en Tennyson is a 10-year-old boy who is so looking forward to spending the summer traveling around the country with his grandfather. When Grandpa Max (Eiding) arrives in his camper, Ben (Strong) discovers, nightmare of nightmares, that his cousin, Gwen (Smith), is coming along for the summer, too. Not only does she have cooties, she's a girl.
That night in the woods, Ben stalks off, unaware that a space battle is raging above the Earth. Ben is thrilled at the sight of what he thinks is a meteor until it nearly hits him. As Ben looks in the crater, the small craft opens to reveal something that looks like a wristwatch. Ben reaches out to touch it and the device clamps onto his arm.
Unable to take it off, Ben starts playing with it. Before he knows it, he hits the wrong button and turns into a flaming alien. It's fun at first, until he starts a forest fire. Both Gwen and Max set off to investigate the smoke, only to realize that Ben's at the center of the fire, literally. Max helps him put out the fire, but Ben doesn't know how to get back to being Ben. It's cool and all to be able to shoot fireballs, but as Gwen reminds him, he doesn't want to get stuck that way. Eventually the device turns off and he's back to normal.
However, when flying alien robots attack, it takes both Ben's newfound super powers and Gwen to save the day. They realize someone's after the watch—and that someone is not from the planet Earth. Just as Ben discovers he has a choice of 10 different aliens to morph into, a giant robot attacks nearby campers and it's up to Ben, Gwen and Grandpa Max to save them.
Above the Earth, the evil Vilgax is shocked to realize a mere Earthling could defeat his robot, even one who posses the Omnitrix. Determined, he isn't about to let the human interfere with his plans. Whether Ben likes it or not, he's just become the most popular human on the planet Earth, and not in a good way.
Every boy's dream ... and more
Ben 10 is an entertaining new animated series from the Cartoon Network that explores every boy's dream ... to be able to morph into any alien he wants to with cool super powers, and, as a bonus, he gets to fight bad guys. Not every kid gets to be a hero and still turn back to normal. As for the animation, it's rich and has just a touch of anime, much like many of the best animated series these days. And the characters are nicely defined, even though the dialogue is a bit old-fashioned.
While we never learn about the bad guy, Vilgax, and his issues, we get a good introduction to Ben, Gwen and Grandpa Max. While the brother-sister type snipping between Ben and Gwen isn't anything unique, and the dialogue between these two kids sounds like something that could have been written 30 years ago, Ben and his world are appealing. He's got plenty of mischief in him, but he also has more than a little hero, too. When the world needs saving, he leaps into action. And as we discover in the second episode, "Washington B.C.," being a hero isn't always fun. In fact, sometimes you have to be a hero even when the darn alien morphing powers don't want to work.
Each part is well voiced and fits with the action nicely. Ben's different aliens all have different, more adult voices, but somehow Ben's at the center of it by doing or saying something kidlike. The joy of being a 10-year-old boy with the coolest super power ever comes through each time Ben morphs into another alien.
There's not much to complain about in a series that has so much fun with its subject matter. While it'd be nice to know more about what started all this and who created the Omnitrix, Ben 10 should have plenty of time to explore that territory.
