Western Animation / Ben 10: Omniverse

Changing into the creatures of the universe to fight evil all at the press of a button!

"Ben 10! He's a kid and he wants to have fun, but when you need a superhero, he gets the job done!
Ben 10! With a device that he wears on his arm, he can change his shape and save the world from harm!
When trouble's taking place, He gets right in its face! Ben 10!
When lives are on the line, It's hero time! Ben 10!"

— Theme Song

Ben 10: Omniverse is the fourth iteration of the Ben 10 franchise following Ultimate Alien.

A few months have passed since the events of Ultimate Alien. Earth has eventually been declared a free system, and the aliens now live freely amongst humans. Ben, now equipped with his new Omnitrix, is still working for the Plumbers. Eventually, Gwen decides to leave Belwood to go to college, and Kevin follows her. With Ben now alone, Max assigned him a new partner, a young Badass Normal alien plumber named Rook (much to Ben's dismay). As Ben must learn to cooperate with Rook, he has to face the arrival of Khyber, a mysterious alien hunter who set his sights on him.

Then things starts to get way crazier and more unpredictable as more of the universe opens up on him...

Intended to conciliate the style of the original Ben 10 series with its two sequels, the series toned down the Darker and Edgier approach introduced by Dwayne McDuffie in Ben 10: Alien Force, instead going for a Denser and Wackier tone buoyed by the more stylized art of Derrick J. Wyatt (Transformers: Animated, Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated) in addition to massive call backs to the original series (such as bringing back several old aliens and forgotten characters).

Concerning the plot, the show takes advantage of the Time Skip between the original series and Alien Force, using it to introduce new adventures that took place in the original series' era when Ben was eleven years old. These take the form of Whole Episode Flashbacks, smaller flashbacks that interweave with the present-day plot, and the occasional time travel shenanigan that has both eras of characters interacting; all which have the bonus of letting the writers create new villains, characters and events that have a connection to Ben's past.

Ben and Vilgax, in the art style of this series, appear in the IDW Crisis Crossover comic book event Cartoon Network Super Secret Crisis War released in June 2014.

The series concluded November 14, 2014, its final episodes airing at 6am on a weekday, and it is the last series of the franchise to use what is referred to by Cartoon Network as the "Classic Continuity". The following installment, Ben 10 (2016), would be a full Continuity Reboot that returns to the summer road trip premise of the original series.

The immense popularity of the show led to the launch of Ben 10 Omniverse games for browsers as well as mobile platforms like Android and iOS. Some games like Ben 10: Up to Speed have more than 50000 downloads on Google Play Store.

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This show contains examples of:

#-B

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: A carryover from previous series, where many cars and vehicles are rendered in CG, though this time it's slightly less noticeable.
• Aborted Arc:
  • The first story arc ended with The Reveal that Khyber actually was working for Malware and Psychobos, and was originally supposed to kidnap Ben so they would get the DNA from his Omnitrix to complete the Nemetrix. Come "Outbreak", the Nemetrix develops a flaw out of nowhere, forcing Dr Psychobos to steal a piece of Galvan tech from the Omnitrix; he doesn't seize the opportunity to collect the DNA, and the Faction just moves to the next phase of their plan with the whole "collecting the Omnitrix's DNA" part never to be mentioned again.
  • Joseph Chadwick is shown to have survived his experiences in "An American Benwolf in London", and most likely to continue his villainy. He, nor the Forever Knights, never appear in the series again afterward.
• Accidental Kiss: At the end of "The Most Dangerous Game Show," Ben slips on a Banana Peel and crashes into Kai, causing their lips to meet.
• Accidental Marriage: Thanks to Kevin's scheming, Ben became the fiance of a Tetramand warrior princess named Looma.
• Actor Allusion:
  • Khyber. Yeeeessss...
  • Although he had Armodrillo since the last series, Armodrillo is shown to spin his claws like a drill in Omniverse. Giga Drill Break anyone? In the Grand Finale, Ben weaponizes the Big Bang. That should also ring a few bells.
  • In "The Frogs of War: Part 2", we meet Ben's new form Bullfrag, who is wearing some very familiar looking sunglasses (not to mention Yuri Lowenthal's character's association with a frog).
  • In "Ben Again", Ben admits to Paradox the idea of a Time War is awesome. Maybe minor and another thing that makes Professor Paradox a Doctor Who Expy, but Ben's reaction might have to do with his teenage self's voice actor is admitting to being a "Whovian".
  • In "Showdown Part 1", Ben gives a vague explanation that he used to like Feedback so much because he felt like he was part of him. Teenage Ben and Feedback are both voiced by the same actor.
  • Malware is a malevolent, computer-based villain whose goals essentially amount to world domination, much like Brainiac, Superman's most well-known arch-nemesis and one of Corey Burton's most well-known roles.
  • In "Showdown Part 2", after being absorbed into Malware, Ben has a flashback to the past when his younger self was moping about losing Feedback. At the end of the flashback, his younger self confronts him and present Ben forgives himself for losing Feedback, thus regaining Feedback in reality and escaping Malware. This is rather similar to his voice actor's role as Yosuke Hanamura facing his shadow and gaining his Persona.
  • The sweater Darkstar wears as Dante is similar to one worn by Wesley Crusher.
  • Watchless Ben being referred to as a Wild Card, just like another protagonist that Yuri Lowenthal voiced.
  • As noted by the show's official wiki, Clyde Fife is basically Napoleon Dynamite as a Ben 10 character.
• Affably Evil: Yetta's first reaction upon seeing Ben Tennyson while being chased by Plumbers is to compliment him and take a selfie with him, all before fighting him.
• Aesop Amnesia: A lot of the things Ben had already learned back in the original series and the previous sequels (teamwork, fighting without the Omnitrix, etc.) are totally ignored by this iteration so they can make new episodes about him learning them again.
  • In Ben's first encounter with Hypnotick, he escapes from its Lotus-Eater Machine by remembering that being a hero is about helping people, not getting the adoration the illusion showed him. During the next time Ben faces Hypnotick, he falls for the hypnosis even more easily than the first time.
  • An especially blatant case in episodes like "Store 23", where Ben, when called out by Max for toying with the villains, answers by "They are bad I am good, the end!", before spending the rest of the episode learning an aesop about taking his job as a hero seriously. This attitude from him can come up as very frustrating after the White-and-Grey Morality of Alien Force and the whole arc in Ultimate Alien that had Ben struggling to not become a Knight Templar.
  • The citizens of Anur Transyl; In "Rad Monster Party", they call Ben a "monster", and hate him. They seem to change their minds after getting a lecture from Scout about how they shouldn't judge by appearances, but in the very next episode, they're back to hating him again.
• Alas, Poor Villain: Malware basically shapes up to this, leading to his death. All Malware initially wanted was to be cured.
• All Amazons Want Hercules: It's revealed that female Tetramands are traditionally stronger and better fighters than males, and that a female will only choose a male who can defeat her in combat to be her husband.
• All Girls Want Bad Boys: Lampshaded by 12-year-old Kevin in "From Hedorium to Eternity", when telling Cooper how he has no chance with Gwen.
• Alternate Timeline: "And then There Was None" / "And then there was Ben" mixes this trope with Alternate Universe, showing Ben Tennyson from most of the twelve Alternate Timelines that exist.
• Alternate Universe: "Store 23" shows Ben finding himself in universe 23. This is a universe where Max dies before Ben ever found the Omnitrix, thus Ben 23 never gets the Character Development of the original Ben and nearly rips Azmuth in half because of it. Later it's revealed there are hundreds of alternate timelines and some of those Bens are evil, and at least two never get the Omnitrix. And somehow there is one where Argit has it.
• Amoral Attorney: "Universe vs. Tennyson" has Chadzmuth, the Galvan lawyer. He freely admits to being amoral, and abuses every loophole in existence to free his clients. In Ben's trial he has Ben turn into a Tetramand and invokes a special privilege Tetramand defendants have that allows them to challenge court verdicts through single combat with an opponent of the prosecution's choice. When Ben's Celestialsapien opponent proves to be too much, Chadzmuth points out that you only have to be a Tetramand to invoke the challenge, not to complete it, and Ben could turn into whatever form he needed.
• An Arm and a Leg: During a great historic battle at the end of a war, Gar Red Wind lost his lower left arm and his lower left eye .
• And I Must Scream: Lord Transyl's victims are fully aware of everything they do while Transyl is jerking them around like puppets, and while they can still speak, it seems to be about the limit of what they can do.
• And the Adventure Continues: The series ends this way with Ben and Rook, bored since the Maltruant incident and seeing the beginning of creation itself, decide to go explore the world with Gwen and Kevin.
• And Your Reward Is Clothes: In "So Long and Thanks for all the Smoothies", Ben saves the universe from being annihilated with Alien X, but no one believes him. He does, however, get a shiny new hooded sweatshirt.
• Animal Wrongs Group: Pax is an animal rights activist who, on two separate occasions, unleashes creatures that are an inherent danger to other living beings and actually tries to prevent Ben from attempting to curb their destruction because it would require reimprisoning them.
• Animesque: Unlike the previous iterations, Ben and the others are much more likely to have anime-style outtakes, such as the veined-forehead for stressed out.
• Apocalypse How:
  • The Annihilargh in "So Long and Thanks for all the Smoothies" can cause a Class X-4. And actually does. Undone by Alien X.
  • In "And Then There Were None", Vilgax reveals that he has a Chronosapien Time Bomb that can destroy every single timeline except the one in which the Omnitrix never existed, causing a Class X-5. Time traveler Eon recognized the device, indicating that such devices are not unique, though he only expected it to destroy one timeline. Destroying all the timelines, except one is not something he saw coming. Also notable is that Atomic-X was vulnerable to it, in contrast to Alien X's immunity to the Annihilargh.
• Appearance Is in the Eye of the Beholder: The Contumelia are fifth dimensional beings, whose true form cannot be comprehended by the minds of third dimensional beings. Instead, they appear to each being as who or what they hold dearest in their hearts; Ben sees a walking Mr Smoothy cup, Rook sees his father, and Maltruant sees himself. Skurd, on the other hand, simply sees them as masses of energy.
• Arc Number: In "Store 23", 23 was pointed out to be a reoccurring theme. Store 23 transported to a world with Ben 23, and the frequency of the interdimensional engine of 23.
• Arc Welding: In "Ken 10", Kevin 11,000 had a sleek, black outfit from his time in the Null Void. The Rooters are more or less shown to be the origin of this outfit. He also got his chin scar from Ben.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Word of God is that Pax got arrested in "Have I Got A Deal For You" due to breaking and entering, Skreegit theft, interfering with Plumber business, and loitering. In "While You Were Away", Rook Shar wants Sheriff Watt-Senn to punish her brother Young One for reckless endangerment, crop destruction & being a brat.
• Art Evolution: The iteration’s animation is simpler, but much more streamlined and fluid than each previous iterations. It is much more noticeable than the different artstyles of the Original Ben 10 Series and Alien Force / Ultimate Alien. Take a look◊. Ben and the gang aren't the only affected ones. Spidermonkey has a new design as well here◊.
  • The Secret Saturdays get this treatment during their crossover episode. In fact, they look way different than their original designs.
  • According to Chadzmuth, the Celestialsapiens are behind this and even references Azmuth's changes in appearance.
• Ascended Extra: Cousin Lucy only appeared in an episode of the Original Series episode six year prior for about six seconds. She returns as a focal character in "Mud Is Thicker Than Water".
• Asshole Victim: Master Kundo. Even Ben, Rook, and Rook's siblings barely seem to care that they (seemingly) accidentally killed him.
• Assimilation Backfire: In "Showdown, Part 2", Malware manages to absorb Ben as Way Big into himself. Inside, Ben has a flashback and finally forgives himself for losing Feedback, resulting in him reobtaining and transforming into Feedback to escape from Malware from the inside. Malware was doubly surprised for Ben escaping and doing it as Feedback, the alien he had destroyed in the past.
• As You Know: When he returns in "Mystery, Incorporeal", Darkstar tells Gwen about how Charmcaster banished him from Ledgerdomian, even though she was there and there's really no reason to.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: Ester is made leader of the Kraaho after beating their former leader, Seebik.
• Atrocious Alias: In "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Ben World, Ben learns that Ben 23's Nanomech is named Teeny-Weeny''.
  Ben: Do I even have to tell you that's a bad name?
• Author Appeal:
  • Derrick J. Wyatt makes no secret of the fact Grey Matter is his favourite alien; not only does Grey Matter come back after being absent for the two previous sequels, but Azmuth and the Galvan have ended up as part of two different arcs. Blucik and Driba, two Galvan of questionable skill, are added as regular supporting characters.
  • He also likes the Gourmands, and "Tummy Trouble" focuses on two particular tribes of them. Sludgepuppies have also had two episodes, one bringing back the one-shot cousin Lucy after six years.
  • XLR8 also seems to get a fair amount of attention, after being replaced by the Suspiciously Similar Substitute Fasttrack in the previous series. Aside from getting back into Ben's roster, a small group of them (from little kids to teenagers) show up as background characters from time to time ("Hot Stretch" and "Collect This" being two examples).
• Backwards-Firing Gun: In "An American Benwolf in London", a robot grabs Rook's gun off him and points it at him. Rook says that he knows something about the weapon that the robot does not. As the robot fires and blows a hole in its own chest, Rook says "you're holding it backwards".
• Badass Boast: Charmcaster, accidentally summoned by Ghostfreak, gives an impressive villainous introductory speech... which is instantly deflated when he deals with her by basically flicking a switch to send her back where she came from before she got around to actually attacking. She didn't take this lying down, however.
  Charmcaster: I am Charmcaster, daughter of Spellbinder, conquerer of Adwaita, absolute ruler of Ledgerdomain, and I WILL NOT BE DENIED- *poof*
  Ghostfreak: Back to work.
• Badass in Distress: Magister Patelliday, an old, apparently a bit senile Piscciss Volann Plumber and Barney Fife pastiche, gets captured by pirates as a plot-point for "Gone Fishing". While Ben, Rook and Max are trying to find and rescue him, Max assures them Patelliday can handle himself of his own. He does.
• Back from the Dead:
  • "T.G.I.S.", the crossover episode with The Secret Saturdays sees that series's Big Bad, V.V. Argost resurrected by Dr. Animo.
  • No Honor Among Bros includes an appearance by Slix Vigma. In his sole previous appearance he was Impaled with Extreme Prejudice by Kevin 11, seemingly killing him. Then his ship blew up with his body still on it. Ben seems unsurprised by his reappearance, being more taken aback that he has gone "mostly legit".
• Back to the Early Installment: "And Then There Was Ben". No watch Ben and Professor Paradox go back in time to the pilot to get the Omnitrix to 10 year old Ben. It's revealed that the reason the Omnitrix suddenly curved to go straight for past Ben in the original was because no watch Ben had to hit it as Cannonbolt to change its direction to be closer towards ben.
• Backstory Invader: In Ben 10: Alien Force, Kevin's father, Devin, was retroactively added in as a postmortem character from Grandpa Max's past. But Omniverse retconned this again by revealing Devin never existed and was a fake memory implanted in Max's mind during the year before Alien Force occurred.
• Badass Normal: Rook, who despite being an alien relies on various technology and weaponry to fight. He blocks a laser with a spoon as an Offhand Backhand.
• Bad "Bad Acting": Ben's actor is a parody of 90s animation tropes, so he has this in spades.
• The Bad Guy Wins:
  • "Vilgax Must Croak" ends with Vilgax's escape after all the effort Ben and company went to keep him in Incarcecon.
  • "Fight at the Museum" ends with the villain obtaining the device they were searching for all episode, the "key to time itself".
• Bag of Kidnapping: Princess Looma does this to Julie, Ester, Rook, and Herve to use as gifts for hers and Ben's wedding she was planning.
• Batman Cold Open: Twice in the same episode; the pilot starts with a scene of 11 year old Ben fighting against Malware (and winning); then, we get a scene of present Ben, Gwen and Kevin chasing Zombozo.
  • In another episode, Ben fights Sunder before the real plot can begin.
  • In “Bengeance Is Mine”, the Forever Knights serve as quick filler villains before kickstarting the actual episode.
• Batman Gambit:
  • Ben and Rook pull one in "Of Predators and Prey" by faking an argument and letting Khyber kidnap Ben so they could better find him.
  • Psyphon does it in "Outbreak" by tricking the Plumbers into shutting down the forcefield so he and his henchmen can escape.
  • Kevin pulls one on Ben in "Many Happy Returns" to annul his engagement to Princess Looma by getting Ben engaged to her instead.
  • Ben pulls one on Attea in "Vilgax Must Croak". He makes his presence known almost immediately, figuring out that she will be easily distracted trying to get revenge on him instead of her assigned objective to kill Vilgax.
  • Attea pulled one in "Frogs of War" to become the Incursean ruler by having Ben take down Emperor Milleous.
  • Ben pulls one in "The Vengers", pretending to quit being a hero so that the Vengers, no longer having a common foe to focus on, wind up fighting amongst themselves for all the fame and glory.
• Bat People: The Vladats are a race of vampire-like aliens with the overall appearance of large humanoid bats.
• Beam-O-War: In Showdown part 2, Malware vs Helix-powered Feedback. Feedback wins. Another happens in "Frogs of War" between Way Big's cosmic ray and the Incursean mothership's Wave-Motion Gun. Way Big wins.
• Beard of Evil: Homaging the Star Trek Mirror Universe, evil AU Tetrax has a beard made of the same crystal as the rest of him. though it turns out he's not evil. Or at least, who he's working for isn't. He did cause a tremendous amount of property damage when we thought he was evil.
• Because Destiny Says So: Spanner presents this as an argument for why Ben and Kai should get together. In the future he's from, they're a happily married couple.
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: Dr. Jekyll was a Forever Knight researching an alien Super Serum.
  • Prior to the Revolutionary War, George Washington was a Plumber.
• Berserker Tears: 11 years old Ben, of all people, has this when he almost kills Malware for destroying Feedback.
• Best Her to Bed Her: This is how Tetramand courtship works. It's an uphill battle for males since female Tetramands are usually stronger. Kevin went along with this in his more criminal youth to get ahold of an indestructible Tetramand engine block for his car. When his fiance Princess Looma goes to Earth to claim him as her husband, Kevin cons Ben into challenging her to a fight. Ben defeats her, but learns too late that this means he is Princess Looma's fiance now. During the fight, Looma's father fondly reminisces about his courtship battle with her mother.
• Beyond the Impossible: Ben's actor claims to have put on a show that drove Vulpimancers to tears.
  Ben's actor: Vulpimancers. No eyes. To tears!
  • In "A New Dawn", The 5th-dimensional Contumelia that created the universe say that the extradimensional Containment Field around the Annihilargh is impossible to breach. Ben proves them wrong by slicing through the barrier with a sword that Skurd makes from Alien X's DNA. The Contumelia find this "interesting".
• Big Bad:
  • Khyber appears to be this in the first arc, but it's really Malware and Psychobos sharing the role with him as their dragon.
  • Malware in the second arc.
  • The Incursean Empire, particularly Milleus and Attea, in the third story arc.
  • Albedo in the Duel of The Duplicates arc.
  • Zs'Skayr and Lord Transyl in the Galactic Monsters arc.
  • Proctor Servantis in the Rooters arc
  • Mad Ben for the seventh arc, with Maltruant serving as the Greater-Scope Villain.
  • Maltruant for the "Time War" arc.
• Big Ball of Violence: Dr Animo gets into one with his future self in "Animo Crackers".
• Bilingual Bonus: In "Secret of Dos Santos," Skurd tampers with the Omnitrix, giving Rath clothes, and making him speak in Spanish. The first thing Rath says translates as "Pants!? Clothes!? These are the pants of a wrestler! Rath was tired of being naked! Thank you, little green booger monster!"
• Bizarre Alien Biology:
  • The Galvan start out as tadpoles, and as "For A Few Brains More" reveals, they have a "pre-brain" that handles all their bodily functions.
  • Revonnahganders are born with tails (that fall off at puberty). "No Honor Among Bros" reveals they have a "temperamental lobe" in their brains that governs their personalities.
• Bizarro Universe:
  • One appears on "Store 23", where Ben is even more of an Attention Whore and Fantastic Racism against aliens abounds. Also there are Mr. Gyros where Mr. Smoothies should be.
  • "And Then There Were None" has multiple alternate Bens, most notably one who is somehow a zombie (Named "Benzarro" in the credits).
• Blank White Eyes: Ben, Gwen, Kevin, and Grandpa Max get them when Attea reveals her Batman Gambit.
• Blatant Lies: "The Omnitrix never fails".
• Book Ends: The final episode of the series, and at the moment the franchise, ends the same way the franchise began: with Ben preparing to go on a road trip.
• Borrowed Catchphrase: In "Fight At The Museum," Kai uses Ben's "It's hero time" catchphrase, after Ben (as Walkatrout) failed to break down a door.
  Ben: Great. I've already been robbed of my dignity, and now you're stealing my catchphrase?!
• Brain Theft: "For a Few Brains More" has Albedo removing the brain of Azmuth, his former mentor and the Universe's Smartest Mind, so that he can use his intelligence for himself. However, due to the fact Azmuth is a Galvan, he possesses two brains with only his "main brain" being taken while his "pre-brain" is still in his body to handle bodily functions. His main brain is also able to survive separately from the body and audibly speak, while the pre-brain leads Azmuth to be simplistic and childish.
• Brainwashed and Crazy:
  • The population of Ravana. Courtesy of Dr Psycobos and the Incurseans
  • Rath is under Mind Control by Nyancy-Chan for most of "Catfight".
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: In "Clyde 5", Clyde and Ben argue during the intro sequence.
• Break the Cutie: Ben Tennyson (11 years old) after Feedback's demise.
• Breather Episode: The third arc comes right after one of Ben's most personal enemies who spanned over two arcs, and the villains of the third arc are the Incurseans, who have much more comical moments, aren't really terribly threatening until the end, and even the actual Big Bad, Attea, is usually defeated due to a comical flaw being exploited.
• Briar Patching: Ben pleads with the Kraaho not to release NRG from his suit. Naturally, they do, and NRG's true form stops the Kraaho device singlehandedly.
• Brick Joke:
  • In "The More Things Change Part 2", Ben accidentally takes out an underground bus driver's brakes due to being in front of it while he's NRG. Later on, Ben as Shocksquatch fights Khyber's pet in "Buglizard" form, with the bus coming again, and having Khyber's pet be run over by it, remembering the car's lack of brakes.
  • There's another one in "Special Delivery": A flashback shows young Ben (As Way Big) throwing Mr. Baumann's truck into orbit. In the present, Ben unknowingly knocks it out of orbit after throwing Sunder's jet glider. The truck comes down on Baumann's house a few hours later.
  • And in "Ben Again", Paradox mentions something about a Time War to past Ben. Come the very end of the episode, Ben 10,000 appears asking where Paradox is at because he's needed for the Time War.
• Broad Strokes: Word of God states that certain elements from previous series will be ignored in favor of a cleaner narrative.
• Broken Aesop:
  • When confronted with Dr Psychobos' Fantastic Racism, Azmuth's reaction was to state that trying to prove which one of their two species was the smartest was a waste of time, energy and resources. This seems like a pretty honorable opinion to stand for, but later episodes have Blucik and Driba mock Psychobos by claiming that "The dumbest Galvan is smarter than a Cerebrocrustacean". Nothing seems to contradict them and, to make things worse, Word of God implied that they were right.
  • Also, in "Rad Monster Party", the inhabitants of Anur Transyl are beings based on horror-themed monsters, but Ben does not consider what outsiders are to them. The moral of the episode is that you should not judge people based on stereotypes, and about placing oneself in their shoes. In the end, Ben clearly did not learn anything.
    • Granted, Ben enjoyed his time on the world and had nothing against the people before being ostracized and to be fair, the fact that all of the inhabitants resemble famous monsters raises some questions.
  • "Catfight" ends with Ben explaining to Looma and Attea that they're both strong, capable leaders on their own, and don't need a "trophy guy" to gain respect. That coming from a show which portrays all its female characters as either villainesses or love interests.
  • In "And Then There Were None", Ben tells his alternate self that the Omnitrix is not necessary to be a hero. All of the alternate Ben's accomplishments in the next episode depend on his use of the Omnitrix.
    • To be fair, Ben also said the Omnitrix was "just a gadget", and it was how the alternate Ben used it that mattered.
• The Bus Came Back:
  • After two series of absence, Phil, Max's old Plumber partner, finally returns as a test subject for the Nemetrix.
  • Also, Gwen and Kevin drop by for big arc-enders.
  • Six-Six made his reappearance alongside his other family members in "Vilgax Must Croak".
  • Ghostfreak/Zs'Skayr has made his return after Alien Force gave him a one-off appearance.
  • The Circus Freak Trio (Last seen in the original series' two-parted episode "Ben 10 vs. The Negative 10") return in "Something Zombozo This Way Comes", working for their old boss, Zombozo, for the first time since their debut appearance.
  • In "Animo Crackers", Ben calls Lieutenant Steel, who, like many other characters, hasn't been seen since the first series. He even lampshades this, saying that Ben never called him up until now.
  • "No Honor Among Bros" features Slix Vigma, from the original series episode "Grudge Match", as the host of the Golden Fist Tournament.
  • During the Rooters arc, the Plumbers' Kids return; Helen and Manny had last appeared in Alien Force, and Alan last appeared in Ultimate Alien. ^note  Pierce was the only one who did not return, (except in flashbacks) due to the handicap of being dead
  • In "Clyde 5", Aunt Vera (from the original series episode "Early Retirement") returns.
  • "The Color of Monkey" saw the return of one-off villain Jarret, king of the Phantophage from the Alien Force episode "The Con of Rath" ^note  This episode also brought back the Tiffin, which Jarret wanted to eat in his only prior appearance .
• Bus Full of Innocents: In "Malefactor", Malware sets an oil tanker on course for a school bus as a Sadistic Choice for Ben: stop him or save the bus. Naturally, Ben does the latter.
• Butt-Monkey:
  • Ben is back on being this trope.
  • There's also Pakmar, an alien merchant whose places of business have been destroyed on three separate occasions (The last two times solely due to Ben's presence).
  • Similarly, Mr. Baumann, whose store and car usually suffer as a result of Ben's antics.
• Bystander Syndrome: Azmuth dismisses the fact that young Ben is mode-locked into alien form as secondary to his current task, until Ben starts breaking his stuff while looking around. Then he takes a few seconds to deal with it.
  • Ben, of all people (as well as Rook, Rad and Hobble, though for Rad it does make sense) is subject to this in the Galactic Monster story arc, in stark contrast with his usual behavior. During his time on Anur Transyl, he is very well-aware Zs'Skayr is scheming in the dark, yet focuses only on what he initially came from and makes no effort to track him down or foil his scheme, unless events gets to him by themselves. By the end of the story arc, he was going to leave the planet with Zs'Skayr still undefeated, and went back only so he could acquire Lord Transyl's DNA.

C-D

• Canon Discontinuity:
  • Given Derrick Wyatt's comments about Primus and executive mandates about cleaning up continuity, this may mean that Primus no longer exists. Which is amusing given DJW's attitude to the ''other'' Primus in regard to one of his previous shows...
  • The episode "Ben 10,000 Returns" was also confirmed to be ignored in favor of making Ben's future more like the original series Ben 10,000.
  • Inverted with Ben 10: Destroy All Aliens, which is stated to be classified as canon despite being clearly stated to not be so when it was up.
• Canon Immigrant: Gorvan, a character exclusive to the first Alien Force video game, makes a brief cameo in "Special Delivery" and "Catfight." He's also The Mole in "Mud Is Thicker Than Water".
• Call-Back:
  • In "Showdown, Part 1", Gwen tries to get Ben to transform into Diamondhead before he chooses Feedback, though he transforms into Feedback anyway. He uses the term "What goes around, comes around", something he said while using Diamondhead in the first series right before Malware destroys Feedback.
  • There's also the example where young!Ben quips to Malware that he needs a breath mint since Malware's breath stinks. About 20 episodes later, current!Ben asks for a breath mint since his mouth tastes of Malware.
  • A minor one, but in one episode the Vreedle brothers help activate a device to blow up the entire universe. Several episodes later, as an idea of what to do that will be the worst act they had ever done, Rhomboid suggests destroying the entire universe.
  • In “Max's Monster” early on, Max once again hits and stops Phil with a truck with Ben as Feedback draining his energy, with much better results this time around. That an Rook refers to him as "a Phil", in a manner similar to Khyber in “Of Predators and Prey part 2”.
• Cardboard Prison:
  • Despite being imprisoned in a high-security cell at the Plumber Base, not only does Animo escape just by digging his way to the sewers, presumably with the help of his ants, but nobody even notices he's gone until Ben and Rook go to visit the cell, suggesting they never even bother to put up security cameras to watch him. This was forgivable in the original show, where Animo was kept in a regular-looking prison, but the Plumbers, with all their advanced tech and deal with dangerous aliens, have no excuse.
  • Averted in "Outbreak". The plumber base has a force field surrounding it that keeps prisoners from escaping. Psyphon and his cronies have to trick Ben and company into completely shutting the energy core down before they can try to escape. How Animo got past this is unexplained.
  • Played straight in "Special Delivery". Many villains who should be incarcerated, such as Psyphon and his gang, Zombozo, and Fistrick are free in this episode.
  • Lampshaded in "Something Zombozo This Way Comes." After Rook got turned into a zombie-sadclown in a Circus of Fear, Ben is completely sure it's Zombozo's doing, despite him being held in the prison at the Base. Ben and Grandpa Max takes a visit to his cell, where Ben quickly reveals that the Zombozo in there is a dummy, with a Plumber stuffed inside. Ben immediately tells Max that the Base really needs to work on its security.
  • Lampshaded again in "Universe Vs. Tennyson", when Ben wonders how Fistrick is inexplicably free. It turns out Chadzmuth the Galvan lawyer has been springing all of Ben's foes on technicalities (that are mostly Ben's fault).
  • In "Final Countdown," they did do some substantial upgrades, but a cybrog Kundo hijacked control of the place. Though from then on, we don't see anymore escapees.
• Casting Gag: Fistina is played by Morgan Lofting. Fistina is an Expy of Crasher from Challenge Of The Go Bots, the GoBots were an infamous competitor with the Transformers franchise, and Morgan Lofting voiced the female Autobot Moonracer in the Generation 1 Transformers cartoon episode "The Search for Alpha Trion".
• Cerebus Retcon: "Rooters of All Evil" is this and then some. Kevin isn't an alien, the Plumbers Kids are a black ops experiment and Max never had Kevin's dad as a partner.
• Cerebus Rollercoaster:
  • Interestingly Omniverse may be Denser and Wackier and Lighter and Softer but it does have a rather dark main plot concerning a trio of Knight of Cerebus villains trying to take down Ben. However, most of these darker episodes are sandwiched in between comedic episodic ones. This seems to have only applied for the Malware story arc however, as the rest of the series has been far less dark as a whole, and even episodes from the main plots involve a lot of comedic scenes.
  • However, it has a taken a turn for the darker with the Rooters arc and the Time War arc.
• Character Catchphrase:
  • "It's hero time", as always for Ben.
  • Ben 23 switched up the catchphrase with "It's gyro time," where he goes to eat gyros at his favorite restaurant.
• Chekhov's Classroom: Humorous example in "It Was Them". When Ben asks Rook how he knows so much about ants, Rook recites a few facts about their massive population and widespread presence across the Earth. When they catch up with Animo, he lectures them about the power of ants... using the exact same statistics, which Ben proudly proclaims he already knows.
• Chekhov's Gun: Maltruant steals the Annihilargh (which was repaired by Blukic and Driba) and the Dwarf Star (from Psyphon's auction) and combines them into one weapon.
• Clark Kenting: In the flashback sequence presented in "Weapon XI, Part 2", it's revealed that Kevin led Alan, Manny, Helen, and Pierce on a mission to attack the Tennysons back when he was 12. Although Kevin's face is fully exposed, the other four wear semi-transparent helmets to cover their faces. When Argit tells Gwen that those were the Plumbers' Kids, she states that she had no idea it was them until right then, even after meeting the four later. Granted, it was at night, so it may have been hard for her to see through the helmets and she didn't know who they were back when she was 11, but she seriously couldn't piece it together that the clearly visible Four-arms boy, XLR 8 girl, black kid with Heatblast powers, and spikey brown boy may be connected to the four people with the exact same powers and general appearance and who are roughly the age those four who attacked her at the time she met them that she helped recruit? Those are some great basically see-thorugh helmets!
  • Yes this was a Retcon added later so the creators of Alien Force wouldn't have known about this, but they couldn't have disguised the Plumbers' Kids identities better in the flashback?
• Collector of the Strange:
  • The Space Pirate in "Gone Fishin'?" is collecting ships in bottles to sell at a high price to collectors. That is to say, he collects actual, full-sized ships, bottles and sells them. Their crews are of no concern.
  • The aptly named Collectimus collects Ben 10 memorabilia.
• Color Failure: In "Special Delivery", Psyphon turns completely white in fear when he sees Toepick's hideous face.
• Color Me Black: Ben gets revenge on Will Harrangue - who made his life a living hell because of his bigotry against aliens - by turning him into what he despised most: an alien.
• Combination Attack: How Vilgax is defeated in "And Then There Was Ben": Gwen 10 turns into Cannonbolt, is electrified by Ben 23 as Shocksquatch, launched by Omniverse Ben as Diamondhead, then hits Vilgax full speed, knocking him into Ben 10,000 as Atomic-X who uses a supercharged flick to send him flying where Normal!Ben finishes him off with a flying kick to the head.
• Combining Mecha: Through the combination of an evil A.I., Rook's shapeshifting truck, and four cars, said A.I. is able to make itself a mecha body in "OTTO Motives".
• Comically Missing the Point: In "Third Time's a Charm", the heroes meets a janitor at Friedkin University who turns out to be Bezel, the most powerful sorcerer in the universe.
  Rook: It is highly unlikely that a magic user of such magnitude would be raking leaves on a college campus.
  Bezel: I tried raking leaves for the city, but they weren't hiring.
• Comically Small Demand: As seen in "Universe vs Tennyson", the penalty for unauthorized reality warping is five Taedons.
• Company Cross References: In one episode about a store that shifts between dimensions, Cow and Chicken make a cameo as alien customers in said store. Charlie Adler even reprised his role as the duo.
• Conflict Ball: In "Weapon XI, Part 1", when Ben transformed into Alien X while fighting against the Rooters and mind-altered Amalgam Kids, rather than using his omnipotence to fix the Amalgam Kids and imprison the Rooters, he just used it to beat them up more effectively, making them shoot each other and almost delivering a Megaton Punch to Alan. This convinces Kevin that Ben is not responsible enough to wield the Omnitrix and that he must be killed. Although Part 2 reveals Kevin was faking it.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: "Special Delivery" has Ben fighting together an entire army of villains, including several ones (Zombozo, Trumbipulor, Sunder, Fisttrick, the Kraaho...) that could give him a hard time in previous episode of their own and would usually require help to be defeated. When he confronts them altogether alone in this episode, however, he takes them down with incredible ease.
• Continuity Nod: A lot of them, much in the same way than Transformers: Animated made Mythology Gags of previous Transformers series:
  • Shocksquatch, an alien introduced in the crossover Ben 10/Generator Rex: Heroes United, is one of Ben's recurring aliens.
  • Ben is seen going near Mr. Smoothie, a fast food place he frequently went to in AF/UA, while looking for a place to eat. He decides to not go because he feels it would not be the same without Kevin and Gwen.
  • In the flashback segment presented in "A Jolt From the Past", young Ben gripes about who would be drinking smoothies... while fighting a Megawatt in the Mr. Smoothy, which is just opening.
  • At the end of the pilot, Rook get Ben's acceptance Through His Stomach by buying chilli fries on Max's advice. This food was mentioned to be part of his favorite in Alien Force, and was frequently used as a Running Gag around his Evil Counterpart Albedo.
  • Ben and Rook fight Megawhatts, with Ben acknowledging he hasn't fought these things in years (a flashback in the same episode shows that).
  • Albedo, a villain introduced in Ben 10: Alien Force who is mentioned to have been Azmuth's assistant, is seen before he went rogue in a flashback to the original series' era that features him working with Azmuth.
  • Gwen's Anodite form now wears clothes with some similarities to the Lucky Girl suit she wore back in the original series.
  • In the second episode: all the aliens he transforms into are the Andromeda aliens (barring Shocksquatch, who for some reason replaces AmpFibian).
  • When Ben is fighting Khyber in "Of Predators and Prey":
    Ben/Heatblast: I've defeated Vilgax the Conquerer... Diagon the Destroyer... what makes you think you're any better?
  • The same episode has him using the hoverboard he had in his youth (though like everything, it has a completely different design, though he has broken a few of 'em)
  • In the second part of "Of Predators and Prey", when mentioning people have been trying and failing to get his Omnitrix, Ben mentions a time where someone had "his hand crawl in the Null Void without him", which refers to his first encounter with Sunder.
  • Phil, one of Max's old partners who betrayed the Tennysons in the first series, is shown to be stranded in the Null Void and is one of the first test subjects for the Nemetrix.
  • This two parter seems to have a lot of callbacks. At one point, Ben pats Rook, who doesn't get the "there there" gesture and Ben has to explain. Rook later does it back to Ben, who is annoyed by it, which amuses Rook. Now, back in Alien Force, Vilgax had taken the Omnitrix and Ben patted Azmuth, saying this would be all right. Azmuth said "Did you just 'there, there' me?!" (That was from the episode "Primus," which is not considered to have happened by The Powers That Be, interestingly.)
  • "Gone Fishin' " has the villain using a Kraken similar the one in the original series to protect his lair, and bring back Magister Patelliday, a character who had appeared for a few seconds in one Ultimate Alien episode.
  • "Malefactor" has a lot of them as well, including a reference to Kangaroo Commando, one of Ben's childhood heroes who showed up in one episode of the original series, and a reference to Ben's battle with Forever King Driscoll on Mt Rushmore.
  • Even the background characters are consistent to ridiculous degrees. The woman seen sunbathing in "Hot Stretch" is the very same woman in "Malefactor" driving the bus that Malware threw a gas tanker at to get away from Ben.
  • "Arrested Development" has reference to both Captain Nemesis (whose building is shown and mentioned) and his robotic enemies from Dimension 12 (who show up as antagonists in the episode).
  • The fact that Ben is very bad with blasters. Very bad.
  • The premise of "Store 23" involves Ben looking for a 23rd Mr. Smoothy, something that he said he was going to do in "Blukic and Driba go to Mr. Smoothy".
  • In "Store 23," we see a poster of Pax from "Have I Got A Deal For You." Coincidentally or not, Blarney T. Hokestar was in this episode; "Have I Got A Deal For You" was his first (and only previous) appearance.
  • Also in "Store 23", one can guess the Intellectuary's identity if they've seen Secret of the Omnitrix - his appearance is almost identical to the suit Azmuth wore for his first scene in that movie.
  • In "Special Delivery," villains (and a couple non-villains) from all across franchise history appear at Psyphon's auction. Some of them are ultra-obscure; you'll find yourself saying "hey, it's that guy from that one episode's cold-open waaay back in the original series." Some people literally have more screentime in this episode's crowd scenes than in their appearances from the original series. A decent number of them even get to take part in the fight for the dwarf star, though most don't speak 'cause all their VAs being there at once would get expensive.
  • "Return to Forever" features two forever knights based on the original series, the Red Ninja that first appeared in the original series, and Morton and Chadwick from Alien Force. With it they also bring back a device used by the Highbreed, although the Forever Knights have modified it for their own use.
  • In "Mystery, Incorporeal", Gwen insists on being called "Gwendolyn". In the original series episode "Ben 10,000", her future self mentions that she's been "going by Gwendolyn since college."
  • "Animo Crackers" included a reference to Lt. Steel, a character who appeared once in the original series and was never seen again. This is even referenced in the episode where Steel mentions that he hadn't heard from Ben in years.
  • In "Collect This", Ben plays soccer, refers to the events of Simian's last appearance, and mentions the Unitrix. In the same episode, Hokestar has toys based off of Ben 23's aliens and is running the extranet show heard in "Bros in Space", and Collectimus indicates he's aware of Ben's remaking the universe back in "So Long and Thanks for All the Smoothies" and mentions a Ben 10 movie that blends the names of Ben 10: Secret of the Omnitrix and Ben 10: Race Against Time. Somewhat ironic for an episode that mocks fans for obsessing over continuity.
  • The outfit Kevin wears after becoming evil again (well, pretending to) is the same one he wore as Kevin 11,000 in the original series episode "Ken 10". He also gets an X-shaped scar on his chin from Swampfire, the very same scar that Kevin 11,000 has.
  • One of the Alien Force episodes revealed that Vulkanus is actually very small and just wears robotic suits to look larger. "The Ballad of Mr. Baumann" shows why this is the case.
• Continuity Porn: A lot of the Continuity Nods, cameos and others don't make much sense or don't bring anything to the story, such as Psychobos showing up at Psyphon's audience in "Special Delivery", Exo-Skull (a villain from the Ben 10,000 future presented in the Original Series and Omniverse) making an appearance, or the Kraken being used as a watchdog for space pirates (despite not being portrayed as an alien in his original appearance). This as a whole give you the feeling the writers are just giving those cameos to please the fans.
• Continuity Snarl: A major one with the future seen in Ben 10,000 and Ken 10. Derrick J. Wyatt keeps insisting that the future seen in Omniverse is the same as the original series and the definitive future. This is not remotely plausible as a number of elements make no sense with what developed in the later shows, such as Kevin being evil and imprisoned in the Null Void since he was a kid, Vilgax having been killed when Ben was fifteen, Ben 10,000 still having his original Omnitrix, Grandpa Max looking completely different... At best it would be a similar but not quite Broad Strokes version. Not to mention that the Ben 10,000 future was a alternate future to begin with where Ben did not get Grampa Max a cake on his birthday. The Ben 10 Wiki notably disregards Wyatt's statements on this and goes with Matt Wayne's Word of God that the Ben 10,000 future is just one possible future.
• Contrived Coincidence: Gwen and Kevin are in a space ship orbiting Earth for an astronomy assignment when Ben, Rook, and Max call for assistance from Albedo's attack.
  • When Zs'Skayr alters a shipping manifest to ferry him and the statue of Dr. Viktor to their home planet of Anur Transyl, the ship just so happens to also be carrying Ben. Zs'Skayr claims that this was an unplanned bonus, despite how rare it is for Ben to travel into space.
  • An Omnitrix malfunction turns Ben into Rath (a humanoid tiger alien with anger issues) when he's fighting Nyancy Chan, a villain who can control felines. Since we know how many aliens Ben has unlocked, we can calculate that the odds of this happening by pure chance are less than two percent.
• Convenient Misfire: In "Mystery, Incorporeal", Juryrig's cannon jams when the owner of the food truck used for parts pops up. This is evidently necessary so that the mana beast can bite the Omnitrix and force Ben to later transform into Ghostfreak.
• Cool Bike:
  • Ben's motorcycle, the Tenn-Speed.
  • In "Let's Do the Time War Again", Ben 10,000 rebuilds Ben's broken Tenn-Speed and Rook's broken Proto-Truck into a pair of cycles which can merge into a flying time machine.
• Cool Car: Double-subverted; when Rook is showing his vehicle to Ben we first see a badass-looking green and black monster truck, only to learn it's a different car and Rook's actual ride actually is the old, silly-looking truck behind it. Then Rook reveals it's only in camouflage mode and can turn into a powerful, heavily armed, spaceship-like vehicle.
  • Kevin's car has an indestructible Tetramand-made engine block, which is why Kevin has always been able to repair his car despite the constant abuse it suffers.
• Cosmic Retcon: In "So Long and Thanks for All the Smoothies", the fourth episode of the series in production order, the universe is destroyed and Ben remakes it as Alien X. He claims to have made an exact copy, but the Mr. Smoothie mascot changed in appearance and one of the smoothies tasted different. It was generally assumed by the fandom that most retcons Omniverse made after that were a result of similar errors in Ben's recreation. Ironically, "Universe vs Tennyson" presented Mr. Smoothie as the only thing Ben didn't get right. Everything else was Cosmic Retcons by other Celestialsapiens.
• Country Cousin: Clyde Fife.
• Creator Cameo:
  • In "Have I Got A Deal For You", Hokestar borrows a scooter from "Y-It's Scooter Rentals". "Y-It" is a variation of the art director's name, Derrick Wyatt.
  • Wyatt appears as a Galvan in "Trouble Helix", "Many Happy Returns", and "Showdown: Part 1".
  • These are everywhere. Blukic and Driba are named for Butch Lukic and Dan Riba.
  • When Ben is flashing back to his unintentional break-up with Julie, he can be seen battling against a Sumo Slammers player with the screen-name of "Derrick W."
• Crisis Crossover: A variant in that it's not multiple series, but multiple featured timelines. In "And Then There Was Ben" sees No-Watch Ben ultimately team up with most of the previously featured alternate Omnitrix wielders from across the the multiverse team up to defeat Vilgax, including Prime Ben, Ben 10,000, Ben 23, and Gwen 10.
• Crossdressing Voices: Professor Xagliv, who despite looking quite masculine and having a deep voice, is a woman.
• Crossover: "T.G.I.S." sees Ben and Rook team-up with The Secret Saturdays.
• Daddy's Little Villain: Incursean Princess Attea shares her father's ambition, even (especially) when she's usurping him.
  • Princess Looma also has her father's approval, but she's less of a villain and more of an antagonist.
• Dark Is Not Evil: The inhabitants of Anur Transyl may look like horror movie monsters, but most of them aren't evil. Scout even says that the crime rate there is pretty low. Nonetheless, they are openly hostile towards outsiders.
  • Within Ben's Omnitrix, Atomic-X, a combination of Alien X and Atomix looks scary, and even looks like a stereotypical Scottish "Black Knight", but is actually one of the good characters.
• Dark Reprise: The "Galactic Monsters" arc uses a Halloween-ish remix of the main theme.
• Dating Catwoman:
  • Ben and Ester...at least from Rook's point of view.
  • Due to the influence of the Incursean DNA, Ben develops an attraction to Attea when he transforms into Bullfrag. The feeling is mutual.
  • Rook and Isoceles "Celes" Right Triangle have a flirtatious relationship, although they never actually date.
• A Day in the Limelight:
  • "The Ballad of Mr. Baumann" for the most part focuses on Mr. Baumann, and explains why he knew Ben could turn into aliens prior to the Time Skip, along with somewhat fleshing out.
  • "Blukic and Driba Go To Mr. Smoothies" and "Blukic and Driba Go To Area 51" revolves around the titular duo, resulting in Ben only having a supporting role.
  • Kevin Levin gets his own episodes in OTTO Motives, The Rooters of All Evil, Weapon XI: Parts 1 & 2. Most of the flashbacks feature Kevin during his time in the null void, in which Ben is absent in.
  • Magister Patelliday appeared very briefly in Ultimate Alien, then made a couple cameos in the Omniverse premiere, and then "Gone Fishin'" came along. We find out he's an old buddy of Grandpa Max and is very good at what he does even as his "Barney Fife, but as an alien fish" personality is brought into full focus (the homage was there before, but barely getting a sentence or two meant it was "hey, he sounds kinda like somebody I've heard befo- never mind, he's gone.") It may have to do with the tone shift; in the Darker and Edgier Ultimate Alien series he'd not fit in, but Omniverse is—
• Deader than Dead: In "Weapon XI, Part Two," the Rooters attempt to place Ben in a non-baryonic disruptor chamber. The chamber would destroy both Ben and the Omnitrix at the sub-quantum level, ensuring no force in any universe could ever bring them back.
• Dead Guy Junior: In the episode "Rook Tales", we learn that Ben has (at least) the same first name as his paternal great-great-grandfather, implying that he may have been named after him.
• Denser and Wackier: Even the original series, while light-hearted and often comical, usually kept a more or less realistic setting. Omniverse, on the other hand, isn't afraid to get downright silly on occasions for the sake of Rule of Funny (LEGO-based aliens, the Annihilargh, some of the alien civilians...).
• Depopulation Bomb: In "Return to Forever", the Forever Knights construct a generator that will eradicate any form of life which has been programmed into it, in this case most of the species that populate Undertown. Ben, in the form of Jury Rigg, reconfigures it to transform Will Harangue into an alien, instead.
• Destructive Savior: Ben, to the point a merchant was willing to endure blackmail from aliens criminals rather than call for his help. Mr. Baumann reveals that Ben has a long-standing habit of accidentally trashing his car, and had earlier said the same was true of his store. A truck of his is actually in orbit thanks to Ben. Until it came back down thanks to Ben. On Baumann's house. Though there's no way Bowman could have known that was Ben's fault.
• Detonation Moon: Malware blows up Galvan B, Galvan Prime's moon and home of the Mechamorphs. They put it back together once they're restored to normal.
• Deus ex Machina: Ben suddenly reacquiring Feedback after making peace with himself and defeating Malware.
• Diabolus ex Machina: Khyber's dog has demonstrated predator forms for Heatblast, Stinkfly, Armadrillo, and Crashhopper. Guess which aliens the Omnitrix keeps giving Ben?
• Diminishing Villain Threat: A very common recurrence in this show:
  • Zombozo, to a minor extent; while he always was a minor villain, his appearances in both the original series and UA portrayed him as walking horror and a competent Gang leader with good scheming skills, respectively. Omniverse has him attempting a brain robbery alone, portrays him as much more wacky, and merely has him defeated in the first episode's Batman Cold Open, making it the first appearance where he isn't dangerous. Eventually fixed in "Something Zombozo This Way Comes", where his powers fading away are finally explained and he gets back to his initial threat level.
  • "Special Delivery" hits several villains hard with it; a lot of the villains that appear in this episode (Psyphon, Fistrick, Trumbipulor...) had been previously shown to be big threats that could cause trouble to Ben each of their own. Here, they all team up against Ben, and he basically mops the floor with them.
  • Psyphon is hit hard with this; after being reintroduced as a Not-So-Harmless Villain in "The More Things Change" and "Outbreak", he gradually gets less impressive, less intelligent and more humiliated over the course of his appearances. By "Bengeance is Mine", he Took a Level in Dumbass to the point he can't tell the difference between the real Vilgax (who he has been working for) and a random human plumber who looks only slightly like him.
  • Dr Psychobos went from being part of the Big Bad Ensemble and an Evil Counterpart of Azmuth who could force both Khyber and Malware into calming down in the first two arcs to Attea's Butt-Monkey in the Incursean story arc.
    • This is later lampshaded in "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad Ben World Part 2" where he notes that by this point in the series he can't even manage to conquer Mad Ben's already destroyed and enslaved world.
  • A weird example with Vilgax; he appears considerably less than in previous series, and whenever an episode has him as the main villain, he is depicted as a genuinely dangerous villain, if not as unstoppable as how he was back in the Original Series. Whenever he gets a mention or a cameo, on the other hand, it's played entirely for comedy. A particularly infamous example is when he was revealed to be afraid of Ma Vreedle.
  • Zig-zagged with Darkstar, who is portrayed as still effective and smart in Mystery Incorporated... until he turns back into Micheal Mourningstar. Then his vanity is flanderized significantly and he goes on a pointless rampage, crossing the Godzilla Threshold to get Ben to turn into Ghostfreak, whose Story-Breaker Power easily disposes of him in a very humiliating way.
• Disney Death: Inflicted by Malware to the entire Galvanic Mechamorph species.
• Ditto Aliens: Averted. Aliens of the same species are given distinct appearances. This is best shown in "Rad Monster Party".
  • Played straight with the Gourmands; although two subspecies exist, members in each species have the same color pattern (though there is some slight variance).
  • Also played straight with the Incurseans. Though Bullfrag is a genetically optimal Incursean, average Incurseans look the same. It's no wonder Attea can't find a worthy consort when she becomes High Empress.
• Divergent Character Evolution: Perhaps in response to criticisms of the lack of unique traits or qualities of some of the sequel aliens, the sequel aliens have started to be given new traits such as their own sound effects (sometimes when they're moving), a distinct quirk (Spidermonkey makes several monkey-esque chirps), or they're slightly reworked to be less of what appears to be blatantly inspired by previous aliens, whether in appearance or changing their powers a bit. The ones who outright have the same power have been ignored in favor of the original series’ aliens (Fasttrack is no longer used, XLR8 is back). However, Derrick J. Wyatt has said Fasttrack (and some others) won't appear for the first 40 episodes, which is oddly specific if they're truly intended to be gone for good.
  • In Ultimate Alien, Pa Vreedle was heavyset, stern, appeared to be quite intelligent, and had a gravelly voice. When he returns in "Vreedlemania", he is skinnier, sports a beard, has a higher-pitched voice, and is more lighthearted and dim.
• Disproportionate Retribution: Mr. Baumann punishes Ben for just accidentally destroying his car, which was the result of an unprovoked alien attack. (Of course, we find out from flashbacks that Ben's Destructive Savior tendencies have ruined his day a lot.)
• Don't Call Me "Sir": Ben isn't really confortable with Rook's formality and quickly makes use of this trope:
  Ben: "Dude. Call. Me. Ben!"
• Downtime Downgrade: Ben accidentally and unknowingly broke up with Julie between Ultimate Alien and this series.
• Double Meaning: Collectimus, while shielding his eyes from the sun, wishes the Earth was darker. Of course, any subtlety is lost when he immediately follows up with "and grittier."
• Dragon Ascendant: Psyphon, who was The Dragon to Vilgax in the AF/UA era, is first seen starting a business of his own.

E-K

• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • In the first episode, Khyber whistles with his lips instead of his neck-holes, Rook uses contractions (though is still quite formal), and Pakmar isn't a Third-Person Person.
  • The first two episodes have slightly more in common with the two previous sequels, albeit lighter, in addition to being paced somewhat differently than most later episodes and even seems slightly more moderated in its silliness. This likely has to do with the fact that the script was penned by the late Dwayne McDuffie.
• Early Installment Character-Design Difference: Chromastone uses an unmodified version of his Alien Force and Ultimate Alien design in "Trouble Helix". When he reappears in the finale, he has an entirely new look.
• Easily Forgiven: The Kraahos get away with their quite dangerous actions with only having Esther as their leader as punishment. Even after that, a few are still sneaking around committing crimes.
• Eating the Enemy:
  • The Egomaniac Hunter Khyber tries to invoke this trope in his hunt for Ben by using a device called the Nemetrix which contains DNA for feral species that are natural predators to the sapient species in the Omnitrix. He attaches the device to feral beasts he controls and uses it to turn them into predators to try to hunt down and devour Ben.
  • After Malware, a mutated Galvanian Mechamorph, takes of Galvin Prime, he's able to turn into a giant, corrupted Muck Monster. Ben tries fighting him with Way Big, but Malware only gets bigger and bigger. Eventually he gets big enough to absorb Way Big into his body. Too bad for Malware, this allows Ben to reunite with Feedback and defeat him.
• Emo Teen: One of the alternate universe Bens.
• Emotion Eater: Charles Zenith in "The Most Dangerous Game Show" is an alien that feeds on drama.
• Epic Fail: Ben learns the hard way that LEGO does not make a good net.
• Establishing Character Moment: Rook's introduction has him take out three alien criminals, showcasing that he's very effective, but the scene afterward showcases his social awkwardness (in that he tends to take things very literally, and not being able to understand sarcasm).
• Evil Counterpart: Khyber has shades of this; he uses a device similar to the Omnitrix to turn his pet into various predator monsters.
• Evil Doppelgänger: In "Store 23", Tetrax and Azmuth are both villains that Ben 23 battle. Subverted when Ben 23 finds out that they aren't evil and just wanted the Omnitrix back since Ben 23 wasn't using it responsibly. Tetrax-23 is shown to be more anti-heroic than his main dimension counterpart though. Also with them is Sevenseven's good counterpart.
• Evil Is Cool: In-universe: Ben comments that Pyronite Psyphon looks "kinda cool."
• Evil Sounds Deep: See Power Echoes below.
• Expendable Alternate Universe: In "And Then There Were None", Vilgax and Eon recruit a group of Ben Tennyson's from various alternate universes and brainwash them into being loyal minions. These include a dark-haired Ben, spiky Australian Ben, zombie Ben, and Albedo. Professor Paradox counters by recruiting Ben 23, Ben 10,000, and Gwen 10. This trope is zigzagged, as every last one of them end up being killed by a temporal bomb designed to wipe out alternate timelines, leaving only a timeline where there is no Omnitrix.
• Exposed Extraterrestrials: In "Food Around the Corner", we learn that Rath is this even by his own species’ standards, as it turns out despite their loud and aggressive demeanor, Appoplexians have "a highly advanced sense of shame".
• Expository Theme Tune: The theme song explains the franchise's entire premise of Voluntary Shapeshifting Henshin Kid Hero Ben Saving the World from the forces of evil.
• Expy: The Thep Kufan and Loboan that Zs'Skayr recruited in the original series don't return in this iteration, but Kuphulu and Crüjo seem to be meant to be close analogues to them, albeit voiced.
• Extremophile Lifeforms: The tungsten-based Kraaho need life to be extremely hot to live. Since they decide to make a settlement on Earth, which is far too cold for them, they attempt to cause a lava flow on the surface to make it more habitable.
• Eye Scream:
  • When Eyeguy was used to try to subdue the Grackleflint, the creature spat into his many eyes.
  • In "Blukic and Driba Go To Area 51", Ben accidentally becomes Whampire in the daytime. We are then treated to a close-up of his eyes bubbling in the heat.
• Facepalm: In "It's a Mad Ben World Part II", Ben 23 causes Ben to facepalm as Gravattack, which hits the Omnitrix symbol on his forehead, which causes Ben 23 to revert back into his normal form, because commands from each of their watches are going to the other Ben's Omnitrix.
• Fake Defector: Kevin pretends to rejoin the Rooters in the "Weapon XI" two-parter.
• Fake Memories: Proctor Servantis implanted these into the minds of Kevin, Argit, the "Plumbers' kids", and Max.
• Fantastic Slur:
  • In "Hot Stretch", Seebik refers to non-Kraaho lifeforms as "cold cuts" (Kraahos being creatures who require vast amounts of heat to be comfortable).
  • According to Deefus Veeblepister (the Sludgepuppy who plays Ben in his intergalactic TV show), Sludgepuppy is an offensive slur, though none of the Sludgepuppies seen before had any problem with being called it.
• Fastball Special: Ben and Kevin utilize this when chasing Zombozo.
• Felony Misdemeanor: The Tetramands have a very dim view towards lawbreakers. Outside one of their auto shows are several folks buried up to their necks in sand, one of whom was being punished for jumping the turnstile.
• A Form You Are Comfortable With: The Contumelia are fifth-dimensional energy beings which appear to third-dimension beings in whatever form holds the most sway over their hearts (Rook sees his father, Ben sees Mr. Smoothie, and Maltruant sees himself). Skurd, however, is able to perceive them in their true forms as masses of energy.
• Friendly Rivalry: Max has one with Sheriff Wat-Senn.
• Five Rounds Rapid: The Plumbers continually fire at the zombie clowns in "Zombozo This Way Comes", even though it has no effect and isn't even slowing them down.
• Flanderization:
  • Combined with Took a Level in Jerkass and Took a Level in Dumbass when it came to 11 year old Ben. While he always was immature and obnoxious back in the original series, Omniverse flanderizes the younger, original series era Ben (who is presented as being 11 years old in the flashback sequences) via exaggerating his immature and obnoxious Idiot Hero traits and taking them up to eleven. He actually succeeds in being worse than 15 year old Ben was in season 3 of Alien Force.
  • To an extent, 16 year old Ben is portrayed in this iteration as much more bumbling, immature, and clumsy than he was in the two previous sequels and has become even more narcissistic in addition to having big moments of being even more of a Jerkass as well; The examples include taking credit for Rook's idea in front of Max in "Of Predators and Prey, Part 1", accidentally breaking up with Julie over a misunderstanding that was caused by his stupidity, or failing to recognize the threat Vilgax represented (the latter, especially, contracticts his attitude in the finale of Ultimate Alien). This was toned down a bit toward the end of the second story arc, only to have him flanderized again in the third story arc. There is even flanderization of his flanderization: in season 3 of Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, Ben had taken the habit to constantly (and annoyingly) remind everybody he had saved the entire Universe during the Hightbreed war. Now, he constantly reminds people he "Saved the Universe a billion times".
  • The Omnitrix itself was flanderized: its tendencies to give Ben the wrong alien are raised to such a level that it's a surprise when it actually gives Ben the alien he wanted.
    Rath: "LEMME TELL YA SOMETHIN', NEW OMNITRIX THAT KEEPS TURNIN' ME INTA THE WRONG THING - YOU KEEP TURNIN' ME INTA THE WRONG THING!
  • The Incurseans went from merely looking like anthropomorphic frogs in the Alien Force/Ultimate Alien era to having actual frog-like quirks and tongues in this series.
  • The Galvans received a similar treatment. Evil's Encore has Bluick displaying a frog-like prehensible tongue and using it to eat a bug, something no Galvan was shown doing before.
  • Dr Animo's hammyness and Laughably Evil tendencies are raised to even wackier level than they were in the original series; he invokes classic villain stock phrases, he is Hearing Voices and his monsters tend to look far less grotesque and more cartoonish than they were back in the original series.
  • Max's Lethal Chef tendencies have taken such an extreme that every time we see him in present day, he is cooking something weird.
  • XLR8 was Ben's go-to speedster in the original series, but spoke at a normal pace and only moved quickly when he wanted to. In Omniverse, he's downright hyperactive and seems unable to move and talk without being fast.
  • Zombozo went from an Axe-Crazy Monster Clown to a Denser and Wackier clown-themed villain whose characteristics are more played for laugh.
  • The Robots from Dimension 12 only said "Destroy all flesh and the works of flesh" once in their Ultimate Alien introduction episode. In "Arrested Development", they constantly repeat it over and over again.
  • Gwen and Kevin's character designs in Omniverse take the concepts that they had back in the original series (intelligence and ruffian, respectively) and highlights them even more boldly. Gwen is now freckled and sports glasses to compliment her nerdy girl theme, and Kevin now fashions tattered clothes, with eye liner, and looks like he just got back from a mosh pit show.
  • Darkstar's vanity has always been a big part of his character, but "Mystery, Incorporeal" has him screaming out "I'M SO BEAUTIFUL!"
• Flashback B-Plot: The series alternates between the present day and the original series era five years ago, with the flashbacks connecting to present-day villains and plot points.
• Flashback with the Other Darrin: In "And Then There Was Ben", the scenes with the original Ben encountering the Omnitrix are almost entirely accurate, but David Kaye voices Heatblast in this particular situation instead of his original actor, Steve Blum.
• Foil: Ben has lots of experience, but little formal training. Rook has had extensive Plumber training, but no firsthand experience fighting villains.
• Foreshadowing:
  • "It Was Them" mentions as a sidenote of a force field that should have stopped Animo escaping, but isn't paid proper attention to. It then becomes a major point in "Outbreak".
  • Billions Tower is seen in "Malefactor". We meet Billy Billions in the very next episode.
  • In "Gone Fishin'", the guy listening to the radio hears about Ben sending the Robots from Dimension 12 back where they came from. A few episodes later in "Arrested Development", we find out why they're back in town.
  • In "Blukic and Driba go to Mr. Smoothys," Ben says he's been to all 22 Mr. Smoothy's locations... and then sees on his computer that there's a 23rd that wasn't there last he knew, and he'd like to go check it out someday. "Store 23" is about, well, store #23, and there's a good reason why it wasn't there yesterday.
  • In "The Frogs of War Part 2", after Gwen, Kevin, Rook and Blukic are rescued from Attea by a rogue Incursean named Bullfrag, they’re all a bit mistrusting of him at first, until Gwen gets a closer look at him, and deems him safe. He later notices Blukic drinking a Mr. Smoothy, and asks if they have any more. This hints at Bullfrag actually being Ben.
  • Most episodes involving a flashback to Malware in the past are in an episode where Khyber the Huntsman appears in the first ten episodes. "Predators And Prey" reveals that they're coworkers. Additionally, Ben is surprised to hear about Malware, indicating that Malware was not just another villain that Ben fought on a daily basis.
  • One of the villains at the dwarf star auction in "Special Delivery" is a woman dressed like a cat. This character (Nyancy Chan) would later re-appear as the villain in the Batman Cold Opening of the episode "Tummy Trouble" (though that could be to episodes occasionally airing Out of Order).
  • Malware states in "Malefactor" that he'd "like nothing better than to drain you to an empty shell" to Ben. This is essentially how he destroys Feedback.
  • While it is revealed at the end of the episode, the sound effect used when knocking out Ben in "The Ultimate Heist" foreshadows the fact that Albedo's partner is Khyber.
  • In "Many Happy Returns", Kevin is gushing about nearly everything in Rook's truck, including a quil-tep nanoshift transformer. We get to see what this actually is in the episode "OTTO Motives".
  • Many of the Red Herrings in "Mystery, Incorporeal" seem to be referencing later plot developments, such as Z'skayr's return and Charmcaster's possible involvement in the arc.
  • In "Ben Again", Ben 10,000 notes the problems being caused by the "temporal beasts" of someone named Maltruant, who will later appear in more episodes.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: In "The Ballad of Mr Baumann", Baumann and Sheelane can only meet for one day every 5.22 years due to her need to live in high pressure water the rest of the time. Baumann proposes to her the third time.
• Fossil Revival: Psychobos obtains DNA from a skeleton of an extinct Galvan predator in order to add it to the Nemetrix.
• Framing Device: Episodes featuring pre-Time Skip Ben tend to utilize flashbacks to justify why we're seeing an old, albeit never seen, adventure. Curiously, "From Hedotorium to Eternity" lacks one, instead being an entire episode about the 11-Year-Old Ben and a few friends.
• "Freaky Friday" Flip: 16-Year-Old Ben and 11-Year-Old Ben switch bodies in "Ben Again".
• Funny Background Event: One episode has Hokestar's Dumb Muscle attempt to be restrained by the Plumbers while Max talks to Ben and Rook on his badge.
  • In "Blukic and Driba Go to Area 51", after Ben transformed into Whampire in the desert sun, we see more of him squirming around on the ground while Blukic and Driba discuss strategies.
• Fusion Dance: In "And Then There Were None", Ben 10,000 shows off the ability to fuse two of his alien forms, such as making a hybrid of Four Arms and Humungousaur. And just to show off how screwed everyone is at the end of the episode, a hybrid of Atomix and Alien X is completely useless against Vilgax's temporal bomb.
• Ghost Invasion: In the flashback episode "From Hedorium to Eternity," Zs'Skayr possessed the body of Thaddeus J. Collins and attempted to take over Earth by having his fellow Ectonurites possess people, as well.
• Given Name Reveal: The end of "Collect This" has the Lenopan Sludgepuppy actor who plays Ben in "The Ben 10 Show" reveal his name to be Deefus Veeblepister. Professor Hokestar breaks down laughing.
• Giving Them the Strip: In "An American Benwolf in London", Kai is grabbed by a Forever Knight and escapes by slipping out of her jacket, leaving it in the knight's hands.
• Godzilla Threshold: When Darkstar is empowered by the energy from Legerdomain and begins a life-draining rampage, Ben decides it's worth the risks involved in turning into Ghostfreak.
• A Good Name for a Rock Band: In "Charm School", Charmcaster summons several rockbats to fight Kevin and Rook. Kevin remarks "Charmcaster and the Rock Bats" sounds like the name of a rock band.
• G-Rated Drug: Feedback was implied to be this to 11-year-old Ben, complete with an "intervention" scene.
• Great Gazoo: Collectimus, with a color palette very much like the trope namer, is a diminutive being with cosmic capability in his Cool Chair that's a fan of Ben's that disappears in a pink cloud much like fairies from The Fairly Oddparents.
• Go Mad from the Isolation: Defied when Billy Billion's telling Ben about his time in Dimension 12.
  Billy: You know the worst part?
  Ben: That five years of isolation drove you crazy?
  Billy: That five years of isolation drove me—NO!
• Good Counterpart: Dimmension-23 Seven-Seven, is revealed to be one at the end, working for Azmuth and trying to get the Omnitrix back. The episode ends with him and Dimmension-23 Tetrax drinking Smoothies and waving good-bye to regular Ben.
• Good Shapeshifting, Evil Shapeshifting:
  • Albedo's alien forms are distinguished by being more disheveled and desaturated compared to Ben's with an aggressive red color palette and bags under their eyes. Averted in his earlier appearances where the only difference was Red Eyes, Take Warning.
  • When he regains his Ultimate Forms, they are now drawn as misshapen evil creatures of significantly increased power.
  • The Nemitrix exclusively turns its user into violent predators, meant to counter the sapient omnitrix aliens.
• G-Rated Stoner: Pax is a hippie, and also happens to be a PLANT alien...what is it hippies are known to do in their free time again?
• The Greatest Story Never Told:
  • At the end of "So Long and Thanks for the Smoothies", Ben finally proves to Rook that Alien X is real, takes control of Alien X and rebuilds the whole universe. As it was restored to its state from before the Annihilarrg went off (lest it just be destroyed again), nobody, Rook included, remembers.
  • In "Blukic and Driba Go To Mr. Smoothy's," the big battle is the B plot while the subject of the title is the A plot. In the end, Those Two Guys save the day from behind the scenes by reprogramming the robot rats to turn on each other.
• Green-Eyed Monster: Billy Billion, who's entire motivation is jealousy Ben got more attention than him in school (and also, revenge for being trapped in Dimension 12, but that was his own fault). Ben calls him out on it.
• Hand Wave:
  • The reason that Animo knew about and resurrected Argost? Before Argost died, he hired Animo just in case.
  • "Universe vs. Tennyson" does this with the Retcons and character design changes over the course of the series (with Azmuth as an example) by making them instances of Celestialsapien Reality Warping. So any time a voice changes or a new redesign appears, blame the Celestialsapiens.
• Happy Fun Ball: The Annihilarg sure doesn't look or sound like a universe destroying doomsday weapon.
• Heel–Face Turn: Slix Vigma, to an extent. Rather than kidnapping people, keeping them prisoners, and forcing them to fight like he did in the orignal series, he hosts (mostly) legitimate fighting tournaments.
  • Hex has put his days of evil behind him, and became a teacher at Gwen's college. Charmcaster has gone in the opposite direction thanks to corrupting power and certain evil voices whispering in her ear, though Hex and Gwen both seem confident that she can change too once she's freed from her bad influences.
  • Fistina helps the Plumbers to defeat Kundo in "The Final Countdown" and is allowed to become a Plumber after she serves her time
  • Viktor has a change of heart just as Lord Transyl is about to take control of Ben. It's thanks to his intervention that Ben is able to defeat Transyl and Zs'Skayr, leaving Viktor to imprison Transyl in Anur Trasyl's orbit, facing the sun. Anyone remember Ben's line to Viktor in "Be Afraid of the Dark" in the original series? "I don't suppose you'd consider becoming a good guy, would you?" Epic Foreshadowing.
• Heroic BSoD: 11 year old Ben gets one after Malware destroys Feedback.
• Hijacked by Ganon:
  • In-universe example; in the first episodes, it seems like Khyber the Huntsman is the Big Bad. However, it's eventually revealed he actually is working for Malware, a Predecessor Villain who was introduced in this series, but whose first appearance chronologically happened between the original series and Alien Force, and who had only been seen in flashback at this point.
  • Surprisingly averted for most of the series, however; almost none of the villains, at least two of which already being established villains (the Incurseans and Albedo), have their plot taken over by an already pre-established villain. Even the usual suspect, Vilgax, doesn't steal the limelight from the Incurseans in his appearance in the third arc, and is only the antagonist for three major episodes in the series ("Malgax Attacks" and the "And Then There Was Ben" two-parter).
• Hoist by His Own Petard: Feedback incapacitates Malware by draining him of power in "Showdown, Part 2", just like Malware did to many of his fellow Mechamorphs when Ben first met him 5 years ago.
  • In "Showdown, Part 1", Dr. Psychobos is defeated when Azmuth hijacks the Nemetrix to turn Khyber's pet into the natural predator of Dr. Psychobos's species.
• Hollywood Tactics: In "The Frogs of War Part 1", when the Incurseans attack Earth, Max says that due to how badly outnumbered they are the Plumbers' only chance is a frontal assault on the Incursean flagship. It doesn't come close to working.
• Hostile Show Takeover: In "Clyde Five", Ben's cousin Clyde tries to sing his own theme song over the opening credits. Ben interrupts him to complain about the takeover and critique his performance.
• How Do I Shot Web?:
  • Ben has some difficulties learning how to use the new Omnitrix, resulting in him almost always turning into the wrong alien the same way he did when the Omnitrix was damaged.
  • He sometimes has difficulties figuring out how new aliens work. Bloxx, Gravattack, and Ball Weevil are early examples.
• Hunting the Most Dangerous Game: This is a large part of Khyber's motivation to go after Ben.
• Hybridization Plot: The Amalgam kids, a group of children initially presented as being the offspring of several Interspecies Romances in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, are now retconned into originally being normal children until Servantis used Kevin's powers on them to turn them into human/alien hybrids, mainly under the belief that it was one of the only ways to stop Ben from destroying the universe.
• Hybrids Are a Crapshoot:
  • Averted with human/alien hybrids. Humans' superpower in the Ben 10 universe is adaptability (both physical and mental), which tends to translate into negating whatever weaknesses an alien may have when humans have kids with them.
  • Also averted with Ben 10,000 who uses the Biomnitrix, a pair of twin Omnitricies, allowing Ben to transform into hybrids of two of his two alien forms, which is implied to be an upgrade given that he exclusively uses these hybrids in all his appearances. Perhaps justified by the fact that, unlike with the OS Omnitrix malfunction, the Biomnitrix allows Ben to choose the two aliens he combines, allowing him to pick aliens whose strengths compliment each other, whereas the glitch merged two aliens randomly, when their traits are not necessarily so compatible.
• Hypocrite: Master Kundo is a traditionalist Revonnahgander, decrying technology and trying to bring Rook Shar back to Revonnah when she tries to join the Plumber Academy. As Rook points out, Revonnah has various kinds of technology, and his hatred of it seems to be arbitrary.
• Hypocritical Humor:
  • Ben asks the Rooters why they would want to give humans the powers of aliens... and then realizes in the same sentence that he has described the Omnitrix.
  • Ben tries to convince his cousin Clyde to give up an alien weapon. He first attempts to convince him that he can't use it for petty reasons, only for Rook to point out that Ben does this on a regular basis. He then tries to argue that Clyde's inexperience results in random property destruction. The sheer hypocrisy of this statement immediately causes everyone to stare at him, including Mr. Baumann and Pakmar, who could only have materialized from the aether just for that reaction shot. Ben just gives up at this point.
• Idiot Ball:
  • Mr. Baumann tries to prevent Ben from transforming in "T.G.I.S." so that he won't wreck his store...at the same time when the Chupacabras are wrecking his store and attacking customers.
  • Ben, Rook, and Kevin take a long time figuring out how to break down a locked door in "Mystery, Incorporeal" so that Darkstar has time to explain his ritual to one of his minions (and therefore the viewers).
  • Gwen fails to understand the fairly obvious code in Kevin's note in "Weapon XI: Part I". She tries running it through numerous code-breaking programs, forgetting she herself has a magic decoding spell. This is so she has to come to Ben and Rook for help, getting them involved in the plot.
• If I Had a Nickel...: Ben's response to Khyber saying he was the last person Ben would ever see.
• I Hate Past Me: The future Animo derides his past self for his flaws and mistakes, even blaming him for the accident that put his head in a jar (even though it had yet to happen in the present).
• I Just Want to Be Special: There is an Alternate Timeline of a Ben Tennyson who never had an Omnitrix and is extremely bored with his life longing to be a hero. Fortunately, Vilgax's plan to wipe out every Ben Tennyson in the universe gives the alternate Ben a chance to finally prove himself.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: With the exception of Rook (and only sometimes at that), no one in the setting seems capable of hitting the broad side of a barn.
• Improbable Aiming Skills: While in orbital reentry, an alternate Ben slammed into the Omnitrix's pod with Cannonbolt, pin-balling it right towards 10-year-old Ben with such accuracy that he had to dodge out of the way.
• In-Series Nickname: The Plumbers are often referred to as "red spots."
• Insistent Terminology: As always, Ben dislikes having the Omnitrix referred to as a weapon.
• Instant Expert: Gwen 10, just like in the original series. Using her Omnitrix on the first day she got it, she is still a better fighter than Ben 23, who has spent years fending off alien bounty hunters.
• Insult of Endearment: Before parting ways in the first episode, Ben and Gwen use their old insults for each other (Dweeb and doofus) one last time.
• Intercontinuity Crossover: "T.G.I.S." crossed-over with The Secret Saturdays. See that show's page for more details.
• Interspecies Friendship: Ben with Rook.
• Interspecies Romance: Mr. Baumann and Sheelane.
• I Shall Taunt You: Used by Ben against Khyber in "Of Predators and Prey part 2":
  Ben: If you're so great how come it took you five years to capture me, huh? It took Vilgax like five minutes!
  • Blucik and Driba use this against Psychobos in "Frogs of War" part 2.
  Driba: The dumbest Galvan is still smarter than any Cerebrocrustacean!
  Blucik: And we ought to know.
• It's Been Done: In his "Reason You Suck" Speech to Billy Billion, Ben points out how almost all his plans and inventions have already been done by previous villains.
• I Work Alone: Ben has this attitude in the pilot episode, not accepting Rook's partnership (possibly because he feels like he is trying to replace Gwen and Kevin). It comes back in "Of Predators and Prey" with Ben insisting he doesn't need help. He's even worse about it in the present day than he is in the flashback. The infighting and Ben's storming off alone is all a show to lure Khyber.
• Jerkass: Mr. Baumann. Made evident in "Special Delivery" when he can't accept that not every instance of destruction is Ben's fault. He even goes as far as to force Ben to make deliveries without using the Omnitrix.
  • Ben can be this trope if written badly.
  • Master Kundo.
• Jumping the Shark: In-Universe. In "Collect This", Simian, now working as the new "Gwevin" in "The Ben 10 Show", believes that they're "really jumping the root shark" by having the show filmed on Earth, as he thinks it'll make things confusing.
• Just Eat Him: How NRG disables the Fusion Engine.
• Karma Houdini:
  • Aside from being forced to make Ester their leader, the Kraahos don't get punished for trying to kill Ben and Rook in cold blood numerous times and for dumping several tons of molten lava onto Bellwood. The latter action is shown to destroy several buildings and a lot of property in general, as well as probably killing people in the city (and even if it didn't, they sure wouldn't have mind). Meanwhile, characters who commit lesser crimes are arrested and imprisoned by the Plumbers without hesitation.
  • Also, Blucik and Driba. While they are not evil, they did cause a large amount of problems with their stupidity and irresponsibility in "Blucik and Driba Go To Mr. Smoothie", by neglecting their duties and leaving with no permission just to find a a Mr. Smoothie. They themselves expect to be fired after this. Not only do they get away with it (they are still in the Plumbers in following episodes), but they actually get rewarded, since Ben gets them a Smoothie.
  • Chadzmuth gets no comeuppance for his Amoral Attorney antics. By the end of "Universe Vs. Tennyson", he goes right on with getting criminals released on technicalities, and even gives Ben a bill for his services.
  • Argit really starts to stretch his Lovable Rogue status in this show by committing things such as betraying the rebellion to the Incurseans and selling a Tiffin to Jarret to eat. Yet he becomes beloved and acclaimed as a hero in Undertown, and the future episode reveals he will eventually be elected president of Earth.
• Karmic Transformation: Master Kundo, the Jerkass Revonnahgander Luddite, ends up being badly wounded and having his arm replaced with a cybernetic prosthetic.
• Knight of Cerebus: Most villains are rather portrayed as comedic or silly, but when it comes to the main villains:
  • Khyber the Huntsman basically is an alien Serial Killer, and is portrayed as menacing with little comedy derived from him.
  • Malware fairly quickly headed in this direction, starting out in Omniverse with his general flaws (his ego, mostly) as a villain being showcased in each episode he's starred in ("The More Things Change Part 1" in flashback, and "Trouble Helix", his origin story), making him merely appear to be just another monster Ben faced, with a flaw that was easily exploited and humorous. Later appearances show that he learns from any mistakes he previously made, with his depravity and sociopathic tendencies becoming more apparent, his humorous flaws almost completely disappearing, along with being one of the few villains to seriously traumatize Ben.
  • Dr. Psychobos, though quirky, is a rare villain to actually win a round. Basically, the main villains of this series are nothing to laugh about.
  • Maltruant from "Fight at the Museum" onward.
• Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy: This is Fistrick's explanation for how he learned of Ravonnah and the Amber Ogia.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • Ben and Rook come across a trio of tiny, crab-like aliens making a meal out of a car. Before Ben can even transform, they recognize him and hastily try to reassemble the damaged vehicle.
  • Most of the major arc villains share this trait, as Khyber just calls off his pet when he realizes Ben and Rook outnumber him, Malware ran off in the first episode because, as Predators and Prey implied, he already got what he needed, and Psychobos doesn't even bother to stay after he steals a part of the Omnitrix's code.
• Kung-Shui: It's a bit of a Running Gag for Ben to get into fights with aliens while he's in the store of either Mr. Baumann or Pakmar, where he predictably ends up wrecking the whole store in the process. It got to the point where both shopkeepers not only want him to take the fight outside, but don't want him setting foot in their stores period.

L-P

• Lampshade Hanging:
  • The young Ben uses Feedback in practically all his appearances. When he uses him in "Of Predators and Prey, Part Two", young Gwen asks "Don't you ever get tired of that alien?"
  • "Showdown", the final episode for the show's second arc before being pushed back, shows Ben's ridiculously frequent use of Feedback and the characters pointing out how, in context, certain times using Feedback make no sense (the first example being a car chase where XLR8 would probably have been the best choice. Feedback is used instead, and running on power lines. The second example has him being used to put out a fire.).
  • Ben lampshades the Plumber base's status as a Cardboard Prison in "Something Zombozo This Way Comes."
• Laser-Guided Amnesia:
  • Gutrot uses a gas that induces short-term memory loss on both the present and future Animo, resulting in the present Animo forgetting how things turned out, and the future version forgetting the whole thing (thereby preventing him from coming back and trying again).
  • The Rooters inflicted this on Max, Kevin, and the Plumbers kids.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: If you didn't finish The Secret Saturdays, the fact that V.V. Argost isn't human, and is actually an intelligent Cryptid.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo:
  • Fistina, one of the alien extortionists is Crasher.
  • We've now since seen Cow and Chicken.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: In "Universe vs. Tennyson", Chadzmuth tries to defend Ben recreating the universe through Alien X by pointing out how other Celestialsapiens can and probably have changed the universe plenty of times. Just look at Azmuth. His voice and appearance has changed three times already.
• Left Hanging: What few episodes didn't have a definitive ending have become this, due to the future of the franchise:
  • Joseph Chadwick is last seen, in his monstrous form, getting out of water with one of the robots accompanying him. On this note, the Forever Knights are never seen again after "An American Benwolf in London".
  • Charmcaster is literally stuck in her bag, and figuratively between her Heel–Face Turn and Face–Heel Turn. Adwaita is also still around, presumably committing more evil deeds as the series ends.
    • However Charmcaster did appear later in 'Most Dangerous Game Show' released by Charles Zenith as a contestant competing for Ben's hand in marriage, Hex had no reaction to her presence in his library later on in the show, and she was with the other girls when Ben and Plumbers got them out of the Null Void, so she's now either in Hex's custody or back on the loose.
  • Malware's remains can be seen seeping out of the Mechamorph Armor composed of him after all is said and done in "Malgax Attacks", indicating that he's once again Not Quite Dead.
• Lighter and Softer: Character designs are far more stylized than Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, and the villains considerably more over the top. Ben's increased experience meanwhile diffuses the tension in many of the dangerous situations he ends up in.
• Line-of-Sight Name: How Ben's Loboan form got renamed. After lying about renaming it from "Benwolf" to Kai, she asks him the rename and Ben calls it "Blitzwolfer" after seeing Wolf Blitzer on TV.
• Look Behind You: One dirty trick even Rook won't fall for in the first episode. Unfortunately, Liam is right.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Psychobos traps Azmuth in a room and made sure he couldn't teleport himself outside. Azmuth decides to teleport Ben (and Rook) inside to help him.
  • Chadzmuth, the Galvan lawyer, boasts that he knows every loophole in every legal system in the galaxy.
  • Meta example: The executives at Cartoon Network didn't want any new Omnitrix aliens to show up after Whampire, but there was no rule preventing Ben 10000 from turning into fusions of existing aliens.
• Loves My Alter Ego: Each of the villainesses in Catfight want Ben for one of his forms. Looma wants to marry Four Arms, Attea wants to marry Bullfrag, and Nyancy Chan wants to keep Rath as a pet/henchcat.
  • There's also Kai and her continued interest in Benwolf/Blitzwolfer from their childhood.
• Love Triangle: After breaking up with Julie, Ben has one between Ester and Kai. Kai wins.
• Made of Indestructium: Tetramands are known for building objects out of this. We find out this is how Kevin's Chronically Crashed Car continues to bounce back after its constant abuse, as it has an engine block made of this material.
• Malaproper: Fistrick's a repeat offender. Did you know plants absorb energy from the sun with photosimpleness?
• Manipulative Editing: In "The Vengers", Will Harangue edits footage of the fight between Ben and the Vengers to make it look like Ben provoked the fight and tried to kill them. The footage jumps around like crazy, managing to be even more obvious than Harangue's editing was back in Ultimate Alien, but it still takes Billy Billions admitting to it on live television for the public to realize the manipulation.
• Meaningful Name: Everyone starts calling the Doomsday Device the "Annihilargh" because the original wielder was destroyed when it activated, before they could call it by its original name.
• Men of Sherwood: The Plumbers.
• "Metaphor" Is My Middle Name: Rad Dudesman says this three times throughout Rad. The first time it's "Trouble", the second time "Danger", and the third time "Profit". It's revealed at the end of the episode that those really are his middle names.
• Mobile Fishbowl: The pisceans, who travel on land not wearing helmets, but suits that circulate water through them.
• Monster Clown: Zombozo, and Ben actually calls him this.
• Monster Mash: The "Galactic Monsters" arc is a sort of tribute to this era of Hollywood film.
• Mood Whiplash: "Store 23", so much. The episode starts out like a goofy one, with Ben going to look for a Mr Smoothie with Blucik and Driba. Several goofy characters, such as Professor Hokestar and Liam, shows up, and Ben ends up in an alternate reality where his other self became a reality show star. Then, toward the end of the episode, we learn that in this reality, Max died before Ben got the Omnitrix. As a result, he never had his grandpa to guide him and became an irresponsable, even more narcissic and obnoxious hero who saw all aliens as evil. The one this Ben thought to be the Big Bad actually was his reality's Azmuth, trying to get back the Omnitrix before he ended up killing someone. And to make matters worst, this reality's Ben almost ends up ripping his Azmuth in half.
• Morality Chain: Max is the only reason that Ben hasn't become a living advertisement for business. Dimension 23's version of Ben doesn't have Max, making him become what Ben would be without his grandpa. Ben later fixes this by giving Ben 23 a new morality chain in the form of Dimension 23's Azmuth.
• Motive Decay: Albedo had a very specific, sympathetic goal in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, which consisted in getting his original form back and nothing beyond. In Omniverse, he actually gets what he wanted, and decides to take revenge for all the humiliation he endured, which actually is a logical evolution to his character... and then suddenly goes on a scheme to drain Azmuth's intelligence and become the smartest being in the galaxy. Even though a big aspect of the character was to prove he already is superior to Azmuth. Maybe he wanted to prove he was smartest beyond a shadow of a doubt?
  • Then he works for Vilgax in the "And Then There Were None"/"And Then There Was Ben" two-parter in a plan that has literally nothing to do with his own motivations, even though Vilgax double-crossed him last time they teamed up. And then, even though Vilgax double-crossed him this time as well, he teams up with him again in "Malgax Attack".
• Multicultural Alien Planet: Anur Transyl is inhabited by Transylians (Frankenstrike and Dr. Viktor's species), Loboans (Blitzwolfer's species), Thep Khufans (Snare-oh's species), and Ectonurites (Ghostfreak's species).
• Multipurpose Monocultured Crop: Taken to ridiculous extremes with the Amber Ogia fruits cultivated by Revonnahganders on their planet. Seriously, not only are those things used by the population for almost everything, from food to building to drink, but they can also be used to power Death Rays capable of destroying entire planets and develop Mind Control serum.
• Mundane Utility:
  • In "For a Few Brains More", Gwen uses a spaceship to do research for an astronomy paper, since getting time on the school's telescope was too difficult.
  • In "Collect This", Ben uses Kickin' Hawk to play soccer.
• Mythology Gag: Flashback segments and episodes about 11 year old Ben have Max using a weapon looking similar to his robotic arm from "Ben 10,000".
• Nerf: Certain aliens lose abilities for varying reasons. Word of God says that in the case of Chromastone and Goop, those were caused by glitches in the previous Omnitrix.
  • Chromastone loses the ability to fly, likely to make him less redundant. This is despite the fact that Ben learned Chromastone could fly in the first place by seeing Sugilite, the one the Chromastone DNA sample came from, fly.
  • Way Big loses his super speed, probably because he's already a Story-Breaker Power without it. Word of God had also claimed that Way Big lost his energy beams, but that turned out to be a lie. In addition to this, Way Big tends to suffer from the Worf Effect.
  • Goop's Hollywood Acid abilities are gone, conflicting with previous Wordof God that they were how Goop's species digested its food.
  • Humungousaur doesn't demonstrate his size-changing ability, and is more likely to suffer The Worf Effect in favor of making Ben use more inventive solutions than hitting things. This after Ben spent the whole series to that point trying to re-unlock it. His size-changing ability, however, has not appeared for quite a while in previous sequels anyway, being used less and less as the show went on.
• Never My Fault: Billy Billions wants revenge on Ben for upstaging him in school and him being trapped into Dimension 12 (which stopped him from aging)... except Ben had no idea the kid even existed and Billy ended up trapped in Dimension 12 when his own attempt to send Ben there was rebounded off Diamondhead (something Ben apparently didn't even know happened).
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • In "Special Delivery", Psyphon could have had his dwarf star back without any trouble if he had just returned the fish Ben needed to deliver. Instead, the idea that Ben would trade something so valuable for something so worthless is so confusing to him that he feels the need to voice the thought, thus explaining to Ben why it is valuable and making him refuse to return it. He also at one point had the star while Ben was busy with the other villains. He could have just walked away with it then.
  • When Ben becomes Gutrot for the first time and has no idea how to use the form, he simply asks the future Dr Animo to enlighten him. Future Animo proceeds to tell him the alien's name and specific powerset, which Ben of course uses to foil his plot.
• Nightmare Face: Toepick defeats Psyphon by showing him his face, causing him to be completely paralyzed by fear despite still being in control of an apocalyptic-grade superweapon. On the surface it seems proof of just how far Psyphon has fallen, but statements by the writers tell another story: The sight of him is said to be epically horrifying to a Brown Note degree. When asked if Toepick's face could scare Celestialsapien personalities like Bellicus and Serena, Derrick J. Wyatt said yes. When asked if it would work on robots, Matt Wayne said that he could see it triggering a defensive reaction.
  • Even he isn't immune to it!
  • He later uses it to make Argit cough up a Techadon army cube he'd swallowed.
• No Guy Wants to Be Chased: The whole premise of Catfight is this; Ben is creeped out when Princess Looma and Princess Attea both want to marry him, with Nyancy chan wanting to use his Rath form to commit crimes.
• No Man Should Have This Power: The Rooters "coming storm" is ultimately revealed to be Ben Tennyson, their grievance essentially being that his power will ultimately be misused and thus they need to nip things in the bud.
• Noodle Incident: Ben was trapped as a different alien every week for a month, resulting in Grandpa Max being unable to sleep. Nothing is ever disclosed about this.
  • Let's Do the Time War Again begins with Rook picking up Ben after he crashed his bike. Evidently in the time between when he called and when Rook arrived he transformed into several Aliens that he (and by extension the audience) has never seen before trying to get Jury Rigg to fix it, before eventually getting Eatle and taking a bite out of his bike.
• Not Evil, Just Misunderstood: In legends, the Contumelia were believed to destroy universes. In "A New Dawn", it is revealed that they actually created universes.
  • A variation of this phrase is used by Gwen to describe Charmcaster: "Not a bad person, just damaged."
• Not Growing Up Sucks: Being trapped in Dimension 12 has permanently halted Billy Billions' aging process, trapping him in his 11-year-old body. He tries to exact revenge on Ben by making him suffer the same fate.
• Not Me This Time:
  • The Megawhatts appeared as trickster antagonists as early as the first season of the original series. A flashback in "A Jolt From The Past" reaffirms this. But after a fight and undramatic chase scene in the present day, it's revealed that this time, they're the victims.
  • After repeated attacks from different forms of Khyber's shapeshifting pet (thus believing it to be many animals), Ben assumes Dr. Animo must be behind all the mutant animals. While Animo has in fact escaped confinement, he's busy with his own plans and hadn't planned on killing Ben until after he finished Phase 1. The pet shows up again to confirm that fact.
• The Nth Doctor: The episode "Universe Vs. Tennyson" establishes that, Celestialsapiens, the source species of Alien X and a species of Reality Warpers, as the cause of the various redesigns and The Other Darrins throughout the franchise, with Azmuth cited as an example (going from Robert David Hall in Secret of the Omnitrix and Destroy All Aliens, to Jeff Bennett doing a René Auberjonois impression in the Alien Force/Ultimate Alien era, to Auberjonois himself voicing the character in Omniverse).
• Oblivious to Love: It takes all of "Hot Stretch" for Ben to realize that Ester's attraction goes beyond mere fangirlish admiration. Even Rook, of all people can see it.
• Official Couple: Still Gwen and Kevin, though Julie and Ben are now broken up, and it seemed like Ben and Ester were becoming this. Ultimately, Ben wound up with Kai instead.
• Offscreen Teleportation: Ben as Diamondhead in "Evil's Encore" does this when hanging from a ledge. He somehow made it over to the other ledge.
• Offscreen Villain Dark Matter: No explanation is given for how or where Vilgax acquired a Chronosapien time bomb, a Doomsday Device of unprecedented destructiveness.
  • The explanation was given in "A New Dawn"; He got it from Maltruant as payment for helping to repair his time chariot.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Khyber has twice directed his pet to defend Ben against his adversaries, because Khyber wants Ben for himself.
  • Attea is also this. The more Ben thwarts her plans in the Incursean arc, the more passionate she is about their feud. Several times, Attea prevents her mooks from destroying him, because that’s HER job. Ben even uses this flaw against her in “Vilgax Must Croak”. He knows her well enough to know that her desire for vengeance will distract her from the original goal of taking out Vilgax and the Plumbers.
• Only the Chosen May Wield: In "An American Benwolf in London", the Forever Knights try to retrieve Excalibur. Unfortunately for them, it's stuck in the stone and even having super-strength only makes the unworthy strong enough to lift the sword and the stone. Kai Green gets it to budge a bit, though, she doesn't get the chance to finish the job.
• Out-of-Genre Experience: The first part of "And Then There Were None" plays out more like a character-driven, realistic slice of life show, with No Watch Ben's conversations with Grandpa Max (who sports a prosthetic right arm he often jokes about) and Gwen (who he didn't bond with due to never getting the Omnitrix), and the alternate Bellwood being remarkably mundane in comparison to the main Bellwood. The second part brings in alternate Bens and becomes a somewhat more standard episode.
• Out-of-Character Alert:
  • Ben and Rook realise something is amiss with Rook's family when they start talking about how inferior Galvans are, and when Rook's dad doesn't show disdain for Ben or for Rook being a Plumber (While using contractions, no less). They don't know for sure until Da uses Dr. Psychobos' catchphrase.
  • Averted when Albedo was impersonating Ben. Rook never caught on because Albedo passed off the changes as self-improvement, much of which aligned with advice Rook had given to Ben.
• Plot Archaeology: The three Aborted Arcs in Ultimate Alien were salvaged as much as possible for Omniverse:
  • Zs'Skayr goes into Dr. Viktor's body and consumes King Xarion's soul, freeing Dr. Viktor's mind.
  • A graphic novel◊ was supposed to show what happened to Elena Validus and the Hive nanochips. This didn't succeed as intended, as the novel not only explained nothing about this when it actually came out, but actually raised even more questions.
  • Charmcaster's Omniverse arc still follows up from the aborted one she had back in Ultimate Alien, albeit with Broad Strokes being applied to it rather than it just being ignored entirely.
• One-Eyed Bats: Vladats have a projectile called a Corruptura that takes the form of a one-eyed bat. Anything they hit becomes mind controlled, to fit with their vampire themeing.
• Palette Swap:
  • In keeping with the Omnitrix changing Ben's clothes into clothes for the aliens, Ben 23's aliens mostly change the green parts (or, in the case of Shocksquatch, the black fur) on Ben's aliens to a light blue. We also get an arguably more benign alternate Sevenseven in white. (Arguably because who his boss proves to be notwithstanding, he did put a bomb on alternate Ben's arm.)
  • Albedo's alien forms now follow this more closely. They all have darker color palettes, and Goop is completely red instead of green.
  • Most of the evil Bens' alien forms invoke this. Mad Ben is the exception, as his forms also feature battle armor and/or Spikes of Villainy.
• Partial Transformation: The slime parasite Skurd extracts the DNA of its host and morphs itself into that form, usually focusing on the arms. Khyber uses him as a surrogate for the Nemetrix to avoid the mind-altering affects. The parasite later moves to Ben's Omnitrix, and refuses to leave.
• Persona Non Grata: It's a bit of a Running Gag for Ben to get into fights with aliens while he's in the store of either Mr. Baumann or Pakmar, where he predictably ends up wrecking the whole store in the process. It got to the point where both shopkeepers not only want him to take the fight outside, but don't want him setting foot in their stores period.
• Phlebotinum Bomb: The remnants of the Forever Knight's plan in "Return to Forever", where they build a device that would kill all alien life on Earth while ignoring humans.
• Pintsized Powerhouse: Princess Looma, in context anyway. While larger than any human, she's the daintiest Tetramand ever seen, yet also the strongest one ever introduced. She can deliver painful, crushing hugs to her father, Gar, who is the hugest walking tank of a Tetramand we've ever seen, and he considers her his best warrior.
  • Solid Plugg. Despite being no more then two feet in height, he is immensely strong, tough (to the point where AmpFibian's electricity only tickles him), and dense.
• Plot Archaeology: Not only do we have flashbacks to the original series era, elements we haven't seen in years come back, such as the Megawhatts. Also, in the original series' Ben 10,000 future episodes, there was an alien named Articguana that future Ben had. In the present, when lava threatens the whole city, Ben unlocks Articguana for the first time. One of those future episodes introduced Ben's son Ken. Ken was going over the list of aliens in his own Omnitrix, and said "Toepick? That one even grosses me out!" and had it replaced with Grey Matter. Well, the subject of that one offhand line in a 2007 episode is an alien Ben acquires, and there are even plans for a toy of him. Also, Phil (see episode fourteen of the original series) appears as one of Malware's test subjects. The Krakken appears in "Gone Fishin'?". It was first (and until now, last) seen in episode three of the original series. Anything's fair game!
• Plot Hole: Even factoring in how difficult he is to kill, the series never explains how Malware survived 11-Year-Old Ben overloading him with the Omnitrix's energy.
• Police Are Useless: The real cops don't really stand a chance against the Aliens or sci-fi-tech-wielding humans that Ben faces. The Plumbers manage to avert this, with Max or Ben leading them, they take down Psychobos's minions, and the escaped prisoners in Outbreak. Patelliday, despite his comical flaws, frees himself from confinement, and helps take down the Villain of the Week.
• Portal Cut: As part of the Running Gag involving Ben destroying his property, Pakmar's truck is cut in half when Ben, lifting it as Humungousaur, is teleported to Galvan Prime by Azmuth.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child: A gang steals alien technology then kidnaps Megawhatts to power said technology.
• Power Echoes: Invoked, parodied, and subverted with Collectimus, who has a deep, echoing voice as a feature of his chair. When he turns it off, his actual voice is stereotypical nerdy.
• Power-Up Food: Peanuts are this for Trumbipulor's race, causing them to grow to giant size.
• Pun:
  • Fourarms picks up a tree and uses it as a club.
  FORE! ...Arms.
  • Used by Paradox to tell Ben that the chrononavigator was in his severed bionic hand.
• Production Foreshadowing: At the series finale Ben remarks that they're going on a road trip...which he does, in the reboot.
• Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh...: In "Oh Mother, Where Art Thou", the Dittos experience this against the mature Pretty Boy clones.
  Ditto #1: Take this! And this! And some of that! (Pretty Boy clone doesn't even flinch)
  Ditto #2: I think he's taking it a little too well...
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: Backfires on Ben. He tells Rook "Dude. Call. Me. Ben." which Rook misconstrues as a cue to talk in the same manner.
• Put on a Bus: Gwen and Kevin leave Bellwood at the beginning of the show. Gwen to go to college, Kevin to live near Gwen.
  • Commuting on a Bus: They stop by for a visit every so often.
  • Put on a Bus: Julie meanwhile only makes a single appearance in which she broke up with Ben and got a new boyfriend. Although the two promised to remain friends, Word of God has already made it known that he has no plans for her to come back.

Q-S

• Quit Your Whining: A particularly funny example from when Ben is turned 11 again, and goes to Grandpa Max for help.
  Max: I know that you're worried, but we're doing everything possible to help. I promise it will be okay.
  Ben: ...Come on Grandpa, I just look like I'm eleven. But I'm still sixteen in here. *taps head*
  Max: Well then, in that case, stop whining and act your age.
• Race Lift: In the original series episode "Ken 10", Kenny Tennyson had his mother's (Kai) skin tone. In his brief cameo in "And Then There Was Ben", he has his father's skin tone instead.
  • This may have just been a coloring error, because when he shows up again in End of an Era he's back to his proper skin tone.
• Reading Your Rights: In "Universe vs Tennyson", we learn that Plumber arrests require that the arrested be read their rights or the arrest is invalid. We don't know how long the rights are, but they must be pretty long if the second clause goes into situations as specific as telepathy.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Ben gives one to Billy Billions, pointing out that all of Billy's 'inventions' are based off someone else's (like ho his pocket watch is an Evil Knockoff of the Omnitrix) and Billy is simply a Spoiled Brat and Green-Eyed Monster who is the cause of all his own suffering.
• Recurring Extra: Many. It's easiest to spot with the aliens in Undertown because of the varied designs. Almost all of the Joke Character Omnitrix aliens Ben turns into in "Outbreak" can be seen (with different colors and no Omnitrix symbol) in Undertown whenever we see it, even before Outbreak (The Worst is one of the first Undertown aliens we ever see.) The XLR8 girl who takes a picture of Ben in "Store 23" is one of the group of members of that race playing on the streets in "Hot Stretch," and she has a name now. (K8E, presumably pronounced Katie.) Of course, it's easier to reuse models for extras, so there are bound to be a few designs seen twice. At the Plumber base, you'll always see one human woman ^note  Molly Gunther , and the small Molestache alien ^note  Jerry from "inhuman resources" (he lacks the 'stache in original-series-era scenes!).
• Red Herring:
  • A partially-meta example. The episode description for "Mystery, Incorporeal" states that "An old enemy emerges while Ben and Rook are visiting Kevin and Gwen at college". One of Charmcaster's rock monsters attacks, suggesting that it's her. However, after the fight, the Omnitrix malfunctions, displaying only Ghostfreak, making him a possibility. Then we're introduced to Xagliv, the Professor of Death, whose name happens to be Vilgax spelled backwards and is voiced by Steve Blum. Turns out that's a red herring too, and the villain is actually Dante, the nerd...who is actually Darkstar in disguise. THEN Darkstar is defeated, and arrested. And then the officer in the car with him is revealed to be Charmcaster, Zs'Skayr is shown emerging from Ledgerdomain, and the very next episode is centered around the return of Vilgax.
  • Gwen, of course, references the term when Xagliv turns out to not be the villain.
  • "Bengeance Is Mine" introduces us to Bill Gacks, a plumber (not the intergalactic space police kind) who looks a lot like a human Vilgax. Red herring, of course. Him activating Vilgax's contingency plan while snaking pipes happened to be pure coincidence.
• Redemption Rejection: Azmuth attempts to reason Malware briefly in "Showdown Part 2", promising to work to heal him. Malware rejects it.
• Remember the New Guy?: A lot of characters supposedly from Ben's past are introduced in the flashbacks despite never being mentioned ever. Those include Feedback, Malware, and Billy Billion, the former of which is lampshaded at one point where Gwen asks Ben why he's suddenly always using Feedback. Most of them are justified, though: Feedback and Malware apparently left Ben traumatized to the point he tried never speaking of them again (this is later revealed to have been Malware destroying Ben's Feedback form in a rather horrific way on top of the other horrific things he did), and he wasn't aware of Billy Billion's existence at the time. These can also be Hand Waved as Ben having to rebuild the universe and not doing a perfect job of it.
• Reset Button:
  • Ben basically remakes the entire universe with Alien X after the Annihilarg is used to destroy it.
  • In "And Then There Was Ben", an alternate version of Ben helps Paradox restart all the branching timelines of Ben Tennyson, then uses Clockwork to undo the deaths of all the Bens that were killed in his own timeline.
• Resistance Is Futile:
  • Invoked by Emperor Mileous in "The Frogs of War," who adds "...but encouraged, for it amuses me!" Ironically, he then complains about them continuing to resist in spite of his declaration after the battle drags on longer than intended.
  • Also used by Proctor Servantis in "The Rooters of All Evil", to which Ben retorts "So's yelling 'resistance is futile'!"
• Retcon: The producers stated that they planned on doing this from the start and among them include:
  • Primus, the Omnitrix's planetary database where the Codon Stream carried the DNA codes that allow Ben to transform, no longer exists^note The reason given by Word of God is that it makes the Omnitrix needlessly complex, and it's easier to say the device simply changes the wearer into different alien species..
  • Almost no mention is made of Gwen's Anodite heritage, though they're quiet about calling her powers "magic" or "alien" either way.
  • When we first met Mr. Baumann in Ultimate Alien, he was rather friendly and eager to see Ben, saying he had not seen him since he was a child. In Omniverse, Baumann has a long history of being "tormented" by Ben, and one of the incidents involving the destruction of his beloved car took place during the previous series... before they could have met again, considering said incident involved DNAliens from Alien Force.
  • The origin of the Galvanic Mechamorphs (Upgrade's species) was revised from the original series' toy info.
  • In Alien Force, Ben functioned as the tie breaker for Alien X. If he could get either Serena or Bellicus to agree to anything then it would be decided. In Omniverse, the decision has to be unanimous, with both Serena and Bellicus agreeing.
  • In the Original Series, Ditto's duplication power had a very specific way of working; he split himself in half to duplicate, each clone was independent, they all felt each other's pain, and the death of even one of them would cause all the others to die. They wouldn't transform back into Ben until all of them were close enough to fuse back together, and would be attracted to each other when they get close enough. In Omniverse, his duplication power works similarly to that of Echo Echo, with his clones appearing in a flash of green light, being able to vanish and apparently all vanishing automatically when the original turns back to normal. His weakness is now that "if the original dies they all die".
  • Zs'Skayr ended up banished to Ledgerdomain at some point between the Alien Force/Ultimate Alien era, even though he got stuck in the watch again in AF.
  • In Ultimate Alien, Dr. Viktor was one of Ultimate!Kevin's victims, and his lifeless body was taken over by King Xarion of Zarcovia. He was defeated by being encased in metal, but Ben and co. were unable to arrest him due Plumbers only being allowed to arrest aliens (despite the fact that Xarion is an alien body). In Omniverse, the Plumbers have Viktor's metal-encased body stored in their basement. This allows the aforementioned Zs'Skayr to enter Viktor's body, where he absorbs Xarion's soul, allowing the original Viktor to regain control and resume being his minion. Also, the Plumbers in Omniverse can and do arrest humans.
  • In "Rule of Engagement", it's stated that Julie doesn't like smoothies and was faking it to please Ben, even though the Alien Force episode "Vreedle, Vreedle" had her going to Mr Smoothies with Gwen on her own while Ben was light-years away.
  • "Something Zombozo This Way Comes" has Ben suddenly being afraid of clowns again, even though he got over that after Zombozo's first appearance in the original series and demonstrated it after that episode. Zombozo also is retconned into feeding on fear, whereas he fed on joy in the original series.
  • Ultimate Alien established that Ascalon, the alien sword built by Azmuth, was the source of legends about mystical swords, Excalibur being mentioned specifically. In "An American Benwolf In London," the sword in the stone is encountered, and it is claimed to be all those mystical swords of legend. (However, many don't know that not every version of the story makes Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone one in the same.)
  • In Blukic And Driba go to Area 51, a flashback scene from sixty years ago features Colonel Rozum interacting with Paradox. This despite the fact that when they were first seen interacting in Ultimate Alien, it was made pretty clear this was the first time they had ever met. The flashback also showed Blucik and Driba to be the first aliens Max Tennyson met, and he met them while still in military service. Ultimate Alien showed that his first alien contact was with Verdona, and he became a Plumber immediately afterward. Additionally, the young Max is shown to have black hair, despite the fact that all other flashbacks to his youth showed him with brown hair.
  • There was a specific reason that the Omnitrix flew toward Ben in the Original Series (accidentally tracking Ben's genetic code instead of Max's). The Omniverse episode "And Then There Was Ben" has No Watch Ben hit the container, causing it to intercept with Ben.
  • In the Omniverse episode "Bengeance is Mine", it is established that Ben's last encounter with Vilgax was when he was 11, despite the fact that it was established in Alien Force that he last met him when he was 10.
  • The Ultimate Alien episode "Basic Training" was about Ben, Gwen, and Kevin attending Plumber training to become fully certified Plumbers. In "The Rooters of All Evil", it becomes a plot point that Ben is not officially a Plumber.
  • The Rooters arc does several. Osmosians don't exist; Kevin is just a human with the ability to absorb energy/matter. Devin Levin never existed; Max's partnership with him was a false memory planted in his head by Proctor Servantis. And the Plumber's Helpers weren't born hybrids; they were ordinary human children infused with alien DNA turning them into hybrids (which Helen and Manny originally suspected, in spite of their memory wipes, in the first place).
    • The same arc revealed that Gwen possibly liked Kevin back when they were kids (and he certainly liked her) during the Original Series' era, even though he was an Axe-Crazy sociopath at that point; No Accounting for Taste?
  • "Charm School" retcons the Ultimate Alien episode "The Enemy of My Frenemy" out when Hex says he didn't know where Charmcaster had gone when previously he had been told by Gwen that she went to Ledgerdomain, Charmcaster mentions that Adwaita was all-powerful until she turned him into a totem which was not at all what was shown before, and the entire event in which Charmcaster temporarily killed Ben, Gwen and Kevin to resurrect her father is not mentioned nor hinted at by any of these characters even when it logically should be brought up.
  • Ben's future has changed back into the future that he originally had in the original series. However, some elements of the future depicted in the original series were revised. Which just makes it a similar but not quite exact match regardless of Wyatt's intention.
    • In the Original Series episode "Ken 10" Future!Ben had a son Ken, but he also had a daughter named Gwen (she's mentioned in the pop-up edition). She appears in the background during Ken's birthday as a silent cameo◊ in◊ the beginning but she doesn't appear, or play a big role in the rest of the episode. However, Derrick J. Wyatt confirmed that she no longer exists◊, and is never seen or mentioned in Omniverse, proving that she was permanently written out of the show.
    • Ben 10,000 killed Vilgax when he was 20 instead of fifteen.
    • Kevin 11,000 was completely evil, but later series developed him into a hero, so they stuck him in a Heel–Face Revolving Door to fit in his evil self from Ken 10.
• Reverse Psychology: Ben asks the Omnitrix for Humungousaur when he really wants Wildmutt. Amusingly, it works. It does not, however, in the next episode. Must've been the Unspoken Plan Guarantee of the first one.
• Revision: There are episodes about Ben when he was 11 years old, which are new adventures, despite taking place in the past.
• Revisiting the Roots: According to its creators, this is an attempt to return the franchise as a whole back in alignment with the original Ben 10 series. Omniverse tones down the Darker and Edgier aspects and drastically changed the art to a less realistic style as compared to Alien Force and Ultimate Alien. The show frequently has flashbacks segments and episodes that are set in the original series' era when Ben was 11 years old and reintroduces characters and aliens seen in the original series.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder: Charmcaster rhetorically asks Ben which of them is being unreasonable after he turns down a perfectly good chance to take out Zs'Skayr. Rook, of course, answers as if it were an actual question.
• Ridiculously Cute Critter:
  • The Screegit... until it transforms into a hulking monster when exposed to nitrogen.
  • Ball Weevil, by Ben's own admission.
• Rubber Man: Ester's species. She's a Half-Human Hybrid but still the same powers.
• Rule of Symbolism: Ben's use of Alien X in Weapon XI is used to get across Servantis's point.

  Servantis: A device with as extraordinary a power as the Omnitrix was never meant to be wielded by an unpredictable and immature child!

• Running Gag:
  • The Omnitrix doesn't allow Ben use Humungousaur in the first season, which annoys him greatly. It finally does when he tells it to "surprise him." Go figure. It goes on to do him little good, and he wins the day with Grey Matter.
  • Ben has a tendency to get covered in some goo or another.
  • Pakmar... has a lot of bad luck with Ben's clumsiness.
  • Ditto Mr. Baumann.
  • This series continues the tradition of Mount Rushmore getting destroyed in some way.
  • "Charmed, I'm Sure" gives us a little girl with a crush on Ben that lasts until Ben's zits (that he got in the same episode) are cured, Hobble's crush on Charmcaster that doesn't even fade when she betrays the group and Charmcaster talking to her purse which is revealed to have a magical miniature that communicate with her. These jokes contained within the episode.
  • Kevin's car still gets destroyed every episode it shows up. Kevin's smart about it, but not enough to save it. Ever.
  • Ben keeps getting into destructive fights with aliens while he's in the store of either Mr. Baumann or Pakmar. It got to the point where both shopkeepers not only want him to take the fight outside, but don't want him setting foot in their stores period.
• Sci-Fi Writers Have No Sense of Scale:
  • The show has Ben constantly boasting that he "saved the Universe a Billion times". While he did accomplish many heroic deeds over the course of the franchise, most of them were a much more limited area, such a town, Earth, the Galaxy or some other planet. The number of occasions where he actually saved the entire Universe onscreen doesn't exceed three times (Secret of the Omnitrix, the Aggregor case and Dagon's return, to be specific), and it seems very unlikely that the universe was so often in danger offscreen for him to save it that many times. Of course, it is Ben talking. This is Lampshaded in "An American Benwolf in London."
    Ben: I've saved the universe more times than I can count.
    Rook: The official count is three.
    Ben: Really? It's gotta be more than that.
  • In the same vein, when Psyphon upgrades himself with a Dwarf Star in Special Delivery, he immediately states his intention to use his newfound power to "conquer the entire Universe". If that thing really had enough power to conquer the Universe, it seems very unlikely that no one thought about using it before.
  • When asked to "sign the planet in big enough letters to be seen from the Andromeda galaxy", Ben's actor makes the letters no more than a few feet wide. It turns out that the being intended to see it has a really good zoom feature.
• Sdrawkcab Name: There's a character named Xagliv, which is about as subtle as a Dump Truck. Needless to say, it's a red herring.
• Series Continuity Error:
  • Gwen states in "Showdown, Part 1" that Ben's only form to ever defeat Malware was Diamondhead. Flashbacks show Ben defeating Malware with Feedback right in the first episode. Granted, he actually retreated of his own will because he had got what he wanted, but Gwen wasn't supposed to know that.
  • In "Predators And Preys", Khyber tries to transform his pet into Grey Matter's predator, but is interrupted by Rook. Come Showdown, we learn the Nemetrix didn't have a Predator for Grey Matter back then: the only Galvan predator, Omnivoracious, is extinct in the present timeline, and is only acquired in the season 1 finale, when Khyber sampled it from a fossilized skeleton.
    • Granted, he didn't have Grey Matter's only Successful Predator, but still, all of the other ones were defeated by cunning, ingenuity and (if you mind the pun,) a little Grey Matter.
  • In "Frogs of War", the population of Undertown evacuates right through the street, exposing themselves and Undertown to the general public. Everyone acts as if both are a big revelation, despite the fact that not only have aliens been routinely invading for years, but by this point in the series live openly among humans and can be seen actually playing in the streets in some episodes. This is a particularly jarring example as it is quite literally part of the basic premise of the show.
  • Billy Billions is introduced as being one of Ben's classmates when he was 11 who was jealous of Ben's popularity at school. If you ever watched the original show, you know that Ben actually was incredibly unpopular at school, and only got famous starting with Ultimate Alien. Fans usually try to rationalize it by seeing the flashback as warped by Billy Billions' sociopathic perception of things, but this is at no point stated explicitly in the episode, and if it was true, you gotta wonder why Billy would develop such paranoia toward some unpopular kid nobody cared about instead of a popular classmate, who would have been much more likely to steal him the spotlight.
  • In the first arc, it's specifically stated by all three main villains that Khyber's mission was to get DNA from the Omnitrix so Psychobos could complete the Nemetrix with it. Right in their next appearance, this plotpoint is inexplicably dropped in favour of the Nemetrix suddenly being malfunctionning and requiring a piece of the Omnitrix rather than DNA.
  • In his speech to convince Kevin that Ben should be eliminated, Proctor Servantis states that Ben destroyed the universe, most likely referring to the events of "So Long and Thanks for the Smoothies". Not only was this not Ben's fault, Ben actually recreated the universe when it happened, essentially meaning all of existence is owed to his actions. Then again, Servantis might willingly be an Unreliable Narrator for the sake of convincing Kevin.
  • The entirety of "From Hedorium to Eternity" is a flashback event that takes place in the Original Series' era when Ben was 11 years old. Despite this, the episode makes some contradictions towards some of the events that have occurred in the sequels (particularly Alien Force and even the present era of Omniverse):
    • Zs'Skayr/Ghostfreak has his current design and is referred to by name despite Ben not knowing his name until the Omniverse episode "Rad Monster Party", an episode that takes place five years after majority of the flashback events featured in the series.
    • Kevin appears in the episode and meets Cooper, despite being unaware that Ben and Gwen knew Cooper in the Alien Force episode "Undercover".
    • Ben sees Kevin absorbing matter and demonstrating its use, but in the first episode of Alien Force ("Ben 10 Returns: Part 1"), Ben did not know Kevin could do that, as pointed by him as Swampfire saying "That's new".
    • Ben also trusts Kevin and believes that Kevin became a hero. However, in "Ben 10 Returns: Part 1" (which takes place four years after most of the flashback events in the series), Ben still considered Kevin his enemy.
  • In Ultimate Alien, Albedo used a DNA-altering device to grant him the power to shapeshift into alien forms without an Omnitrix. The Ultimatrix he uses in Omniverse merely acts as a stabiliser and means to access Ultimate forms. In "Malgax Attacks," Azmuth shuts down the new Ultimatrix, leaving Albedo trapped as an eleven-year-old Ben (Even though he should still have had his shapeshifting abilities).
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: "Let's Do the Time War Again" is a series of these. Ben 10,000 and Professor Paradox keep trying to prevent Eon from unleashing a time beast, but every attempt goes wrong. First time is stopped as a consequence of Feedback's energy blast interacting with the time beast's time blast. Then Bellwood and probably the world is destroyed through Gravattack trying to pin down the time beast with his gravity powers. Finally, with Ben 10,000's help, they manage to de-age the time beast back into an egg, but fail to realize that Eon stole two specimens for Maltruant.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: "Rad Monster Party" has Ben and company stranded on a planet and having to obtain a very rare part to get off the planet while Zs'Skayr and his minions try to destroy them. Ben ultimately gets the part, but breaks it while flaunting about it, thus extending their visit to at least two more episodes.
• Shame If Something Happened: The protection racket being used on the alien shopkeepers of Bellwood.
• Shaming the Mob: Scout does this to stop the mob from pursuing Ben in "Rad Monster Party." It works for the time-being, but they're right back to chasing him in the very next episode.
• Shapeshifter Swan Song: In the series finale, Ben rapidly shifts through nearly all his forms while trying to contain the detonation of Maltruant's modified Annihilargh.
• Shock and Awe: All of the forms Ben transforms into in "Max's Monster" (Feedback, Frankenstrike, Shocksquatch, AmpFibian, and Buzzshock) have electrical powers. This was due to Phil interfering with the Omnitrix.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Shy Finger-Twiddling: Attea does this when Ben ( as Bullfrag) flirts with her.
• Special Edition Title: For the fifth Story Arc, "Galactic Monsters". The normal music is replaced with "spookier" music, Ben's movie monster aliens stand-in for the regulars, and has different singers.
• Spock Speak: Rook's entire race speaks in this manner. Lampshaded in "While You Were Gone" when they figure out his father has been brainwashed because he starts to use contractions.
• Spotlight-Stealing Squad: A lot of fans complained that Kevin and Gwen were removed because they supposely were this to Ben, only to replace them with Rook, who is so awesome he ends up stealing Ben's screentime even more. This pic◊ says it all. Later episodes, possibly in response to this trope, either show Ben shining more or keep Rook out of the episode entirely.
• Stable Time Loop:
  • Enforced via Easy Amnesia. Present!Animo and Future!Animo are hit with amnesiac gas, forgetting most of the details so that Present!Animo (when he becomes Future!Animo) will make the same attempt, not remembering that he failed, and so that the Future!Animo that has already tried will not come back to try again.
  • The final result of "And Then There Was Ben", where No Watch Ben, with the Omnitrix, causes Vilgax's ships shields to fail, the Omnitrix to veer its way to Ben, and then get Ben close to the watch, which causes Ben to go on his path to be a hero, Vilgax's descent into insanity, and the events of "And Then There Was Ben" by default. He also helps recruit the good alternate Bens for the battle that began before the Time Bomb went off.
  • The finale reveals that Maltruant is trapped in one: he's defeated by Ben before the start of time, broken into pieces which are scattered by Paradox, reassembles himself, and goes back in time be beaten by Ben once again.
• Stacy's Mom: Ben harbors a not-so-secret crush on Drew Saturday in "T.G.I.S.", who's old enough to be his mother. Her son Zak is disturbed by it.
• The Starscream: After relinquishing leadership of the Kraaho to Esther, Seebik appears in "Special Delivery" vying for Psyphon's dwarf star core. When Ben asks him if Esther knows what he's doing, he replies "I hope not", implying that he is working behind her back.
• Stepford Smiler: Possibly Ben 23; he goes around the whole episode acting immature and joyful, but, at the end of the episode, after a short tantrum when Azmuth removes his Omnitrix, he breaks and admits he misses his grandfather.
• Steven Ulysses Perhero: Bill Gacks. Subverted in that he's not even a Plumber, just a regular, janitorial plumber.
• Story-Breaker Power: Several of Ben's aliens.
  • Alien X and Way Big return. Alien X gets even more story-breakery after "Universe vs. Tennyson", when Ben gains complete control over him.
  • Gravattack's gravity manipulation. He can prevent any attack from even getting close to him and can slam his enemies into submission with impunity. With two exceptions (one where he timed out, and another where the mass change of Albedo's transformations allowed him to throw off the power) Gravattack has won every single fight he's been in, usually with next to no effort. It was meant to show how utterly badass Eighteight was when she could crawl pathetically toward him for a few seconds.
  • Toepick's scary face. Two times he has appeared. Two times it was an accident. Two times the overwhelming threat was immediately terrified into submission without any action on Ben's part. Worse yet, Word of God is that there is no such thing as a No-Sell for this, not even for a robot or Physical God.
    • Unless his opponent is a Vulpamancer (Wildmutt)
  • Pesky Dust, introduced as a joke character, can put foes to sleep and manipulate their dreams to get them to reveal anything they know.
  • Atomix's super strength and nuclear powers. How do you defeat an enemy who has all the same powers as you, but better, and is smarter about using them? You turn into this guy and waste him with sheer power. Just like Toepick, Atomix has only appeared twice at this point, and just like Toepick he was used to effortlessly take down the powerful villains, in his case the arc villains.
  • Ghostfreak, now that Ben has a better handle on his powers. Turn invisible, fly close to them, then possess them. Done. Any single powerful threat is down, and can be turned on any other threat. The immunity to Life Drain and the Combat Tentacles are icing on the Took a Level in Badass cake.
  • Gutrot's gasses include Instant Sedation and Easy Amnesia.
  • Whampire. Ghostfreak can only possess one person, but Whampire can possess entire crowds.
  • Brainstorm can accurately predict every move his opponents will make and counter them.
  • Ben's ability to switch alien forms freely by tapping the Omnitrix symbol should allow him to avoid any unfavorable match-ups, completely removing the common plot point of Ben having to use the alien he's stuck with creatively. In practice he usually forgets about the ability unless his opponent is also a shapeshifter.
• Straw Fan: Collectimus. A big-headed, tantrum-throwing, sedentary, nasally-voiced alien with Nerd Glasses, he is presented as a parody of fans of Alien Force and Ultimate Alien. Professing himself to be Ben 10's biggest fan, he is obsessed with Ben 10 trivia and merchandise, specifically "collecting" the latter. However, he disregards the "real" Ben, complaining that the world of Omniverse should be Darker and Edgier and showing interest only in items from when Ben was younger and from a low quality Animesque knock-off.
• Supreme Chef: It was hinted before that exposure to aliens had something to do with Grandpa Max's Lethal Chef tendencies, but it's made clear in this series that aliens love his cooking. He's only a Lethal Chef to humans.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome: The Nemetrix was made specifically to counter the Omnitrix, containing the DNA of natural predators of the Omnitrix aliens. However, the Nemetrix didn't have nearly as much time in development as the Omnitrix and with how sheer vast the universe in the series is, there's not a counter to every single alien in the Omnitrix, if not because of how many aliens in the series there are, then simply because some of them don't even have a natural predator to begin with.
  • If this is supposed to be the true, final version of the Omnitrix then why does it still have the glitch of giving Ben the wrong aliens? It doesn't. The reason Ben keeps getting the wrong aliens as Azmuth flatly tells him is because he keeps dramatically slamming his hand down as hard as he can on it to transform and causing the timer to accidently set to random. It might be the fully functional final version of the most powerful device in the universe but it's still a piece of technology, and if you don't use technology properly then it won't 'work' properly no matter how advanced it is.
  • In "Clyde Five", Vera Tennyson starts to make well-meaning but ultimately foolish changes around Plumber Headquarters in an attempt to make the place more cozy even though she, as a civilian, doesn't have the authority to do so. When these changes go too far and Vera accidentally endangers Magister Patelliday's life, Grandpa Max (who's been putting up with her for the entire episode) finally snaps and orders for her to be confined to quarters for interfering with the operations of a Plumber Base.
• Surveillance as the Plot Demands: In "The Vengers", the Vengers recorded the fight between them and Ben without any of them carrying any sort of recording device. The footage shown takes clips from the episode, rather than from an angle a camera would be viewing.
• Synchronous Episodes: "Mud is Thicker Then Water" and "Otto Motives" occur at around the same time. They are linked by phone calls Rook makes to Ben, and "Mud is Thicker Then Water" opens with Rook and Kevin heading off to the auto show featured in "Otto Motives."

T-Z

• Take That, Audience!: Collectimus. See Straw Fan above.
• Take That Us: Both "Store 23" and "Collect This" parody the franchise's Merchandise-Driven nature.
• Taking the Fight Outside: It's a bit of a Running Gag for Ben to get into fights with aliens while he's in the store of either Mr. Baumann or Pakmar, where he predictably ends up wrecking the whole store in the process. It got to the point where both shopkeepers not only want him to take the fight outside, but don't want him setting foot in their stores period.
• Tailor-Made Prison: In "Vilgax Must Croak", all staff and prisoners are evacuated from Incarcecon to place Vilgax there to leave the rest of his life in solitary confinement, being placed with automated machines to serve him food and leaving him no one to rule over or manipulate. It doesn't quite go this way.
• Talking Is a Free Action: In the first episode, despite there being a bomb crisis with what appears to be little time, Ben and Rook talk without the bomb blowing up, even as they're disabling it.
• Tempting Fate:
  • Ben boasts that he doesn't need help. Specifically, while flying as an alien. He promptly times out.
  • Lampshaded in "Outbreak", where Rook's tendency towards this irritates Ben, who tells him to stop saying stuff like this. The first two times, when Rook is saying it genuinely, the trope is played straight. When he continues just to tease Ben it is subverted and nothing happens.
  • In "Showdown, Part 1", when using Humungousaur to lift Pakmar's truck, Pakmar demands he put it down before he causes any more damage. Ben dismissively states that such a thing is basically impossible... right before Azmuth teleports him to Galvan Prime and takes half the truck with him.
  • Ben 23 does this at the end of "Store 23". Everyone from the main dimension immediately braces themselves. The fact that nothing happens is taken as evidence that the laws of physics work differently in dimension 23.
  • In "Charm School", Kevin and Rook go to incredible lengths to shield Kevin's car from any potential abuse Ben might accidentally inflict on it. Then a stray magic blast from Gwen zaps it into oblivion.
• Thematic Sequel Logo Change: The "Galactic Monsters" arc gives the subtitle a purple, bubbling font to represent the season plot centering around aliens based on horror movie monsters like the vampire-esque Lord Transyl.
• Third-Person Person: Pakmar, at least when referring to his shop. Rath also keeps this Verbal Tic.
• Through His Stomach: Rook finally wins Ben's respect by bringing him food he can actually enjoy. In case you don't know, it's chili fries.
• Thrown Out the Airlock: In "The Vampire Strikes Back", Rad Dudesman ejects Ben from his ship through an airlock in the cockpit after Ben insists that he needs to get back to Anur Transyl. He was pretty pissed at Ben for the damage to his ship.
• Throw the Dog a Bone: Baumann has been a miserable Butt-Monkey putting up with Ben's destructiveness. "The Ballad of Mister Baumann" introduces his loving girlfriend, who by the end of the episode becomes his wife and he can see everyday.
• Throw the Pin: How the Vreedle Brothers kill themselves early in "O Mother, Where Art Thou?".
• Time Crash: Eon very nearly destroys reality with one in "Ben Again".
• Time Loop Trap: The final arc villain, Maltruant, was defeated at the beginning of the universe, with three parts of himself key to his power removed and hidden. Over the millenia, Maltruant puts himself back together and eventually decides to go back in time to the beginning of the universe to try and reshape it in his image. He is then defeated by Ben and Rook, with Paradox disassembling him, thus starting the loop over again.
• Time Skip: The present era of the show takes place a few months after Ultimate Alien, as well as showing that aliens now coexist generally peacefully with the human populace.
  • The flashbacks parts and episodes that are about when Ben was 11 years old takes place a year the original series.
• Time-Travel Tense Trouble: Paradox mentions this when first meeting past Gwen and Max. 11 year old Gwen later finds she also has trouble. Further trouble with tenses came when 11 and 16 year old Gwens cast a spell together.
• Timey-Wimey Ball: Discussed trope. Ben as Gutrot ponders how they could possibly deal with Future!Animo, considering he has access to time travel and all manner of time paradoxes could ensue depending on how they deal with it. He settles on setting up a Stable Time Loop using Easy Amnesia.
  • The series finale combines events from all over the timeline into Maltruant's endgame.
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: One episode has Fistina winning a date with a Kraaho. I repeat. Fistina is dating.
• Took a Level in Dumbass: Ben. The show took the trope to Flanderization levels on both his teenage self and his younger, 11-year old self, making them both much more bumbling, clumsy and immature while removing a large amount of his badassness from Alien Force.
• Too Dumb to Live: Dr. Psychobos put his own natural predator in the Nemetrix.
• Tomboy and Girly Girl: Gwen Tennyson and Lucy Mann qualify.
• Tomboyness Upgrade: Kai Green. In the original, despite looking like a tomboy (plain shirt, shorts, and casual shoes), Kai is quite feminine in personality, being very soft-spoken and mild-mannered, showing affection for Ben in his werewolf form, and being into ritual dancing. She contrasted very strongly with the more snarky and short tempered Gwen. In Omniverse, she changes her long hair for a Tomboyish Ponytail, and becomes a lot more witty and snarky, takes several levels in badass, and herself ends up as the tomboy to Esther's girly girl.
• Trademark Favorite Food: Smoothies and chili fries. It's rare that Ben is seen eating without one or the other. In fact, he's so famous around the Mr. Smoothies, the clerks will even open after closing just for him. Notably, we see him actually eating chili fries after his love for them was largely an Informed Attribute before (Albedo, stuck in Ben's form, is addicted to chili fries... which at the time we'd never seen Ben eat.)
• Tragic Monster: "Max's Monster" is all about this. Max's former partner Phil (introduced in the classic series episode "The Truth") returns from the Null Void, under the influence of an energy-siphoning monster and begging for help. Max tries to do anything he can to help, and comparisons to Kevin's past are made. Until it's revealed that Phil no longer lives, and the monster is using his body and playing to Max's emotions to obtain more food, at which point his defeat is far less tragic. To heighten the parallel, it's also the official return of Ben's Frankenstrike form from the original series.
• True Companions: Ben's new team: Himself and Rook as time went on.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: "Blukic and Driba Go To Mr. Smoothy" features the titular duo trying to find Mr. Smoothy, while Ben and Rook tackle Trumbipulor. The storylines intersect along the way as Blukic and Driba help them with the mission.
• Underground City: Undertown.
• Unhand Them, Villain!: When webbed to the ceiling by Albedo as Ultimate Spidermonkey, Ben demands Albedo release him. Albedo of course complies.
• The Unmasqued World: Aliens now live openly among humans.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Mr. Baumann towards Ben. He is more concerned about the destruction of his own property rather than the evil that Ben thwarts. In fact, any time his car or his property get destroyed during an alien attack, he is often a jerk about it towards Ben, no matter how little or unintentional Ben contributes to the damage.
• Unperson: In the Two-Part Episode "And Then There Was None / And Then There Was Ben", Eon, actually an Alternate Self of Ben Tennyson from an Alternate Timeline uses a Chronosapien Time Bomb to get rid of all Ben Tennysons across the multiverse. The Irony is, he is Ben Tennyson, although to him That Man Is Dead
• Vagueness Is Coming: The Rooters justify their villainy by claiming to be preparing for a coming threat. Max and Ben believe this to be a lie they cooked up to continue their experiments. It's not...the threat they are talking about is Ben, whom they believe is a danger to the universe.
• Vile Villain, Saccharine Show: The show itself is notably Denser and Wackier / Lighter and Softer compared to the previous sequels, but its major villains in the first two arcs are an Egomaniac Hunter Serial Killer, a Sociopathic Not-So-Harmless Villain and a Mad Scientist who attempts to commit a genocide of the Galvans.
  • Later there are the Rooters, especially their leader Proctor Servantis.
• Villain Ball: Khyber attempts to make this a Defied Trope, but Ben suckers him into it anyway. He also goes easy on Ben because he wants to personally strike the final blow.
• Villainy-Free Villain: Professor Blarney Hokestar has his Skreejit confiscated despite the fact that he was very careful in handling it, never showed any signs of mistreating it, and made every effort to contain it when Ben and Pax caused it to run amok. In the end, all Hokestar had done was the extraterrestrial equivalent of milking a cow. Then again, considering he transported an alien to Earth which could become dangerous when exposed to the atmosphere, its confiscation could be likened to the restriction of ecosystem-damaging animals and plants in the real world.
• Villainesses Want Heroes: Because the Omnitrix turns Ben into a genetically prime specimen of any alien species, it is not uncommon for aliens to become attracted to him. "Catfight" pits the two main cases of this against each other: the Tetramand Princess Looma wants Ben as Four Arms, while the Incursean Princess Attea wants Ben as Bullfrag (who noted to his horror that the attraction may have been partially mutual). Nyancy Chan, who controls cats, also wants Ben as Rath.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Kuphulu is referred to as a repeat offender by Scout, yet the citizens of Anur Transyl consider him an innocent during his fight with Ben. This is somewhat justified by the fact that crime is almost non-existent, that it doesn't occur to them that any of their kind could do any wrong.
• Villain World: Anur Transyl.
• Vocal Evolution: A lot of characters get new speech patterns or vocal effects that are quite fitting (if sometimes leaving them sounding little like they did before.)
  • In the previous two series, Psyphon and Big Chill (both voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) sounded very calm and stoic. Here, both are more "out there", especially with Psyphon, who has become a full on Large Ham.
  • Now Way Big sounds like a stereotypical 1950s Japanese movie character. Considering what he's supposed to be an homage to, it makes sense.
  • Emperor Milleous (voiced by Kevin Michael Richardson) has a much deeper voice in this series than he did in Alien Force. It also has a tendency to crack while he's speaking.
  • Steve Blum reprises Ghostfreak and Zs'Skayr, but in order to set Ghostfreak (Ben) apart from his evil counterpart, Ghostfreak sounds much less raspy and villainous, and more "heroic".
• Voices Are Mental: When 16-year-old Ben's mind is send back into 11-year-old Ben's body (and vice versa) in "Ben Again," their voices travel with them - despite Ben's voicing aging back when he had done so before in "Arrested Development." Notably, this is not just for the viewer's benefit: the other characters notice it as well.
• Voodoo Shark: Shows up in regard to some of the series plot-points.
  • Several of the retcons and continuity changes were handwaved in "So Long and Thanks for the Smoothies" by the Universe having been destroyed by the Anihilarg and Ben rebuilding it as Alien X. any little changes can be attributed to Ben's flawed memory or inability to use Alien X properly. How he re-created parts of the Universe he had never seen or heard of, and how an alien whose power is to be omnipotent can make mistakes in rebuilding the Universe, is left unexplained. Some fans consider this to be the animated equivalent of the "Superboy-Prime punches time" meme.
  • The Rooters story arc makes a retcon in an attempt to explain some controversial AF elements, such as the change in Kevin's origin (who went from being a Mutant to a Half-Human Hybrid descended from an alien species known as Osmosian) and the existence of various Human-Alien Hybrids. Said explanation is that Osmosians actually are a subspecies of human similar to mutants, the various hybrid kids were actually regular humans who got their alien traits by being guinea pigs for a black op, and none of them remembered this because they suffered Laser-Guided Amnesia. Problem is, that doesn't explain why nobody before questioned the fact Kevin claimed to be from an alien species that apparently didn't exist, nor does it explain why nobody ever questioned how the Plumber's Kids were the sole alien-human hybrids of their kind in existence. Not to mention Azmuth explictly references the Osmosians, which raises even more questions.
    • In season 1 of Omniverse, Malware somehow manages to destroy Ben's alien form Feedback (despite the form being basically just DNA inside the Omnitrix). The reason given to explain why Ben can't just scan Conductoid DNA again to re-acquire the form is that Malware's tampering with the Omnitrix caused a failsafe glitch, leaving the Omnitrix unable to acquire this particular DNA ever again. The problem? Ben has changed Omnitrix twice since this happened, so there really is no reason for following models of the Omnitrix to still suffer this glitch.
• Weaksauce Weakness: The Kraaho need intense levels of heat to function. To the point that they could start to develop frostbite at the height of Earth summer.
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill: Benevolon in "Blukic and Driba go to Area 51" insists he's on a mission of peace... and to accomplish it he plans to wipe out the entire human species. Hey, he never said it'd be peaceful for them.
• Wham Episode:
  • The double episode "Of Predators and Prey"; Khyber finally reveals himself to Ben, but turns out to not be the Big Bad, being instead The Dragon to Malware, a villain introduced in the flashback parts, and Dr Psychobos, a guy we had never seen before. And Khyber's ship is destroyed.
  • "Showdown Part 1" reveals that Malware pulled Feedback out of the Omnitrix and destroyed him, showing that Malware can do so much more with the Omnitrix than previously thought (he only used those abilities to switch Ben back to human form and take a sample of its code, giving a somewhat limited look as to what he could do to the watch) and justifying Ben's fear of the character. In addition to that, Galvan B is destroyed, and it turns out Dr Psychobos intends to exterminate the Galvan.
  • "And Then There Were None". Vilgax sets off a bomb that destroys all but one universe in the entire multiverse, effectively killing off infinite lives, including the main universe Ben Tennyson.
  • "The Rooters of All Evil", which reveals that most of what everyone thinks they know about Kevin - including Kevin himself - is a lie and part of a sinister conspiracy.
• Wham Line:
  • In "Showdown Part 1", after Dr. Psychobos and Malware escape Azmuth's lab, Ben is determined to go after the latter. But then Azmuth gives him this warning, which leads into The Reveal.
  Azmuth: Slow down, Ben. You don't want a repeat of what happened to Feedback.
  • In "Max's Monster", Phil is having issues controlling this monstrous creature he mutates into, thanks to Nemetrix experiments being done on him, and parasites in his body leading the idea that the plot will be about trying to cure him... And then Phil says this near the episode's end:
    Phil: There hasn't been a Phil in this body for years.
• Wham Shot: Just as "Mystery, Incorporeal" ends happily for everyone not named Darkstar, his portal to Ledgerdomain suddenly reopens and Zs'Skayr's hand emerges.
• What Happened to the Mouse?:
  • In the first part of "Showdown", Khyber leaves Dr. Psychobos to his own predator, and leaves. In part 2, Khyber completely disappears from the narrative, bearing no mention from anyone nor even being referenced when Kevin adopts his pet.
  • In "Collect This", after the organocytes are let loose, they eat through the overpass, and Solid Plugg implies that they would grow to be a large, destructive threat. Then the plot moves on to Ben's actor signing Greenland and the coming of Collectimus, with no mention of how or if the organocytes were dealt with.
• Whole Episode Flashback: Malware's origin story in "Trouble Helix" takes the entire episode to tell. This is framed by Khyber accessing the records in the Plumber database. the majority Evil’s Encore is a flashback to when Dr. Animo took over plumber headquarters. From Hedorium to Eternity is a whole flashback consisting of young Ben, Gwen, Lucy, Cooper, Jonesy, and Kevin exploring underneath a house.
• The Worf Effect: In "And Then There Were None", Ben 10,000 turns into Atomic X, a fusion of Atomix and Alien X, Ben's two biggest Story Breakers, and he still is unable to stop Vilgax's time bomb, being erased along with the others.
  • Atomix suffers this in "Malgax Attacks"; The Malware-armored Vilgax shrugs off even his best shot, and goes on to hand him his first defeat.
• You and What Army?: In a rare moment of Genre Blindness, Ben says this to Gar. Cue to Gar's personnal fleet showing up.
• You Don't Look Like You: Majority of the new character designs are different. Lampshaded in an episode where Argit asks Ben if he got a haircut, though Argit does that a lot.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: Vilgax says this to Eon, just before the Chronosapien time bomb wipes out every alternate Ben and his timeline, including Eon.
  • Eon suffers this again in "End Of An Era"; After bringing Maltruant a Time Beast-pulled chariot (having brought Time Beast eggs to him in "Let's Do The Time War Again"), Maltruant pushes him off, and, to add insult to injury, sends him back to his own timeline.
• Your Mom: During Psyphon's auction Zombozo says "Then I told Vilgax 'Know what's really scary? Your mom!'"

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