly because of his Face–Heel Turn.
      • Buzzshock and Articguana, two of Ben 10,000's aliens, are surprisingly rather popular among the fanbase, despite the fact neither have ever appeared outside of that episode aside from a cameo in Ultimate Alien's theme. Articguana is finally used by the 16-Year-Old Ben in Omniverse, and Buzzshock appears even later.
      • Ripjaws, he only appeared 16 times in the entire Ben 10 franchise, but He gets lots of Fan art and YouTube videos.
    • Grandpa Max, as detailed in the Just Here for Godzilla entry, even moreso as of the newer series' when he's not a main character anymore.
    • Sixsix, a minor villain from early in the series, quickly became beloved by fans due to essentially being the Ben 10-verse's equivalent of Boba Fett. He was so popular that not only was he brought back later on but the sequel series introduced his family made up of his equally badass brother and two sisters, changing him from a one-off mook to a series mainstay.
  • Evil Is Cool: This show is a master at creating awesome bad guys. Vilgax, Dr. Animo, Kevin, Ghostfreak, Hex, Charmcaster, the Forever Knights (especially the Forever King), Sixsix and his family, and nearly all the other villains (with the exception of Sublimino, who's a No Respect Guy even among his teammates) who made up the Negative 10 could count.
  • First Installment Wins: While the other shows have their fanbases, many fans are very loyal to the first series. That it's the only one the actual creators worked on (until the Continuity Reboot) helps matters.
  • Foe Yay: Ben and Kevin, who have been chained to each other for an episode, and Gwen and Charmcaster, who spent a good part of one episode inside each other.
  • Franchise Original Sin: One complaint about the sequel series is how redundant some of Ben's aliens can be. The first series has many aliens who, while having unique abilities, some have similar advantages to one alien that leave another alien functionally redundant (particularly Benvicktor/Frankenstrike, who on top of having super strength, has lightning abilities), indicating that there were ability and redundancy problems even before the sequels.
    • A lesser example, but one of the major criticims done to Alien Force was (amongst other things) about the Plumbers being inexplicably active again despite being stated to have disbanded in the first series; Big Fat Alien Wedding, while not explicitly stating the Plumbers were still active, made mention of a war between them and the Sludgepuppies that was apparently still going on (the whole point of the episode was to end it), suggesting at least some of them kept fighting.
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Gwen is apparently popular enough in Southeast Asia that Cartoon Network Asia gave her a website and a good amount of merchandise. A spin-off show about her was even considered at some point in answer to her popularity, with Omniverse episodes serving as a Poorly Disguised Pilot.
    • The franchise is also very popular in Denmark, where many stores hold entire sections of Ben 10 merchandise.
    • The franchise has a strong following in Latin America as well, seeing as at one point nearly all of its schedule was devoted to showing Ben 10 episodes.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Tetrax's admonishment of Ben, telling him that he fails to consider the consequences of his actions until they blow up in his face, takes on a new light when it's revealed later on that Tetrax gave Vilgax a crystal that he used to destroy Petropia, an action he came to completely regret.
  • Heartwarming in Hindsight: The episode Ken 10 had Ben's future self Ben 10,000 name his son Ken. The follow-up series Ben 10: Alien Force revealed that Ben's cousin Gwen had a brother also named Ken, which makes it rather sweet when you realize that Ben may have named his son Ken after his cousin Ken.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • Remember that ending in Gwen 10 where the Omnitrix ultimately ended up on Grandpa Max? Several episodes later, some alien named Xylene, a person from Max's past, revealed that the Omnitrix was originally for Max. But thanks to the fact that Ben's DNA was close to his, and Ben was the one who discovered it, it ended up on him.
    • In the end of "Kevin 11", Ben offers Kevin to join him and become allies. Sound familiar?
    • Steve Blum (Ghostfreak) voicing another Big Bad who wants to take over someone's body is funny enough, but it's funnier when that someone is voiced by Yuri Lowenthal, who voices teenage Ben in the sequel series.
    • In "The Big Tick", while trying to figure out what Cannonbolt does, Ben lists powers of aliens he will receive in the future: breathing firenote , firing freeze rays from his eyesnote , and magnetic blastsnote .
    • Vilgax is an expy of Darkseid and in the original series and Omniverse, he was voiced by Steve Blum. Guess who voiced the actual Darkseid in Justice League: War.
    • Ben's dislike of the Super Alien Hero Buddies for being bastardizations of his own alien forms in "Super Alien Hero Buddy Adventures" is funnier to look back on in light of the polarization and controversy respectively caused by Omniverse and the reboot trying to be Denser and Wackier than Alien Force and Ultimate Alien.
  • Hype Backlash: The huge success this series had, and the fact many fans are only loyal to it, has caused many people (both fans of the sequels and people who don't particularly like the franchise) to be more critical toward it and point out its flaws. Common criticisms include the lack of Character Development, Ben's and Gwen's bickering being perceived as annoying, the waste of many good characters (Xylene) and plots (how Ghostfreak ended up in the Omntrix, which was relegated to a one-time pop-up commentary during a marathon) and most of the villains being one-dimensional.
    • Similarly, Man of Action Studios used to be considered Only the Creator Does It Right for the franchise and the fact they only worked on that show was used as a justification for not liking the sequels; since then, their work on very unpopular Marvel cartoons have caused many people to notice flaws in their writing that already existed in the original Ben 10.
  • It Was His Sled:
  • Just Here for Godzilla: While majority of the people just watched the show to see Ben transform into an alien form, there were some who just stuck around to see Grandpa Max be completely awesome.
  • Moral Event Horizon:
    • Vilgax destroys the planet where all of Tetrax's race lives, killing hundreds of innocent lives for no reason other than to test his brand new toy.
    • And Ghostfreak wanted to plunge Earth into darkness, the result of which is shown to be horrifying mutations of all living things. He crossed the line in Ghstfreaked Out when he threatened to kill a possessed Gwen if Ben did not surrender, fully aware that Ben is only 10 years old.
      • Also note, that was just a side effect of his plan that he didn't even care about.
    • Zombozo gets his by kidnapping a 10 year old girl and draining her of her energy until she's nothing but a shrivaled husk of her former self, speaking of it so lightly that it's implied it's not the first time.
    • As if it wasn't clear that the Forever King is more evil than Enoch, he deliberately leaves Enoch trapped forever in his Lotus-Eater Machine just to spite him for not getting the Omnitrix.
  • Older Than They Think: There really was a secret organization called the Plumbers - Richard Nixon's private police who did the illegal surveillance of the Watergate hotel.
  • The Producer Thinks of Everything: One of the first line readings for the role of Ghostfreak?
    Ghostfreak: Ben's not here anymore.
  • Relationship Writing Fumble: Ben and Gwen, in an almost reverse case of the usual trope. The writers PROBABLY viewed them as just bickering, if still loving, cousins (and nothing else), and tried to write them as such. To most of the rest of us...
  • The Scrappy: Kai Green does have some fans, but mostly she has a very sizable hatedom, due to her only episode portraying her as a rather unsympathetic character who Ben fell in love with for no real apparent reason before she rejected him rather callously (and unlike Julie, no effort was made by the writers to rescue her from the Scrappy Heap) and being an obstacle to Bwen. Her later appearances in Omniverse didn't help, due to the fact that she singlehandedly angered almost all the shippers by turning every other love interest up to that point into Romantic False Leads and suffering from a case of Strangled by the Red String and Took a Level in Jerkass.
  • Seasonal Rot: The third season is generally considered the weakest due to less impressive episodes and overall story arc than the other seasons have.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Race Against Time. Dear lordy, Race Against Time. A lot of fans were NOT happy when they realized the aliens were not voiced by the original voice actors.
  • They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
    • Xylene. An alien Action Girl with cool powers and design, a big part in Ben's origin (she was the one who brought the Omnitrix to Earth and a past relationship with Max. She appeared for exactly one episode and never shew up again. Even in the sequels, all she got is a very brief mention in a dialogue.
    • The Galactic Enforcers only show up in one episode plus a cameo in the future episode, despite having included Ben in their ranks as a honorary member.
    • At the end of the third season, Ben gets three new aliens, each based off a different monster. A werewolf, a mummy, and Frankenstein's monster. Despite all being pretty cool, they don't appear at all for the rest of the series, and it isn't until an alternate timeline episode in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien that any of them reappear. They aren't even properly named, being referred to as "Ben*monster name*" in the credits. It took until Ben 10: Omniverse for them to even be given proper names.
    • While Ghostfreak is a cool villain by himself, you could argue he was wasted motivation-wise: When he first escapes the Omnitrix, his dialogue implies he is motivated by revenge toward Ben for having him prisoner in the Omnitrix for so long. This idea is completely dropped right in the same episode, and for all his next appearances in both this series and the sequels, he is portrayed as an generic "I want to conquer the Universe" villain.
  • Viewer Gender Confusion: Ben 10's character, Ripjaws, is part deep-sea creature and merMAID, so he might seem like a female, but he's actually a male.
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/Ben10