Ben Tennyson (Classic)

Benjamin "Ben" Kirby Tennyson was an average ten-year-old kid, until he found the Omnitrix, a powerful watch-like device that allowed him to turn into ten different alien species. Though initially immature and clumsy, he grew as a true hero. By the time he was sixteen, he had become famous in not only his hometown of Bellwood, but on Earth and beyond. Ben has also become a member of the Plumbers.

Physical Appearance
Ben's physical appearance has evolved throughout the series from a ten-year-old to a fifteen and sixteen-year-old teenager. However, he retains some recurring characteristics. He has short brown hair, green eyes, pale skin, and he's quite skinny for his age (though his various future selves are portrayed as quite muscular), though he shows a lot of muscle definition due to being athletic. In the original series, his usual clothes consisted of a black-striped, white shirt with short sleeves, green pants and black and white shoes with black stripes. Starting with Alien Force, he wears a black shirt, blue pants and a green jacket with the number 10 on it, and black shoes, clothes he retains in Ben 10: Ultimate Alien. Ben wears the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix on his left wrist in a watch-like manner. Like all the other main characters, his physical appearance hasn't changed much.

When the cross over special with Generator Rex occurred, Ben's appearance changed according to the animation of that series, becoming sleeker and more mature.

In Ben 10: Omniverse, Ben's appearance is a combination of the past three series. Ben wears a new shirt that resembles his classic shirt when he was ten years old. His shirt is black and has a green stripe in the middle with a 10 and green stripes on the sides of his shirt; the colors are based on the ones from Ben's Jacket in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien. He wears brown pants with pockets at the knees and green and white shoes. He later gains a white hoodie with green stripes and a number 10 overtop of a green shirt. Like the previous three series, he wears the Omnitrix on his left wrist.

Personality
Ben is initially portrayed as a cocky, arrogant and immature boy who tends to make jokes even when fighting. He easily gets full of himself and enjoys attention. This attitude can sometimes make him look obnoxious or dumb, often resulting in criticisms from Gwen and later Kevin. It also causes several conflicts between him and Azmuth. These traits, however, as hinted in The Forge of Creation, stem from Ben's attempts to hide his own fear about the situation (though he denied it and said he was actually oblivious). Even so, he's matured since the first series and although he can be goofy, he's also capable of great leadership skills and tends to get serious when the situation requires it.

Despite his immaturity, Ben is actually good-hearted, and his actions are motivated above all by a strong and sincere will to help and save others in need. He's shown to deeply care for other's lives, and would choose to save people by himself even when he dislikes them (such as Cash and JT). This causes him to have a strong dislike for sacrifices or life compromises and occasionally act against reason, such as when he chooses to save half-cured DNAlien Tyler over seizing the key for the Highbreed's invasion (Inside Man), or when he tries to save the Sentinel while losing the last Map of Infinity piece to Aggregor (Perplexahedron (Episode)). When meeting an enemy in trouble (like Kevin or the Highbreed), he'll usually attempt to help them rather than win the hard way. While this somehow overly idealistic nature is often criticised by Azmuth, most characters usually consider it as Ben's most important quality. Paradox once even stated he had the gift to make the right choices at the right moments.

When he sees people hurt by his fault or because of his failures, Ben tends to get mad and acts much more violent and aggressive than he usually does. For example, when Overlord kidnapped Julie, or when Aggregor successfully absorbed the Andromeda Five, Ben went berserk and beat them up with all his strength, and, in Aggregor's case, to the point where Gwen was shocked and stopped him from beating up Aggregor more. Also, when Kevin mutated again shortly after stopping Aggregor and temporarily went back to his psychotic way, hurting all the Plumbers' helpers, Ben became willing to kill Kevin by any means necessary. He began acting ruthless, aggressive, pessimistic, cold-hearted, nasty, and even ready to fight Gwen when she attempted to get in the way. Gwen, however, was eventually able to convince him to try another way as he was about to kill Kevin. During the episode, Ben confesses to Max he feels guilty for letting fame get into his head, and claims that he is trying to act more mature for once. Finally, in The Purge, when the Forever Knights are holding a large group of aliens hostage (and have killed some aliens already), Ben threatens to hunt the Forever Knights down for the rest of their lives if they don't let the aliens go.

Though often stated to be silly or unintelligent because of his immaturity, Ben is actually shown to be cunning and resourceful when needed, usually showing good adaptation skills when the Omnitrix doesn't provide him with the form he originally wanted. When he occasionally put his immaturity aside (most especially in the first two seasons of Alien Force), he's shown to be a responsible leader as well as a very competent fighter.

It's also evident that he is actually extremely smart in some respects, possessing an above average intelligence, photographic memory and advanced intuition, as in Where the Magic Happens where he memorised the writing for the secret true name of Ledgerdomain with just one glance, and in Perplexahedron, he figured out how the Perplexahedron works instantly. 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."

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 humor, and overconfidence, he also inherited his paternal grandfather's determination, adventurous and self-sacrificing attitude. He is also as much of a practical joker, just like his paternal Anodite grandmother, Verdona.

In Omniverse he thinks himself as a more superhero than a plumber. He often tells Rook that they are superheroes not cops. He's also gotten slightly more cocky but still retains his selfless and heroic nature.

Powers and Abilities
Ben is the wielder of the Omnitrix (Prototype) (later the Ultimatrix and then the new Omnitrix), which gave him the power to modify his own genetic code in order to turn into various alien creatures, literally making him an alien shape-shifter. Traditionally, he could only transform into 10 aliens 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 aliens he meets. At the end of the original series, his arsenal included twenty aliens, while his current complete list is sixty-three aliens discovered (Ben 10, Ben 10: Alien Force, and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, 72 if Ultimate forms are included).

When transforming into an alien, Ben gets all the creature's features, including its appearance, voice, all of its unique and special abilities and powers, strengths 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 reproduction instincts. Two of the aliens, Ghostfreak and Big Chill, even managed to actually take over Ben's personality twice.

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 intentionally impersonated Bivalvan as Water Hazard to convince P'andor to go home, and though he was unsuccessful at convincing him, P'andor believed him to be Bivalvan.

In addition to transforming into aliens, the Ultimatrix includes what is referred as an "evolutionary function," that allows Ben to evolve his aliens forms in order to get upgraded version of themselves, referred to as Ultimate Forms. It's explained that the function works by placing the selected alien form in a simulated worst-case scenario for a millennia or so then simply modifying the old DNA to match the new.

In addition to the primary transformations and evolutionary function, the Omnitrix and Ultimatrix can both be used for various purposes. Both include an automatic translation system that allows Ben to communicate with most aliens that don't speak English.

During the Highbreed invasion, the Omnitrix displayed the ability to manipulate and repair genetic damage, a function he used to cure DNAliens and save the Highbreed from extinction. Azmuth also mentioned he can use it to bring back to life any species stored on Primus.

In addition to his Omnitrix/Ultimatrix powers and abilities, fifteen-year-old Ben, in Ben 10: Alien Force, has been trained in hand-to-hand combat by his black belt first 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. Though he has only been trained on a weekly basis in order to minimise his reliance on the Omnitrix/Ultimatrix, he is still proved to be quite exceptionally skilled in basic hand-to-hand combat as well armed and unarmed combat, being able to easily dodge shots from Manny's blasters and proceed to disarm him while in human form in the episode Above and Beyond. Ben was able to hold his own against Pierce and Max hinted that Ben was a highly skilled fighter even as a human in Voided, expressing surprise about the fact he lost to Pierce (though it is then revealed that Ben had lost on purpose). Another hint of his exceptional hand-to-hand skill is when he succeeded in the Plumbers' Academy with a 95 out of a 100 (without using his powers). He is also shown to be a crafty fighter. However, according to Matt Wayne, Ben isn't a trained fighter and that he uses freestyle fighting. Ben is also a cross dominant, skillfully wielding tools and weapons in either hand, in human or alien form, also when he was fighting Pierce, Pierce smacks Ben's left hand and Ben says that was his video game hand.

In Where the Magic Happens it is shown that Ben has a good memory, as he was perfectly capable of remembering and writing down the mystic rune-like symbols for entering the inter-dimensional realm of Ledgerdomain with just one glance and seeing them from a distance. He was able to write the runes down with perfect accuracy.

In Perplexahedron, he is also shown to possess advanced intuition as he was able to understand how the cube-shaped planet Perplexahedron really worked with a small problem at first, but was then able to learn from that mistake and figure it out.

Original Series
See Ben Tennyson Biography: Original Series

Ben 10: Alien Force
See Ben Tennyson Biography: Alien Force

Ben 10: Ultimate Alien
See Ben Tennyson Biography: Ultimate Alien

Ben 10: Omniverse
See Ben Tennyson Biography: Omniverse

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 when he was struck by a lightning bolt. He then gained the Omnitrix after the accident. He turned into Four Arms, Swampfire, Jetray, NRG, and Humungousaur. In the parody, all of Ben Franklin's aliens had his hair and glasses, and were sometimes miscolored. He spent the longest time as Humungousaur so he could defeat the British people who were dissing the USA, and smash down a junior high school bully's house as revenge for calling Ben Franklin, "Fatty MacGee". Then, they did another parody, but this time with Cowboys & Aliens. In Cowboys & Alien Force, Jedediah Benjamin Tennyson wakes up on the left side of Jake Lonergan saying he has no pants and gets punched by Jake. A cowboy said that Jake was wearing Ben's pants, his hat and his Omnitrix. Jake presses the Omnitrix, turning into an alien similar to Diamondhead or Chromastone and crushing the cowboy with its hand. The Omnitrix in this episode is more like a square and does not have the black and green color sequence.

South Park
In the South Park episode "You're Getting Old", Cartman's Mom mentioned that Cartman gets upset when he doesn't get a present every time someone else gets a present at a party. One of the presents Cartman gets is a "Ben 10 Wrist Rocket".

Generator Rex
He appears in the Generator Rex episode Heroes United in order to help Rex deal with a "common threat" which was the sentient Alpha nanite. His appearance changed based on the series art style.

According to Ben, he was at a celebrity gig when a strange storm picked him up and dumped him into Rex's world, where he mistook Rex Salazar for an alien attempting to destroy Bellwood. However, he was also mistaken for an EVO, who Rex tried to cure, but both found that they were not what the other thought they were.

"Captured", Ben was taken back to Rex's with an unconscious Agent Six following a battle with an unknown enemy he had been chasing through the storm. While in the base, Ben learned of what was going on in that world, becoming confused by some facts, but generally grasping things are not going good.

Deciding to team up with Rex, Ben met Caesar, Rex' brother and learned that he had banished the Alpha nanite to the Null Void, thinking it was an empty dimension when in reality it's a prison for alien criminals.

However, Alpha had returned and planned, not to mention succeeded, to absorb Rex's Omega 1 Nanite to finally create a body that could sustain itself, in addition to that it copied the Ultimatrix for extra fire power. Ben turned into Upgrade and fused with Rex, allowing them to use more powerful versions of Rex's weapons to beat down Alpha. With Caesar's help, Ben entered the Null Void as a stop on the way back home, using Upchuck to dump Alpha into the Null Void.

Robot Chicken
Ben made an appearance in the fifth episode of the sixth season of Robot Chicken, Hurtled from a Helicopter into a Speeding Train, where Ben is just turning 14.

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 crossover Video game Punch Time Explosion and Explosion XL.

Cartoon Network Online Games

 * Fusion Fall (NPC)
 * Project Exonaut (NPC)
 * TKO (only in aliens forms)

Movies

 * Ben 10: Secret of The Omnitrix
 * Ben 10: Race Against Time
 * Ben 10: Alien Swarm
 * Ben 10: Destroy All Aliens

Love Interests
See Love Interests

Relationships With Other Characters
See Relationships with other characters

Trivia

 * According to Azmuth and Paradox, Ben will have a very glorious future.
 * According to Gwen, when Ben was 10, he slept with his teddy bear, called "Furry Freddy" but Ben defended himself saying that Furry Freddy has his own bed which happens to be next to Ben's.
 * Ben used to shout the names of his aliens to strike fear into his opponents.
 * Ben may or may not start calling himself Ben 10,000 after the Plutonian revolt of 2022.
 * Ben knows how to play the guitar and the drums, along with basic knowledge on how to snowboard, shown in Monster Weather.
 * In Ben 10: Ultimate Alien, Ben owns both a driver's license and a car (the car being a reluctant birthday present from Kevin).
 * According to Rook, Ben's history is now required reading at the Plumbers' Academy. It comprises approximately of a "chapter and a half".
 * Ben's worst subject is Physics.
 * Ben's left eye twitches whenever he tells a lie.
 * In Eye of the Beholder, it's revealed that Ben has a Plumber's Badge despite the fact that the Omnitrix and Ultimatrix serve as Plumbers' Badges.
 * Ben passed the 3rd grade by choosing C for all the answers on multiple choice tests.
 * Ben said he dislikes smoothies when he was young in A Jolt From The Past. It seems between that time and now, he gained a great liking for smoothies after that time.
 * In Blukic And Driba Go To Mr. Smoothy's Ben says that he is allergic to peanuts. This was hinted in Eye of the Beholder when he declines Jimmy's offer of sharing his peanuts.
 * In A Jolt from the Past, it is revealed that Ben had a bed wetting problem when he was 11.
 * Derrick confirmed that Ben's middle name Kirby is a reference to comic book artist Jack Kirby.
 * It is revealed in Arrested Development that Ben is afraid of peacocks.