Reviews WesternAnimation / Ben 10 Alien Force

The Con of Rath - or, the best episode of a mediocre series

The Con of Rath... Well, after a series that was more than content to slap its predecessor's continuity in the face and generally be barely passable, I was expecting another badly-written episode with aliens voiced by Dee Bradley Baker acting like he has a cold. Baker's a great voice actor, but I can't help but feel he's a little overworked.

So the episode starts with Ben, Gwen and Kevin about to go to the beach, but they're interrupted by these marshmallow aliens, called Lewodans, who want them to take their crown prince to an enemy planet as a peace treaty. Sin ce they don't know what "peace treaty" means for the bad guy of the week, our heroes respond, However, the Lewodan prince ends up causing the Omnitrix to malfunction, causing Ben to turn into the new alien - Rath.

I was pleasantly surprised to hear one of my favorite voice actors, John Di Maggio, voicing this irate alien tiger with the personality of Hulk Hogan.

The episode basically had Rath, as violent and stupid as he is, picking fights with everybody - the Vreedles, an Incursion, and Vulkanus, specifically. One of the highlights is Rath calling Vulkanus "Baby-man," helped by John's always great voice acting.

The episode reaches its climax when they reach the planet of the Pantophages, and the king eats the Tiffin. Naturally, this pisses off Rath (like everything else), and it leans to a combination Crowning Moment Of Awesome and Crowning Moment Of Funny.

In conclusion, this is one of the precious, precious few episodes of Alien Force/Ultimate Alien that have the same fun feel of the original series. Rath is more than deserving of his Ensemble Darkhorse credibility, and any time he shows up, he can elevate the usual mediocrity of this show to actually being funny.