Ben 10: Ultimate Alien/YMMV

• And the Fandom Rejoiced: When they brought back Series1!Ben for the episode "The Forge of Creation". Same transformation sequences, same voice actor, and good impressions of the original aliens.
  • Another example comes from finally explaining Kevin's differing characterizations.
  • There was also fact that Ben has regained every alien that he has ever become, courtesy of his future self.
• Anvilicious: "The Widening Gyre"
• Author's Saving Throw: Finally, a plausible explanation for Kevin's inexplicable change in character is given.
  • And Ben finally acknowledges his character regression over the last few seasons.
  • Likewise with the first live action Ben 10 movie and the villain Eon. Plus why this series isn't following the first series future timeline. (Alternate Universe)
  • After the massive Villain Decay he suffered in Alien Force, Vilgax is eventually turned back into a threatenning villain by making him a Manipulative Bastard who impersonate Eldritch Abomination Diagon in order to get the service of higthly competent human minions, end up tricking the real Diagon himself faking submission, eventually absorbing his powers, and, once defeated, almost convinced Ben to go Knight Templar due to being Drunk with Power.
• Broken Base: On many, many subjects. The Ultimate Aliens themselves are probably the most noteworthy. Others include whether this series is good as the two before it, whether it's successor will be better or worse, and so on and so forth.
• Canon Sue: Some fans saw Eunyce as this in her first apperance ; she seemed to appear out of nowhere and Ben suddenly gets attracted to her. Fortunately, she Took a Level in Badass in her next appearance and was as such Rescued from the Scrappy Heap for some.
• Complete Monster: Still Zombozo. He goes after Ben's parents, and even his own hired hands (Vulkanus and Charmcaster) think he's a creepy bastard.
  • Aggregor as well, especially after murdering five aliens in order to absorb their powers. However they got better
  • Diagon as well, per a flashbacks in "Solitary Alignment." He sends an army to brainwash and kill people with no remorse, and the credits for "The Enemy of My Frenemy" has revealed that HE was the one who was accepting the 600,000 souls offered to him by Charmcaster.
• Derailing Love Interests: Elena becomes a Brainwashed and Crazy Yandere, all while making Julie look better.
  • Julie's been getting it too in the second season. See Idiot Ball on the main page for her biggest screw up, but she's also been getting a lot snippier (beyond what's justified as stress from having a famous boyfriend). And she suddenly decided that Earth Needs Alien Tech NOW, despite all the people who have gone after Ship, you know, her pet, because he's effectively an alien super weapon. All this really started, oddly enough, after they introduced Eunice...
• Ensemble Darkhorse: Jury Rigg may basically be a more combat-capable Grey Matter, but unlike Fasttrack, he averts Replacement Scrappy by being a hilarious little Heroic Comedic Sociopath.
  • Ultimate Echo Echo is considered such among the Ultimates, as he has the most unique design (also one of the few that isn't a Palette Swap with additional features) and a cool voice.
• Evil Is Sexy: Aggregor is the first Ben 10 Big Bad to not be a hideous monster and actually be reasonably attractive, with long hair and an open shirt too.
  • At least he was until his One-Winged Angel form.
  • Also, Hive Elena. A very dangerous version of Raven Hair, Ivory Skin.
• Foe Yay: Darkstar has shades of this, for Gwen.
  • Ultimate!Kevin's dialogue with Ben, in the beginning of the season finale, sound completely wrong taken out of context.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: When asked if Zombozo would return, Dwayne McDuffie said "not if he knows what's good for him". One of the first villains confirmed for the next series is Zombozo. Looks like he doesn't know what's good for him.
• Ho Yay: Clone Ben and Kevin in a car in "Duped".
  • Arguably Cash and J.T. in "Reflected Glory". How many times did they have their arms around each other again?
  • Ben and Kevin again in the season finale ending "Absolute Power". The two have their little reconciliation, Gwen steps in to ask who wants to go with her to explain to her parents about their destroyed house, and Kevin promptly asks Ben if he wants to go to Mr. Smoothie with him. The two walk off together; cue credits.
  • Gwen and Charmcaster in "Where the Magic Happens".
    • And again in "Couples Retreat", where Gwen rags on Kevin for failing in his boyfriend duties all episode, and is a lot more emotionally invested in saving Charmcaster from being used by Darkstar. Ah, another good ol' Ben 10 Relationship Writing Fumble!
• Jerkass Woobie: For some viewers, Gwen's cousin Sunny became this by the end of the episode she appeared in due to Grandma Verdona vocally favoring Gwen over her right in front of her!
  • Charmcaster, once her backstory is revealed and then escalating with each passing appearance.
  • Come the twist ending of "Night of the Living Nightmare", if Albedo wasn't in this territory before, he certainly is now.
• Karma Houdini: Kevin after "Absolute Power" and Charmcaster after "Enemy of my Frenemy". Both are somwhat understandable, as the two are both examples of Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, but it's jarring that they recieve NO punishment for their deeds other than themselves feeling bad about it.
  • An even better example is Will Harangue in "Computer Games", after attempting to kill Ben for no reason, he's not only not arrested but has turned the event against Ben.
• Magnificent Bastard: Aggregor - before turning into Villain Sue Ultimate Aggregor.
• Mondegreen: Until looking it up, this troper could have sworn that NRG's name was Energene, a play on the word Energy and the name Gene.
• Moral Event Horizon: Ben seemed all too willing to kill Kevin. This included attacking many villains harshly to find out Kevin's whereabouts, and having a all-out fight with Gwen, who was trying to think of another option to save Kevin.

Gwen: You've gotta let me try.
Ben: I will. But only because I know you're going to fail.

• • Then again, Kevin wasn't exactly a saint at the moment himself, and that he got of without any sort of negative consequences when he brutalized and tried to kill Ben, Gwen, and many others is somewhat jarring, "energy-induced insanity" or not.
  • Aggregor did this onscreen by murdering five innocent aliens in cold blood. However, he could be considered to have already crossed it when he came up with a plan ending with him murdering a newborn.
  • Defying Villain Decay, Zombozo crosses this by forcing Ben's mother to walk a tight rope and then lighting it on fire underneath her, intent on ether burning her alive or sending her falling to her death. This pushes Gwen so far that she assumes her One-Winged Angel form and scares the living crap out of him.
  • Colonel Rozum imprisoning 775 aliens in a horrible underground prison for over five decades, many of whom likely did nothing wrong. Prisoner 775 for example was exiled to Earth by an alien tyrant who he was trying to save his planet from. He told Rozum this, multiple times and they didn't listen. The only thing keeping this guy from being a Complete Monster is his love for his family.
  • Prisoner 775 himself has one. Once he escapes, he intends to exact his revenge against Rozum. A viewer might not condone it, but could certainly understand his reasoning for revenge against just Rozum. Problem is, 775's targets expand to Rozum's whole family. They had absolutely nothing to do with his captivity, and he knows it. He just wants to kill them to make Rozum suffer. This may have been an intentional crossing of this on his part, as in the end he attempts Suicide by Cop, so he may have just wanted to do something that would force Ben to kill him and end his suffering along with getting his vengeance.
  • Charmcaster sacrificing thousands of souls, even killing Ben, Gwen, and Kevin, in order to make a Deal with the Devil that will ressurect her dead father. Though to be fair, she does have a My God, What Have I Done? and go into a Villainous BSOD when he calls her out on it, and since this is a series where alien Nazis like the Highbreed can be forgiven..........
    • Word of God comments made online actually seem to indicate that this act is, in fact, an INVERSION of the Moral Event Horizon. Instead of being the point where Charmcaster crosses the line into irredeemability, her realization of how wrong it was due to her father's words has pushed her completely AWAY from evil, and she is thus now a True Neutral character rather than still a villain.
  • Captain Nemesis crosses the line in "To Catch a Falling Star" by becoming the first successful hands-on murderer in the series. He kills several people, including a random motorist just to steal his car. Even his Pet the Dog moment at the very end doesn't bring him back across the line.
• Replacement Scrappy: Fasttrack has become a big one for XLR8. Not only is his design less creative than the raptor-on-wheels XLR8, Word of God has stated he's stronger and faster than XLR8, too. And since XLR8 was an Ensemble Darkhorse, this is not a good thing.
  • XLR8 was actually used in the Ben 10 Generator Rex Heroes United crossover.
  • Eatle's in a similar situation, only he isn't as hated as Fasttrack since his design is a lot more unique. Regardless, he was heavily redesigned in Omniverse to look more like an actual beetle, which may earn him some brownie points.
  • Eunyce. For many, she's no Julie.
• Seasonal Rot: The second season...hasn't been very well recieved. Most fans criticized for having far too many filler (with a lot of them having overly silly plots), going way too DarkerAndEdgier, and not focusing enough on the main plot.
• Squick: No matter how "randomized" her DNA is, it can be a little unsettling to notice how much Eunice and Gwen favor... or worse, how she and Ben resemble each other. Or, for the Ben/Gwen shippers, she could be a dream come true.
  • Hive Elena's offer to be more like Gwen as a girlfriend if that will make Ben happy.
• Tear Jerker: The fate of Victor and Elena Validus. Turns out Victor died offscreen in an experment and that the Hive used Elena as a secondary Queen to survive, making her believe everything they do is just what she wants them to do and she's in control. Ultimately, unable to allow Ben's death, she manages to regain control and kill herself along with the Queen. What makes it even more of a Tear Jerker is that The Stinger reveals it was in vain as the Hive survived.
  • Less of one now--Turns out Elena somehow survived too and is even crazier. She brought two buildings to life to try and kill Kevin when he got too close to figuring out she was impersonating Julie.
  • "Prisoner 775", everything about the title character in general. The worst part is when he breaks down at the end and begs Ben to put him out of his misery and let him rejoin his dead family.
  • Charmcaster's crying moments in "Where the Magic Happens", "The Enemy of my Frenemy", AND "Couples Retreat".
  • The ultimate fate of Kwarrel, the prisoner who taught Kevin to control his anger.
  • In-universe, Kevin attacking Gwen and then holding off for what they had, in his words causes her to cry for the first time in the series.
  • In "Ultimate Sacrifice" Ben was going to die willingly so that some of his Ultimate forms could escape the Ultimatrix and be free.
  • In "The Ultimate Enemy", Old George's death.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Old George was a fairly well-received character, with an intriguing air and mystery to him, but he dies before we can learn much more about him or his backstory, including the question of how he's immortal.
  • Also, many people feel that Charmcaster's Face Heel Turn in "Enemy of My Frenemy" was unnecessary or poorly written, and worse, she's left stuck in the Heel Face Revolving Door afterwards and her storyline is then left unconcluded by the end of the series, and all things considered, it might never BE concluded, leaving her without the chance to fully redeem herself.
• True Neutral: According to Word of God, Charmcaster is this by the end of the series.
• Unfortunate Implications:
  • Ma Vreedle is portrayed as a histrionic female.

Ma Vreedle: Overreactin'?! OVERREACTIN'?!

• Villain Sue/God Mode Sue: Aggregor - As Ultimate Aggregor, until being defeated by Ultimate Kevin 11.
• What an Idiot!: Ben deciding that Kevin needs to die in order to stop him is arguably this, as Ben makes almost no effort to resolve the situation peacefully. One attempted murder on a guy who obviously had it coming (before this it had been brutal beatings and they had apparently never caught up until this point), and Ben's all for killing him.
  • The reasoning behind Charmcaster's Face Heel Turn in "Enemy of my Frenemy". Seriously, Charmcaster? You think your father would WANT you bringing him back to life at the cost of 600,000 living souls?