Ben Tennyson (Classic)

Benjamin Kirby Tennyson, more commonly known as Ben or Ben 10, is the main character in all three of the Ben 10 series: Ben 10, Ben 10: Alien Force, and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien.

He is first introduced in the pilot episode And Then There Were 10, where he finds the Omnitrix and then, throughout the series, learns to use the powerful alien device, including the responsibility of wielding it, to become a true hero.

Appearance
In the original series, Ben has brown hair and green eyes, he wears a white t-shirt with black stripes and deep green pants and also wears white and black sneakers. In a few episodes, he is seen with his pants down with Sumo Slammers boxers on. In Alien Force, his eyes and hair have shaded a bit and he wears a green jacket with the number 10 on it over a black t-shirt with blue jeans and wears black low-top sneakers. In the original series and Alien Force he had the Omnitrix and in Ultimate Alien, he's got the Ultimatrix which he forced off Albedo.

Personality
In the original series, Ben is shown to be a cocky, immature boy, who is not above enjoying attention and enjoy making jokes even during fights. Though his immaturity makes a bad impression on some people, Ben is good-hearted, noble, and loyal, and his actions are motivated above all by a strong and sincere will to help and save others in need. He will stop at nothing to protect his family or anyone in danger whether human or alien. He seems more mature in Ben 10: Alien Force and cares more about Gwen now, but that might just be due to growing up.

For instance, in Time Heals, when Ben bought Gwen time, he told her that he had already lost her once and won't lose her again. When meeting an enemy in trouble (like Kevin in Kevin 11 or the Highbreeds in War of the Worlds), he would rather attempt to help him. At one point, he even chose to save the half-cured DNAlien Tyler rather than take the key for the Highbreed's invasion, even though Tyler was willing to sacrifice himself. In the Ben 10: Alien Force episode Inside Man, he said how much he cares about the lives of others, even saying to Tyler that no sacrifices are needed; additionally, in Perplexahedron he chose to save the Sentinel from the collapsing Perplexahedron, losing the final piece of the Map of Infinity to Aggregor in the process. Sometimes, his idealistic nature tends to make him act naive, a weakness that was used against him by the Arachnichimp mercenary Simion.

As a kid, Ben proves to be resourceful, intelligent, shrewd and cunning when needed, which saved him from many situations, especially when the Omnitrix cannot activate or doesn't provide him with the form he originally wanted. When he almost abolished his immaturity in the Ben 10: Alien Force, he proves to be an excellent and responsible leader for his team. However, after his success at saving the universe from the Highbreed invasion, his celebrity status amongst aliens eventually went to his head, and he began to show off the negative traits that were prevalent in the original series, becoming cocky, arrogant, egotistical, and overconfident with himself and constantly bragging that he "single-handedly saved the entire universe", even though he had a lot of help from various people. After facing Vilgax again, Ben mellowed out somewhat, but his cockiness was still apparent, and he occasionally took advantage of his celebrity status to help himself, with mixed results depending on the situation. In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, though he has no more ego and overconfidence, he only shows it off when his die-hard fans come to interview him or cheer him.

It's also pertinent to note that Ben has inherited both his paternal grandparents' personality. Although Ben inherited his grandmother Verdona's spirit, sense of humour, and overconfidence, he also inherited his grandfather's determination, adventurous and self-sacrificing attitude. He is also a much of a practical joker like his grandmother Verdona.

It's evident that he actually is extremely smart in some respects, as in Where the Magic Happens where he memorized the writing for the secret name of LedgerDomain, and in Perplexahedron, he figured out how the Perplexahedron works. It was even stated by Gwen that he really isn't working up to his potential at school, and he replies "That's what they tell me".

In Absolute Power, it would seem Ben was willing to not only destroy Kevin, but Gwen as well if she stood in his way. This would seem to have set him to the path of becoming the original Ben 10,000 or like him. He became more of a cold-blooded raging vigilante rather than his usual righteous self, willing to destroy anyone who opposes him to stop Kevin.

Powers and Abilities
Ben was the wielder of the Omnitrix and later the Ultimatrix, which give him the incredible power and ability to modify his own genetic code in order to turn into various alien creatures. He traditionally has an arsenal of 10 alien forms at the beginning of both the original series and Alien Force, but he later gains additional forms by either unlocking them or by scanning the DNA of the creatures he meets. At the end of the original series, his arsenal included 20 aliens, while his current complete list is 38 aliens discovered (Ben 10, Ben 10: Alien Force, and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien). Furthermore, with the Ultimatrix, he is now able to become the Ultimate forms of up to six of his aliens.

When transforming into an alien, Ben gets all the creature's features, including its appearance, voice, abilities, and weaknesses. Though he mostly retains his personality, there are some cases where the transformation causes change in it, such as Rath becoming far more aggressive, Spidermonkey acting more childish, or Big Chill being affected by his species' reproduction instincts. Two of the aliens, Ghostfreak and Big Chill even managed to take over Ben's personality twice, though this was a special case. Though he usually uses his alien forms to fight, there have been some occasions where he was taken for a real alien by others, humans especially (at least until his secret was revealed). At one point, he even intentionally impersonated Bivalvan as Water Hazard to convince P'andor to flee from Earth, and though he was unsuccessful at convincing him, P'andor actually believed him to be Bivalvan.

The Omnitrix/Ultimatrix also gives Ben the ability to communicate with any life form that doesn't already speak English (except for babies). As seen in Alien Force, Ben is also able to repair and manipulate any genetic damage of whatever life form he encounters by either removing the foreign DNA corrupting it or infusing it with DNA samples currently active. Ben can do this in two ways: by being in physical contact with the life form or by sending out a beam or wave from the Omnitrix face plate. Doing this in the latter method can overtax the Omnitrix and exhaust Ben if he uses more energy than is available (meaning if he's in alien form). Furthermore, Azmuth has stated that Ben is capable of bringing to life any species stored on Primus. While Ben has yet to use the ability willingly, there have been instances of Ben's forms coming to life and escaping the Omnitrix, such as in the original series when Ghostfreak separated himself from Ben (being alive all along), and when Ben attempted to access the Omnitrix's full power and resulted in releasing Chromastone, Spidermonkey, Goop, and Way Big. The genetic back-up ability also appeared in The Secret of Chromastone, where Tetrax released Chromastone, the Codon Stream version of Sugilite, so he could restore the planet Petropia (though being that Ben had Petrosapian DNA in the Omnitrix, he could've brought the race back as well). However, it's currently unknown if the Ultimatrix has these abilities as well.

In addition to his Omnitrix/Ultimatrix powers, Ben, in Alien Force, has been trained in hand-to-hand fight by his black belt cousin Gwen (as shown in Be-Knighted), his former plumber grandfather Max, as well as various years-fighting aliens, and received a basic Plumber training (all of this according to Dwayne McDuffie). He is much more altheltic than his younger self. Though he has only been trained on week basis in order to minimize his reliance on the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix, he's still proved to be quite skilled, being able to take off Manny's blasters while in human form in Above and Beyond and in the episode Voided where Grandpa Max commented on how he lost to Pierce (which Ben replied that he lost on purpose).

Ben 10
Ben was originally a 10-year-old boy, who grew up in Bellwood, and was unpopular and bullied in his school. However, his life changed the day he went on summer vacation with his grandfather, Max and his cousin, Gwen. A short time after they left Bellwood, Ben went on a walk through the woods in which they were camping, and witnessed the crash of a strange capsule from space. This capsule happened to contain the Omnitrix, a powerful watch-like device, that fixed itself on Ben's wrist.

At first scared, Ben soon discovered that using the Omnitrix, he was now able to transform into ten super-powered alien creatures. Unable to remove the Omnitrix, he eventually learned to use the device (though with relative problems) in order to become a super-hero. Though he occasionally arrested ordinary criminals, he was quickly led to also fight super-villains, starting with Dr. Animo, Kevin 11, and ultimately, Vilgax, a vicious alien warlord who wanted to get the Omnitrix for himself.

Despite being very immature and occasionally using the Omnitrix for minor selfish purposes, Ben proved to be a valuable wearer for the Omnitrix, defeating Vilgax several times (though mostly due to the help from Gwen and Grandpa Max) and saving people several times.

During this series, Ben's favorite aliens are Fourarms, Heatblast, Wildmutt, XLR8, and Diamondhead showing his tendency to favor brute force over well-thought plans. This was especially shown in the Ultimate Alien episode, The Forge of Creation, where he was examining older Ben's Ultimatrix and calledNRG lame when he saw him as well as Brainstorm, Goop weak, and said Humungousaur was okay probably due to his big size and stature.

Ben 10: Alien Force
Ben also has a girlfriend named Julie Yamamoto, who makes her first appearance in the pilot episode Ben 10 Returns: Part 1 as a crowd attendent to Ben's soccer game. She then next appears in Pier Pressure, where Ben asks her out and she discovers the Omnitrix. She finds the device cool instead of running away like Ben thought. Ben seems to have a very concerned and protective feeling for Julie and vice versa. Ben seems to trust Julie the most. For instance, when Ben's hand is cut-off, the hand goes in search of Julie and not Gwen nor Kevin.And when Big Chill takes over Ben's personality, Julie, who sincerely takes his problem seriously, tried to help him in every manner. Ben even travelled half-way across the galaxy only to fight against the claim of Baz-el for Ship only for Julie. When Grandpa Max goes missing, he teams up with Gwen and a reformed Kevin. In the first two seasons, Ben has matured dramatically and is a very capable good leader. But in Season 3, after their success at saving the universe at the hands of the Highbreed, Ben seems to have gone back to his immature self. He has this basic dialogue of saying "And that's because I saved the whole entire universe" of which Gwen and Kevin have been highly disgusted with. Ben had also tampered with the Omnitrix which led to the release of Goop, Chromastone, Spidermonkey and Way Big which he got back whereas mutating Kevin for the second time. Ben and Gwen have also revived their infamous love-hate relationship with each other. Despite their rivalry, their bond is still strong(In Time Heals, Ben tells Gwen that he lost her once and he's not losing her again). In The Final Battle, after giving the Omnitrix to Vilgax, Ben feels guilty about it and cries out Azmuth's name for help. During their conversation, Ben shows remorse for letting Azmuth down as well as mutating Kevin. After the Omnitrix was destroyed which reverted Kevin to his human form, Ben obtained the Ultimatrix from Albedo.

Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, sixteen-year-old Ben's identity is revealed to the world and he's now a megastar superhero loved all over by kids, but distrusted by many adults. This series features Ben's new car, the DX Mark 10 a heavily modified Mazda RX-8, which marked it's first appearance in Ben 10: Alien Swarm, the car being gifted reluctantly by Kevin. Also he will be seen with Julie, now sharing a stronger bond with her and Julie again helping their team from time to time. He and Julie also shared their first on-screen kiss in the episode Fame.

He also got a lot of confidence after Julie kissed him and Ben appeared to be utterly shocked at Julie kissing him on the cheek. Also, Ben and Kevin are now true friends and not rivals. Ben is now armed by an enhanced,upgraded version of the Omnitrix, the Ultimatrix, which evolves his aliens, and also has every alien he has ever turned into, though at the moment, Ben has yet to turn into or re-unlock all of them. He is now also on good terms with his old middle school bullies Cash and JT.

Also, the new series introduces two new enemies for Ben's rogue gallery: nasty news reporter Will Harangue who sees Ben as a public menace and operates a secret agenda to eliminate him (he heavily represents Senator Kelly from the X-Men universe), and perhaps Ben's greatest enemy yet (even worse than Vilgax): a villainous Osmosian named Aggregor whose sinister plan involves draining the powers of five powerful aliens from the Andromeda Galaxy to make himself the most powerful being in said galaxy. Interestingly, these five aliens also provide Ben with his newest alien forms. After Ben scanned Ra'ad, he now has a total of one million nine hundred and ten aliens which in figures is, 1,000,910.

MAD (Television Series)
Ben appeared briefly in a snippet of the new Cartoon Network show, Mad. They were doing a Star Trek parody and the crew was watching Ben 10 on their screen. Then, they did another parody, but this time with Benjamin Franklin. He was flying his kite and was struck by a lightning bolt. He then gained the Omnitrix after the accident. He turned into Fourarms, Swampfire, Jetray, NRG, and Humungousaur.In the parody, all of Ben Franklin's aliens had his hair and glasses, and were miscoloured.

Kai Green
Kai Green first appeared in the original Ben 10 episode Benwolf, when Ben caught a glimpse of her dancing a spiritual dance, and was easily smitten. She was then introduced as Max's friend, Wes Green's granddaughter, they being Navajo descendants. After that Ben made a lot of attempts to impress her (even by asking help from Gwen). However, at the end of the episode, when Ben tries to establish a relationship with her, she tells him that she only admired him in his alien form, where she could "train" and "tame" him, much to Gwen's annoyance, even breaking Ben's heart. In the alternate future, things might have been better between Kai and Ben, as she is the mother of a son, named Ken and a daughter, named Gwen (as confirmed by Dwayne McDuffie, both the kids named after Ben's paternal first-cousins).

Julie Yamamoto
Julie Yamamoto is an Japanese-American girl, who is Ben's classmate. She first appears in the pilot episode of Alien Force as a crowd attendant to Ben's soccer match. She is also a tennis player. At the end of the two-part season two finale War of the Worlds, Ben and Julie get close to kissing, but decide against it as Gwen, Kevin, and Max were all looking on. In the series premiere of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Ben and Julie share their first kiss; although technically, Julie kissed him on the cheek. It said that Ben and Julie will be kissing often throughout the series as their affection for each other grows.

Elena Validus
Elena Validus is one of the Plumbers' kids and a former member of Ben's soccer team. She is mentioned by Gwen as Ben's first crush (though this contradicts what was seen in the original series as Ben met Elena when he was thirteen while he met Kai when he was ten). Ben had to convince his soccer team mates to let her join. She appeared in the live-action film, ''Ben 10: Alien Swarm. However, at the end of the movie, Ben and Elena only ended up on "friendship"'' terms.

Jennifer Nocturne
Jennifer Nocturne is a 19 year old famous film actress who appeared in the episode of Ultimate Alien, Hero Time, when she had an instant crush on Ben when he saved her life. Later she tried to make up a relationship with Ben just for publicity sake and make a better career for herself (eventually leading to Ben's first on-screen kiss with her). Later on, she was captured with Julie by Captain Nemesis who later had become the supervillain Overlord. When Overlord had the two of them hanging from a statue, he gave Ben the option to only save one of them before blasting the cord holding them. Without a hesitation, Ben turned into Goop and saved Julie while Kevin and Gwen saved Jennifer.

Video Games
Ben appears in every Ben 10 video game (playable) because he is the main character of the Ben 10 series. Ben is also seen in the popular Cartoon Network online game, FusionFall. He also appears in some of the online games, related and un-related to Ben 10, on Cartoon Network.

Movies

 * Ben 10: Secret of The Omnitrix
 * Ben 10: Race Against Time
 * Ben 10: Alien Swarm
 * Ben 10: Alien Dimensions

Trivia

 * In The Forge of Creation it's stated by Azmuth that Ben will have a glorious future, but Paradox stops him, saying that there must no spoilers.
 * Ben suffered from a fear of clowns up until the events of Last Laugh, when he realized that there were actually more serious things to be scared of, like "losing 'his' family to some 'goofball emotional vampire'," finally 'scaring the fear' right out of him. However, in the episode of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Hit 'Em Where They Live, Ben claims that he had forgotten about his battle with Zombozo, although Dwayne McDuffie states he said that because he didn't want to admit to Kevin he used to be afraid of clowns.
 * Ben has played 2 sports so far, baseball and soccer.
 * In Ben 10 Returns: Part 1, when Ben is playing soccer, his soccer shirt has the number 10 on the back.
 * In A Change of Face, it is mentioned that a ten-year-old Ben still slept with his teddy bear, called "Furry Freddy".
 * It was shown in Monster Weather that Ben knows how to play the guitar and the drums.
 * In Perfect Day, Ben was shown to wear Sumo Slammer boxer shorts, when his pants fell down in front of a group of cheerleaders.
 * Like Grandpa Max and Gwen, Ben thinks that the summer he found the Omnitrix was the best summer he ever had.
 * As a kid, Ben was a fan of the Sumo Slammers franchise and of a Manga comic series called "Ultra Boy", even imagining himself as "Ultra Ben" (see: The Galactic Enforcers and Perfect Day.) To this day, Ben remains a Sumo Slammers fanatic, but it remains to be seen if he still reads Ultra Boy or not.
 * It is shown in Goodbye and Good Riddance that Ben has a dog (he doesn't seem to have it in Alien Force or Ultimate Alien anymore).
 * In Fused, it is shown Ben sleeps in his black T-shirt and boxer shorts unlike in Cartoon Network Action Pack #38 (Lazy Day) where he wore gray pajamas.
 * Ben has a strong affinity to chili fries and smoothies.
 * In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Ben owns both a driver's license and a car (the car being reluctantly gifted by Kevin as a birthday present for Ben).
 * As mentioned in Primus, he is just a "regular guy" without the Omnitrix. This means that despite being a Plumber's grandson, Ben does not have any innate natural superpowers and super-abilities, making Ben one of the few known official Plumber kids who does not have natural powers, the other being Elena, though later in the series he might have powers besides his "ultra-weapon."
 * Ben's worst subject is Physics (this is proved in the episode Good Copy, Bad Copy, when Ben gets C+ for his test). However, he also shows to have great logic about it, which Paradox states would help him in serious situations in the future.
 * As revealed in the episode Good Copy, Bad Copy, Ben's left eye twitches whenever he tells a lie. Kevin seems to be the first to noticed this, though when he was lying to his mom in Grounded, his left eye didn't twitch, nor his right. This could be also because he had a black eye on his right.
 * Ben's middle name is revealed to be Kirby. This is proven by his cousin Gwen in the Ultimate Alien episode, Duped. Named after the golden age Comic book artist, Jack Kirby. (Confirmed by Dwayne McDuffie)
 * Sometimes, Ben can't tolerate high speeds. This is seen on six occasions: First, in Pet Project, when Ship is flying, Ben almost begs him to drive slowly; second, in War of the Worlds: Part 2, when Kevin is driving the car in a rash manner, Ben scolds him; third, when Brainstorm is driving Ship and is flying fast, he vomits up all on Azmuth and faints when he reaches the Highbreed home world; fourth, in Vendetta, when he teleports from Kevin's home to Ragnarok's spaceship, he feels seasick; fifth, in The Final Battle: Part 1, when Ben tells Kevin that he can't wait for his license, it's because he was fed up of Kevin's bad and rash driving (although Kevin was flying a plane), and sixth in Perplexahedron when they crash into the planet Ben vomits all up in the control pad.
 * Ben has put on the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix five times and has taken it off four times. First was in And Then There Were 10, then it was removed in Back With a Vengeance and put on again at the end of the same episode, it was then removed prior to the Alien Force series and put on again in the first episode, Ben 10 Returns: Part 1, then it leaves his wrist in Primus to find Azmuth and was returned to him towards the end of it, and finally, Ben took the Omnitrix off for the last time in The Final Battle: Part 1 and put on the Ultimatrix in The Final Battle: Part 2.
 * Ben is portrayed by Graham Philips in Ben 10: Race Against Time and by Ryan Kelley in Ben 10: Alien Swarm.
 * In the third season of Ben 10: Alien Force and the beginning of Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Ben didn't change his clothes like Gwen and Kevin did.
 * He has a fear of the dark which was mentioned in Fused (this may or may not be canon); as well as fear of thunder and lightning which is also mentioned in "Fused."
 * Ben actually has intuition. In the episode Perplexahedron, The gang tried to find the ship, but Ben was the only one who could remember where it was.
 * Ben met alternate versions of himself three times. First time in "Ben 10,000" (ten-year- old Ben meets thirty-year-old), then in Good Copy, Bad Copy (who was actually Albedo imprisoned in Ben's human form) and last time in The Forge of Creation (sixteen-year-old Ben meets ten-year-old Ben)
 * As shown in The Forge of Creation, the 10 year old version of Ben used to judge aliens on appearance. However, the older Ben judges his aliens on abilities. It is unknown at this point if this was just to show maturity, or if the older Ben had some events happen that made him appreciate the weaker or "uncool" aliens (like Grey Matter).