“Ben 10” was primarily intended for children, but also for himself

For those who have made action-oriented western animation a key part of their lives, 2005 is an important year. It started well with Avatar: The Last Airbender, which helped achieve the unconverted anime and serialized storytelling that seemed mature to anyone in its target audience at the time. At the end of the same year, the population increased Ben 10, a spectacle just as important as Avatar but in his own way.

The first project from animation studio Man of Action and first released on December 27, 2005, the Cartoon Network series follows a 10-year-old named Ben Tennyson who finds an alien watch called the Omnitrix, which allows him to transform into one of 10 aliens for 10 minutes at a time. With Ben, his cousin Gwen, and their grandfather Max spending their summer vacation traveling the country, each episode required Ben to use a handful of aliens to fight villains like clown monsters, Secret Orders, and other aliens looking to take the Omnitrix for themselves.

On the surface, it’s a pretty simple idea for a kids’ show, but from an execution standpoint, it was basically perfection. Man of Action’s founding team consisted of American comic book writers and artists like Joe Casey and Duncan Rouleau, whose collective credits included Marvel, DC, and Image Comics. Once you know that pedigree, you just need to figure out what influences run through the series, like Kirby Krackle or Kevin Levin being a mashup of Super-Skrull and Metamorpho. What made it work was the playful and serious side that reigned throughout, whether it was still…catchy theme song or Ben’s aliens themselves. The way he slams that dial and transforms, who wouldn’t want to be something called XLR8 or Four Arms?

It is therefore not surprising that Ben 10 became a big deal for Cartoon Network with a four-season series, three movies (including a live-action one), and a tie-in video game. It’s also no surprise that it has grown into a franchise with more movies, games, toys, and three back-to-back series. Extraterrestrial force, Ultimate Alien-who turned 15 earlier this year- and Omniverse. For Cartoon Network, this was it Avatar: something that is aimed at children but also has the good sense to age with its audience. With Ben, Gwen, and Kevin becoming teenagers, viewers had their own Spider-Man, even before Ben’s teenage actor. Youri Löwenthal ended up becoming Spider-Man.

They actually had something better here: Well was an original property and therefore its own source material. So, unlike the animated adventures of Spider-Man, Batman, or other big-name heroes happening at the time, you could watch any movie you wanted. Well show and be constantly surprised from week to week without having the nagging thought in the back of your mind that things are being undone or interfering with things happening in other parts of the same universe. A lot has happened since then Ben 10 Classic until Omniverse, with continuity largely maintained, and all in conversation as the shows tackle every big superhero comic trope or storytelling device when all has been said and done. (Much of this can be attributed to the comic book writer Dwayne McDuffiewho co-developed and did a lot on Extraterrestrial force And Ultimate Alien until his death in 2011.)

That Ben 10 was such continued success had the added effect of bringing more action-oriented shows to Cartoon Network’s lineup, whose output at that point consisted of short-lived originals like Mega XLR Or Juniper Lee and the occasional DC series. But because of Well, We have Rex generator And Secret Saturdays. The First was Man of Action’s second animated series, set in its own separate universe and based on an old Image comic book done by Casey, Rouleau and Aaron Sowd. While Rex And Well crossed in the United Heroes special, the first didn’t quite have the same staying power as its predecessor. The same could certainly be said of Secret Saturdays, which began the same year as Extraterrestrial force and whose casting ultimately appeared in Omniverse.

Neither Rex neither Saturdays was bad, and they might be worth watching now, but their individual vibes didn’t entirely match what Well at that point, it had been half a decade. They just didn’t arrive when Well did. By 2005, superhero fever was taking over the world, and by 2008, the genre was actively trying to become mainstream culture. The children were introduced to this thanks to Ben; Extraterrestrial force premiered a few days after the original show finished, which was also weeks before the first Iron Man and months before The Black Knight.

It was (and perhaps still is) an incredibly confident move on Cartoon Network’s part that led to a multimedia franchise that became an integral part of its brand and allowed Ben 10 endure so long. After a controversial reboot in 2021 with its own respectable run: four seasons, a movie, two games, and specials that allowed for crossovers with both. Rex generator and his former self – Man of Action hasn’t entirely abandoned his original creation. The studio has apparently comics in preparation and will probably continue to try to get another live-action film off the ground after the the first attempt failednot to mention that Rouleau mentioned that this could justify a suite intended for adults in the vein of Samurai Jack Or Fionna and cake.

Such an idea seems antithetical to what made the original shows successful, but what Ben 10 would it be if he didn’t take risks and saw if this ploy worked?

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