Ben 10 (New Series)

I still stand by theory that in-universe Legos were based off the aliens. As for Molestache, I fine with the concept but I agree that the execution was too over the top. It would have been fine if it kept as the normal Prehensile Hair.

I kinda mind 'stache because it's a human power. Alien should have their powers designed in such way, that they couldn't work as well on normal super heroes, e.g. Heatblast is actually made out of fire and volcanic rock so he shoots fire. Meanwhile Molestache being mole doesn't work any better than if he was regular human.

BTW, isn't that weird that Prehensile Hair can only be taken seriously if it's hair from top of a head and not say, a beard? And now that I think about, only women are allowed to have it - the only exception that comes to my mind is Metalhead from Ninja Turtles (superhero, not robot).

Not sure how seriously we're supposed to take it, but Eon had it in beard form in Skylander Academy.

To Theokal 3: Sure, the Ben 10 franchise has its moments and elements of being very silly but that doesn't mean that those very elements work for the franchise. As you said so yourself, Bloxx stretched your suspension of disbelief too much. A lego alien is too silly and absurd for Ben 10 standards and therefore, Bloxx didn't work for Ben 10. You even admit that even Molestache is too silly to fit into Ben 10. I bet that we can both agree that other aliens, such as Walkatrout and The Worst, are also way too silly to fit into Ben 10 as well. There's being silly and then there's being too silly. Any franchise can do all sorts of things like having very silly elements to them but it all comes down to if they fit well with the franchise and if their execution was done well.

In the case with the horror themed aliens, with the exception of Ghostfreak and Benwolf, I find that the other horror themed aliens don't really fit well into Ben 10; most especially Whampire but, to an extent, also Frankenstrike and Snare-oh. I've seen plenty of people express their disdain towards these aliens as well for much of the same or similar reasons. To me, I'd rather prefer keeping Whampire, Frankenstrike, and Snare-oh out of Ben's roster.

Then there's the mechanical aliens. Well, out of the many mechanical aliens in the franchise, how many of them worked out well and fit well into the franchise? Also, what do you mean by too many? Ben only has 6 mechanical aliens in his roster. You make it sound like there's a couple dozen of them, unless you're counting aliens that wear suits, like Armodrillo, because when you said mechanical aliens, I assumed that you were referring to aliens that are completely mechanical by nature. Anyways, at least to me, most of the mechanical aliens are too silly for Ben 10 and, even more so, don't make a lot of sense. For example, again, Armodrillo (if you are referring to aliens like him). I assume that his suit wasn't something that he biologically inherited from birth, which means that every time Ben transformed into Armodrillo, he shouldn't be getting the suit because it's not part of Armodrillo's biology. While I do find Armodrillo to be an interesting and unique alien for Ben to have, that suit needs to go in order for him to make sense in Ben 10 and the context of the Omnitrix. I'm also not a fan of Clockwork as I find his time-related abilities to be too powerful and unbalanced to work in Ben 10. There's also, of course, Bloxx as well. One mechanical alien that I'm very much fine with is Lodestar because his abilities are quite unique, useful, and well-balanced and Lodestar's appearance fits in well with that. If Lodestar is too mechanical in appearance to work, he could always be changed to be more like Upgrade in regards to what he's made of.

Quick question about Way Big though. Did Way Big ever use his cosmic beam in Omniverse? It's been quite a while and from what I recall, the first time we ever see Way Big do something like that is in Ultimate Alien.

Going back to Adwaita and the Anodytes, you said so yourself, they were badly executed. Therefore, it doesn't really matter if they sound like good ideas. They didn't work in execution. Adwaita didn't work for Ben 10. Anodytes didn't work for Ben 10. Things can sound like good ideas on paper but turn out to be bad ideas in execution and Adwaita and the Anodytes are prominent examples of that. What they were set out to do in Ben 10 didn't work out well and didn't fit in well. Most, if not all, cases of aliens using elements of magic in the Ben 10 franchise didn't work out well and didn't fit in well. I say most because there is Zs'Skayr using elements of magic in Omniverse, which does sound as if magic would fit a little better with but of course, Omniverse often pulls an Omniverse and often times make these elements and moments look so ridiculous and absurd for comedic effect to the point of undermining the overall execution significantly. I also didn't find these moments in Omniverse to be interesting either but that's just me.

Overall, no, I don't find it to be a good idea for aliens to use magic in the Ben 10 franchise. At least not yet. You say that it can help make the setting richer but that's not what actually happened because again, more often than not, aliens using magic didn't blend and work well in the Ben 10 universe. Can it work? Sure, it can but until a better and more proper plan on how to do this in a better way can be implemented, I say it's better to not make another attempt at it for the time being. For example, maybe in the case of Anodytes, they could work out better if they were not aliens from a different planet but instead mystical being or whatever from Ledgerdomain. Sure, Adwaita could've worked if he was much more interesting. Either way, if certain elements, such as most of your examples of many of Ben's alien forms, are too silly and absurd to work well and make sense in the Ben 10 franchise, then yes, certain abilities can indeed be too magic to work well for aliens to use. Therefore, no, it is not a bit late to argue that these abilities are too magic to fit with aliens because of these sillier elements. The execution of these sillier elements says otherwise.

In regards to Kaiseror's suggestion for an alien, maybe instead of controlling shadows, the alien could control dark matter/dark energy. Then again, we already have so many energy based aliens in the franchise and there's also the risk that this alien could end up being too powerful and unbalanced given what dark matter and dark energy is...or at the very least hypothesized by physical cosmologists and astronomers.

He is pretty silly, but I mostly despite Walkatrout for having super powers only in the most generous definition of the word.

Well, I liked The Worst, Mole-stache and Walkatrout.

Btw, does Ben have a Making a Splash alien that isn’t like Overflow/Water Hazard (shooting water from water gun like things)?

I was about to say "Ripjaws", but Ripjaws is just a manfish.

...I miss Ripjaws, even if I understand exactly why he was left out of the initial ten.

@Tactical Ochoa: ... Actually that's where we disagree and agree at the same time.

On Bloxx and Molestache, we do agree. But regarding Walkatrout and The Worst, while I do not really like them, my problem with them isn't that they are too silly; it's that their designs and powers are uncreative and uninspired, and, in Walkatrout's case, that he is the very definition of pointless. Admittedly, it does make sense that some aliens would have no powers, but still, that doesn't mean we need to see them.

Regarding the Horror aliens... they actually are among my favourite aliens. All of them, even Whampire (though I'll admit I found him disappointing in design). True, the fact they are like horror movie monsters might seem silly, but they do look alien enough that I might buy it, the way they are designed are creative (I especially love the idea of Snare-Oh actually being a tentacle monster with bandage-like appendices). Also, unlike Bloxx, where I really can't buy that aliens happened to evolve to look just like LEGO blocks, I can actually buy that humans came up with legends about werewolves or mummies after meeting aliens like them. So yeah, for me they fit perfectly well, and I wish we got more of them.

As for the mechanical aliens, well, I don't want to be rude, but... Are you kiddin me?!!! You think 6 mechanical aliens isn't much? As far as I am concerned, that's already way more than needed. Had I been in charge of Ben 10, Upgrade would have been the only mechanical alien, with maybe Nanomech and (depending if you count him) Frankenstrike. I would have kept Armordrillo, but made his armor more organic-looking and replaced his pile-driver with something organic. Clockwork I think is cool in design, but... yeah, he is too powerful. And I would never have kept Atomix. Hate that one.

And yes, Way Big used his cosmic rays in Omniverse. I distinctly remember him using it against Malware, and most memorably, he defeated Emperor Milleus' ship in a Beam-O-War with it.

As for Adwaita and the Anodites... yes, it does matter if they were good concept but bad execution, because that suggests the only reason they didn't work was because they were executed wrong. Which in turn mean you can give them a good execution and make them fit; that's the point of They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot. For example, I maintain Anodites would have worked had they been made an alien variant of The Fair Folk, by having them be the source behind fairy myths and making them vulnerable to Cold Iron for example (thus giving them a weakness to make up for how OP they are and connecting magic and aliens in a nice way). As for Adwaita, the problem wasn't that he was an alien magic-user, that part actually was cool; the real problem was that he was a flat, one-dimensional villain.

Seriously, if you still insist you can't make magic and aliens mix well, I suggest you go check Doctor Who, Warhammer 40,000, and the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Heck, I'm ready to bet you even comics made the two fit together. Crazy mixes like this are what made me love Ben 10 to begin with.

Edited by Theokal3 on Nov 29th 2018 at 12:39:41 PM

But the Pyramids were Tetramand workmanship! And Stonehenge a Galvan practical joke, apparently.

...Man, the Galvans are jerks.

Edited by Etheru on Nov 29th 2018 at 5:02:30 AM

... Now you're making me regret I watched the movie at a time my english wasn't that good. I missed these jokes. These sound hilarious.

Yeah, during Ben and Retaliator's fight which spans a lot of the (conspicuously empty because CGI lol) Earth, Ben knocks Stonehenge down by mistake and then Retaliator says it was just a "Galvan practical joke".

He says that the Egyptian Pyramids were Tetramand workmanship when they fight there. They're fun little bits of worldbuilding, even if they are basically just stock Ancient Astronauts jokes.

I see^^

Anyway, gonna ask something I am genuinely curious about: do you guys think there villains introduced in the Reboot who will be worth keeping should other iterations of the franchise come later? I insist that they should be new villains, not reimagining of ones from previous entries. I know a lot of the earlier Reboot villains were unimpressive, but it's been a while now, and people seem to think the Reboot is finding its ground, so I'm genuinely curious.

I actually noticed a pretty neat detail recently. In Ben 10: Destroy All Aliens, Retaliator says that the pyramids were "clearly Tetramand workmanship." Now take a look at the architecture of Khoros in the Reboot.

Not that I'm aware of. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, though.

Edited by worldofdrakan on Dec 1st 2018 at 1:29:45 PM

Ohhh, you found a conspiration theory!!! Still, I’m repeating my question. Does Ben have a Making a Splash alien that isn’t like Overflow/Water Hazard (shooting water from water gun like things)?

That depends a lot on the kind of tone future installments try to have. The villains of this series are very Silver Age-y: outlandish designs, hammy personalities with bizarre and petty goals, weird powers and abilities, loads of Offscreen Villain Dark Matter, etc.

In the past, the series has gone through darker or lighter tones, explored different ways of doing sci-fi (from dark conspiracies to 80's sci-fi sendups, etc and so on), has stayed on Earth or focusing more on space, or so it... depends.

Even Animo has had off-and-on problems returning to the franchise for that exact reason: from being ignored, to being drastically reimagined, to being re-reimagined to be more in line with his original personality but simultaneously not appearing that much. Only to return in force to this series because it was practically made for characters like him.

To give a more straight answer, though, I think in terms of being applicable no matter what kind of series they make next, I could see the Weatherheads and King Coil having concepts that are very versatile. In terms of being a bigger villain that future creators might want to shoehorn in regardless of tone, Steam Smythe.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Dec 1st 2018 at 11:04:12 AM

No, the closest we got was Ripjaws and he could only swim fast and breath underwater, not control it. Personally I would've blended Ripjaws and Water Hazard together if I made the reboot.

Edited by Kaiseror on Dec 1st 2018 at 1:09:05 PM

I think I agree on the Weatherheads, since I found their gimmick pretty unique.

The Fulminites could probably show up in a later incarnation too.

Yeah, I hoped they would reveal Overflow to be a Chinese dragon alien in a robotic suit that can control water like Waterbenders. Oh wait, that’s too powerful for a reboot.

Edited by JTTWlover on Dec 1st 2018 at 9:55:14 PM

Though it's shown in "All Wet" that Overflow can absorb water coming at him with his water gun and redirect it after making it go through his exoskeleton armor to his other water gun

I'm not sure where you guys get a idea that any alien besides NRG is just a guy in a suit. Not only that would be missing the point of the aliens, but Armadillo's arms actually contain the drills in them, so that would only work if his real arms werent't even there.

BTW, let's be honest, as long as Ben keeps getting new aliens and we're not willing to settle for obvious powers rehashes, him getting new alien with Story-Breaker Power is just a inevitable problem. There is a a reason why each new cartoon before rebbot got worse and worse about it. Heck, some aliens have some broken powers than Ben simply never bothered to use (Terraspin is immune to magic and Ampfibian can read minds).

Personally I am willing to accept some of the equipments the Aliens have (such as XLR8's helmet or NRG's suit) are survival gear built by the Omnitrix. My personal theory is that the Omnitrix analyze its owner, then decides based on his species what each form would need to walk around safely on his home planet, and builds the fitting gear. Hence why NRG has a suit (otherwise he would kill everyone around him just by walking around with his radiations) and Goop an antigrav device (since Earth's gravity is too heavy for him naturally), but Ripjaw lacks breathing gear (the Omnitrix probably assumes that, Earth being mostly covered with water anyway, that'd be superfluous).

That said, I do think that in no way should the gear be the source of the aliens' powers. As Sunchet says, that'd be missing the point; the whole thing about the aliens' powers is that they are natural abilities they have.

Edited by Theokal3 on Dec 2nd 2018 at 1:50:55 PM

Well, I had a pretty good conversation with a friend about Ben’s new aliens and the removal of some others. Here is what we said (more or less, and I’m not making this up):

Me: So, I don’t know how to react about the changes because THEY GOT RID OF THE WATER, PLANT AND INTELLIGENCE AND REPLACED THEM WITH TWO SUPERSTRENGTHS AND A SIZE-SHIFTER.

Friend: OMG SO TRUE.

Me: I’ve also been watching some videos and I saw a question about the new playset. HOW IS BEN GOING TO BE IN SMALL PLACES. Actually we have Slapback but HOW IS BEN GOING TO BREATHE IN WATER. ALSO GREY MATTER HAD GILLS YET HE DIDN’T BREATHE IN WATER AND ALMOST DROWNED IN A WATER GLASS.

Friend: Being able to breathe underwater is a really useful thing AND YET BEN’T DOESN’T USE IT. SO STUPID.

Me: Yeah even though Grey Matter cannot swim HE COULD AT LEAST NOT ALMOST DROWN IN THE WATER GLASS.

• Bell rings*

My friend and I: Oh no.

At least Heatblast is a very good swimmer. But... yeah, I think it's obvious why the fire alien isn't really the ideal alien for water related stuff (it's even the first episode of this show!).

Though I know it's unbalanced, ability-wise, I think the new aliens (minus Rath) could honestly make up for the water breathing lost. Sure, they don't have it, but Ben's excuse/explanation/logic that I SOMEHOW find myself agreeing with this time?

"You won't need to hold your breath when you're a GIANT DINOSAUR THAT CAN SMASH STUFF WITH HIS BIG ARMS WHILE SWIMMING!"

(Gwen's probable answer:

"Are you sure you're not going to drown in water?")

That, and if it's a water-related threat, we saw Cannonbolt's species defending themselves against a predator that way in the Alien Worlds videos.

I forgot to say it, but maybe Slapback can breathe in water. After all, he looks like a frog, no?

Also, XD about your answer and I don’t think Cannonbolt works.

Cannonbolt would have to lure the thing at the surface to get it, yeah (other Arburian Pelarotas have been shown to like being in the water tho)