Ben 10: Omniverse

♥

This article is dedicated to Dwayne McDuffie (February 20, 1962 - February 21, 2011, from complications of emergency heart surgery), the man who also brought us Static Shock and Justice League Unlimited. & Derrick J. Wyatt (August 10, 1972 – December 16, 2021), the guy who designed Teen Titans Transformers: Animated and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated may they rest in peace.

Ben 10: Omniverse is the fourth iteration of the Ben 10 franchise, and is the sequel to Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

Ben 10: Omniverse
"When lives are on the line, it's hero time! BEN 10!"
Genre: Action Adventure Science fiction Superhero Drama Running Time: 22 minutes 44 minutes (for specials) Country: United States Release Date: August 1, 2012 - November 14, 2014 Network(s): Cartoon Network Created by: Man of Action Distributed by: Warner Bros. Television Distribution Starring: Yuri Lowenthal Bumper Robinson Tara Strong Ashley Johnson Greg Cipes Paul Eiding Dee Bradley Baker Eric Bauza Corey Burton John DiMaggio David Kaye Rob Paulsen Kevin Michael Richardson Charlie Adler Seasons: 8 Episodes: 80 Previous show: Ben 10: Ultimate Alien Next show: Ben 10 (2016, seasons 1-4)

Summary

This entry in Cartoon Network's popular Ben 10 franchise features the superhero exploring the quirky side of the alien underworld in a secret alien city. Although Ben's ready to work alone, Grandpa Max teams him with a new, by-the-book partner. Along the way, Ben discovers enemies from his past looking for a rematch as well as a new batch of aliens to battle.

Why It Enters The Omniverse

1. The show has an interesting plot that takes place after both the original series and Ultimate Alien.
2. Captures some of the qualities from the original show.
3. Very likable and enjoyable characters. Especially Ben and Rook.,
   • Despite them not appearing much, Kevin and Gwen do make some apperances, and they are still likable characters.
   • Kevin even got 2 new mutations in one episode.
4. The new Omnitrix with new aliens. It even allows Ben to turn into aliens he had previously but never turned into, like Arctiguana and Buzzshock.
5. Despite it mostly being lighthearted, there are a few dark moments, such as the scene where Malware kills Feedback, and the scene where all Bens are erased from time, except for No Watch Ben.
6. All of the characters from the previous shows appear in this show like Gwen, Max and Kevin.
   • Brought back Vilgax in Season 3, and he is still a great villain.
7. The voice acting is still incredible, especially Yuri Lowenthal as 16-year-old Ben and Tara Strong as 11-year-old Ben.
   • Speaking of Tara Strong, she even reprised her role as 10-year-old Ben in the infamous 2016 reboot.
   • It also featured Judd Nelson (yeah, the same guy who voiced Hot Rod/Rodimus Prime from The Transformers: The Movie) voicing Ben 10,000 and Eon.
8. All of the aliens have very creative designs and features.
9. Nicely-done & lovely-looking art style and smooth, very fluid and colorful animation that was done by the late Derrick J. Wyatt, who also did Teen Titans, Transformers Animated and Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated but... (see BQ #2).
10. The 11-year-old version of Ben appears in the series, and he is also part of the plot.
11. Tons of awesome two-part episodes, including The Frogs of War, And Then There Were None/And Then There Were Ben, Weapon XI and It's a Mad Mad Ben World.
12. It had a neat crossover with the The Secret Saturdays, which was surprising since the show was cancelled a few years before the episode's debut and hardly anyone even remembers it.
13. In one episode "Store 23" had a funny cameo of the alien versions of Cow and Chicken. They even managed to get Charlie Adler to reprise his role!
14. Perhaps the best example of Ben 10's captivating world-building and top-notch sound design.
15. The first video game based on the series was pretty well done.
16. Awesome and catchy theme song.

Bad Qualities

1. Ben 10,000 is now portrayed as a man who combines two aliens into one. The fusions shown throughout the series look like they were lifted straight from DeviantArt.
2. The art-style while it being lovely-looking, smooth, very fluid and colorful, doesn't really look right without its well detailed pupils and ear designs from the original series, and sadly is a huge step back from its three predecessors. Even for a series that greatly pays homage to the original series, at least the latter had a better art style than what Omniverse had.
3. There were a few bad episodes like Special Delivery.
   • The crossover with the Secret Saturdays, while a decent episode, is greatly inferior to Ben 10/Generator Rex: Heroes United.
4. The most infamous part is that Ben and Julie are revealed to have broken up because of a video game. Not as in "one of them chose to play a video game over being with the other", but instead Julie misinterpreting Ben's complaints about a video game as him dumping her.
   • This was because the writing staff never liked Julie to begin with, but Dwayne McDuffie did. After McDuffie died suddenly in 2011, the staff went out of their way to get rid of Julie and eventually brought back Kai Green from the original series, who ended up becoming Ben's official love interest and was revealed to be Ken Tennyson's mother.
   • Speaking of Julie, her character was completely derailed due to the above reasons, going from a sweet, loving and supportive girl to a complete idiot who ends up cheating on Ben.
   • As for Kai, just like in the original series, she's an incredibly unlikable character here. In fact, she's even more unlikable now as a teenager than she was as a kid.
5. In the final three seasons, Cartoon Network simply stopped caring about Omniverse and started burning off new episodes at 6:00 AM in the morning.
6. The sequel of the video game based on the show of the same name is pretty crap.
7. Sadly, the end of Omniverse also marked the end of the original continuity.
8. Tons of unnecessary retcons, especially with Kevin's origin.
9. Some of the used aliens from the previous series, such as Jetray, Fasttrack, Spitter and Chamalien, were never used in this series.
   • Some characters from the previous series, like Tetrax, Verdona, the Galactic Enforcers and the Andromeda 5 sadly never reappeared.
10. Once again, there are some animation errors in most episodes, and it still goes off-model occasionally.

Trivia

• Derrick J. Wyatt later admitted that he hated working on the show.

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