Ben 10/Headscratchers

Ben 10

• When Vilgax and other alien bad guys are trying to remove the Omnitrix they always have to take precautions to keep the defense mechanism from kicking in. So why don't they just cut his arm off? They are ruthless, aren't they?
  • They wouldn't let that fly on Cartoon Network. It's a childrens cartoon after all.
    • To be fair, while that's an acceptable answer in terms of it being a TV show, it doesn't even remotely begin to justify the Idiot Ball behavior of most villains in that regard from the narrative perspective. Even something along the lines of "the Omnitrix will blow up if it's removed by violent means" would be a sufficient narrative answer, though.
    • Actually I think Vilgax tried that once.
    • He did, but it failed because The Heroes Arrived before he got around to it, not because of the defense mechanisms.
      • Maybe they generally figured that if the creator of the Omnitrix thought to include defenses to something as simple as "cut the Omnitrix fastener off", he might also have thought to include defenses to something as simple as "cut the guy wearing it's arm off instead". Vilgax when he tried it might have been more venting his anger at Ben than taking a purely practical approach. Besides, once the arm's off, you've still got the issue of getting the Omnitrix off the arm.
• Why is it that Ben seems to be getting less mature as the series goes on?
  • Because they finally succumbed to the "The Hero's purpose is to mess up and learn an Aesop, not to save the day" Syndrome. Its rarity in the beginning was the one thing I liked about that show.
    • It would help if they could at least get their Aesops right...
• Just how long are we gonna keep this "summer vacation" thing going?
  • Until Episode 4-10 "Goodbye and Good Riddance"
• Even as Limited Wardrobe goes, will Grampa Max ever change that Hawaiian shirt? I mean... 20 years.
  • Well, in one episode we see Ben pull loads of shirts of the same design out of a drawer. Perhaps Granpa Max's wardrobe consists entirely of the same Hawaiin shirt.
    • Hey, when you find a look that works...
• In regards to the Omnitrix, how was Doctor Animo able to make a Transformation Ray that use its alien technology, given that he's a human? And how does he later extract DNA of Ben's other forms from one of the copies made by Ben's Ditto form?
  • He is simply a biological and genectic genius.

• Given that Upgrade is in fact a giant fluid mass of nanotechnology, nanotechnology by definition being non-organic and thus without DNA, how can its DNA be in the Omnitrix at all?
  • Maybe the nanobots in question aren't completely tech, but really tiny cyborgs?
  • It is feasible that a purely biological creature could evolve that can interface with machines.
  • It's a kid's show. The continual references to DNA are most likely attempts to increase the "science" portion of the series and giving the Omnitrix a plausible basis while simultaneously not making it so complicated that they alienate their target audience. Considering that Ben looked distinctly different from Victor after the Omnitrix absorbed him, along with the female forms of the aliens in "Gwen 10", it's obvious the Omnitrix functions differently to simply absorbing the DNA of an organism and replicating it onto the host.
    • You are also wrong. DNA is not gender specific as it adapts to the age (as seen in Ben 10,000 and Ken 100 and gender (as seen in Gwen 10) of the user. Benvictor is simply what Vicktor looked like before he used the massive Cryonic Reaming Orbitee Support System that utilized the power of captured Pyronites from the Pyronite - Piccis Volan War to super charge the violet anti matter sun (thus the robotic eye and purple lighting )that the Anur Sytem planets orbit around in order to drive the Anur Vladite instinct so that the invading mutated working class of Ectonurites (who would be mutated by the coronium to become the victors) could claim the planet in the name of High Ecto-Lord Ky-shrr (ghost freak).
  • Hmm, seems you Did Not Do the Research; Nanomachines can be built using organic molecules, including DNA which just happens to be a nifty and already-proven method of information storage. In fact much of the current research into Nanotechnology is based on imitating the successful methods that nature provides. Why reinvent what already exists?
    • To further explicate your lack of research, had you looked it up you would have realized that Galvanic Mechamorphs were created when nanotechnology designed for the mining of the Galvin home world’s moon (Galvin B) malfunctioned and merged with the organic rich soil of the moon resulting in organic life formes with all the technological knowledge and prowess of the most intelligent species in the universe. It’s all on the official website(s)... Or So I Heard .
• Forget Neglectful Precursors... aren't the current authority figures just as ridiculous? At any given moment, Ben is the target of no fewer than five villains who are interested in claiming the Omnitrix from him and harnessing its power. A power, we know, that is extremely useful and could decide the fate of the universe. And yet, no matter how many Omnitrix experts he meets (an alien agent posing as a bounty hunter, his grandfather's reptilian ex-girlfriend, the device's inventors, and even his future self), not one of them thinks that maybe it might be a good idea to fix the device's noticeable and proven-to-be-completely-bypassable design flaw, so that he doesn't accidentally turn into a fish in the middle of the desert or find himself turning human again while in the middle of space? Even if you want him to learn to use it responsibly, certainly there's some interest in making sure the thing doesn't kill him! Status quo is the devil, apparently.
  • Also, when the Omnitrix and its location seems to be known to every old yahoo in the galaxy, why don't any planets send some military personnel to help out Ben and arrest the psycho aliens that are always attack him? You'd think some good aliens might have come after the Omnitrix by now (to protect it from villains who want to use it to conquer and enslave them).
    • I seem to rember good aliens coming by to help Ben out. There was that crazy Five-Man Band ...
  • In the same vein, I wonder why nobody besides the Forever Knights has ever attempted to steal the near-allmighty alien device from the 10-year old kid and make an army or sell it or whatever. Most other shows had some corrupt humans capturing / blackmailing/ etc. the hero, but apparently taking over the world is Vilgax' thing.
  • A lot of those experts got hand waived as saying that this particular person knew of the Omnitrix, but not a detailed working knowledge of it. In the case of the creator, calling him a Neglectful Precursor would be putting it lightly. It might be argued that his Future self has an Omniscient Morality License and possibly also a sense of nostalgia for how things went down the first time.
    • Exactly, future Ben knows (or at least, thinks he does, not being aware that he's only one possible outcome) that Ben won't die from an Omnitrix malfunction, because he is Ben.
    • That, and Ben himself was capable of unlocking Omnitrix' control panel on his own, fixing said malfunction, in one episode. Granted, it was most probably by chance and he reset it near the end of episode, but that proves humans of normal intelligence are capable of doing it. And thus, said "Omnitrix experts" would see no need to help him, because they think it's nothing he can't fix himself.
• How did Vilgax die from a gas station explosion in his ultra-enhanced form, but survive being tied onto an exploding nuclear missile in his un-enhanced form?
  • Bad allergies?
  • The simple answer is: He didn't die. Vilgax will almost certainly show up in "Alien Force" at some point.
    • Precisely. He has to be torn into little pieces by Future Ben at one point, after all.
      • Jossed by Word of God - The Future Episodes are not canon. Though it's fishy if it's just Ken 10 or Ben 10.000, too.
• Whatever happened to the Omnitrix being able to replicate DNA? I mean he's assimilated the forms of Ghostfreak's squad (though it looks like he forgot about them) so why not any of the other aliens he's met? I mean for some of the freindlier ones all he has to do is ask. It's not like shapeshifting (the Sludge from the wedding episode),telekinesis (Xylene)and whatever Ultimos wouldn't come in handy, and that's not even counting Ben's enemies, imagine if he could replicate Vilgax for example (although would he really replicate Vilgax with all the modifications, or just a typical member of his species?)
  • According to the pop-up commentary during a marathon, the werewolf's scratch set the Omnitrix into "collect mode", which is why it kept absorbing DNA for the next few episodes. Most likely, something happened to set it back to normal mode after the Ghostfreak adventure, and Ben simply doesn't know how to turn collect mode back on. It's also possible that most of the aliens Ben met afterward were already in the watch, but were inaccessible the same way Upchuck had been until Xylene unlocked him.
  • Probably just a typical nember of Vilgax's species. The Mods are unlikely to be in his DNA, after all.
  • Every time we see Vilgax meddle with the Omnitrix, he uses a glowing red finger. Since we know that such a device is not necessary to activate any of the watches functions, a distinct possibility is that he does so to ensure that he never touches the Omnitrix itself, and it never picks up his DNA.
  • To put it somply, it doesn't exactly "replicate" the DNA; it already contains samples of every non-Earth species across the Milky Way. The yellow setting ("capture") is actually more of a search engine; it finds the dormant sample and activates it, putting it into the rotation of choices.
• Why does every single alien species have special powers except for humans? All the aliens stored in the omnitrix seem to be fighting machines, with the exception of Grey Matter and Ripjaw. In Secret of the Omnitrix it's stated that the Omnitrix was built for study. Yet it seems almost every alien in there is super powered and indeed it seems the whole galaxy is like this. Why are humans so crap at fighting?
  • So far weve scene 40 out of TEN THOUSAND aliens to telling how usless the other 9,950 are.
  • Chances are they aren't considered very powerful on their own planet among their own species where everyone has those powers.
  • Easy: Ben himself is human, so he doesn't turn into one.
  • My guess, humans have advantages in some areas, not all of Bens forms can do what he can, Wildmutt can't speak of see normally, Grey Matter is too small in a head to head fight, four-arms is big and clunky.
  • On Earth, humans do have some advantages over most animals. Of course there's intelligence (which isn't important in Ben 10, since all the aliens have that), but we also have the most highly developed combination of senses of any animal and we have a very high level of agility and stamina. We take those things for granted because we're all human, but those are the traits that Ben uses in his human form: he does most of his dodging, running and improvising as a human, and he switches to an alien form only when he's figured what he wants to do. While the other aliens are heavy hitters with a paper-rock-scissors logic to their powers, humans are quick and versatile enough to, in the right circumstances, at least stand a fighting chance against any of them (think of how future Ben defeated Vilgax with nothing but his human form, a hoverboard, and a quickly improvised strategy).
  • Part of why the alien forms are such a power in Ben's hands is his human imagination and adaptiveness. 90% of the time Ben's victory comes not from having those powers but the way he thinks of using them, that normal members of the species in a world were everyone has such powers would not.
  • This tropers theory is that humans special "power" is that they can make little half-breeds with anything humanoid.
    • This troper wonders HOW a human could have made some of those half-breeds. Specifically with aliens that are ON FIRE.
    • This troper figured humans were a slightly mobility-focused Jack of All Stats, or possibly the Gadget-User (whatever trope that would be). Agile but weak compared to most of the power species, and the only species shown that is significantly more agile (not speed-through-size, but in a way that could be useful in a fight) and stronger is Speedfreak, thanks to Required Secondary Powers. Look at Gwen's Luckygirl powers. Her main abilities were using Magitek and being an acrobat. The only species this troper recalls using techniology adapted from oyther species aside from humans was Vilgax.
  • Word of God says a human's special ability is adaptation. We see this in the Ultimate Alien episode "Ben 10,000 Returns" when Ben 10k shows off his best "transformation": Ultimate Ben.
• Where precisely is Bellwood, anyway? Maybe I just missed the episode, but when I typed "Bellwood" into MapQuest, the entire eastern half of the US seems to have a Bellwood. My personal bet is on Tennessee, just to keep with their whole "ten" theme...
  • It's right next to Springfield.
  • This Troper suggests Virginia, a mere 116 miles from "Washington BC".
  • A map in the Alien Swarm movie seems to place it in the central Midwest, somewhere up near the Minnesota/Wisconson area.
• Can I just ask, is the live action special meant to be taken as part of the cartoon continuity, or is it an alternate possibility like that "Gwen 10" episode?
  • Live action is the canon ending of the series, and thus the lead-in to Alien Force (the actual "final" episode, Goodbye and Good Riddance, is a what-if like Gwen 10 and the future eps). If you don't like Alien Force, then Goodbye and Good Riddance can be considered the series' end.
    • Actually, according to Word of God, the animated movie was supposed to be the ending and take place after Ben 10 Vs. The Negative 10. Both the live action movie and Goodbye and Good Riddance are non-canon.
• Maybe I'm missing something. Did any of the possible finales show the Omnitrix being removed? Or is there no explanation for how it ended up hidden in Ben's closet at the start of Alien Force?
  • Nope, looks like it happened during the timeskip.
• Why does nobody ever give Ben credit or thanks for the heroic things he does? Like mentioned above and elsewhere, in the episode of Ghostfreak's return when he saves Max and Gwen with Cannobolt when they fall back to Earth from outer space, instead of thanking him for saving their lives, Gwen just complains about the rough ride, and Ben says he's learned his lesson about teamwork! In the episode with the space tick with a Galactus-like appetite for planets, after Ben destroys it and saves the planet, Max makes him scrub the RV like punishment for getting it covered in the tick's slime. And he gets plenty of lectures in the first animated movie about only wanting to be a hero for the fun of it, despite how his first thought about the Omnitrix in the first episode was "Maybe I can help people, you know, really help them, not just make things worse." And did Gwen or Max ever thank him for singlehandedly saving them from villains like Sublimino or Zombozo? Give the kid a break and a pat on the back now and then!
  • Preach it, bro. Preach it.
  • Because if they did, then they'd have to acknowledge that Ben is actually *gasp!* learning and growing as a person. If they did that, then they couldn't keep the Idiot Ball glued to his back anymore, and then they'd be forced to give it to someone else. Like Gwen. And we all know they'd never give the Idiot Ball to Gwen, because then Max couldn't ride Ben like a thoroughbred in the Kentucky Derby while letting Gwen figuratively get away with murder.
  • About that, one guy especially bugged this troper for some time: Ishiyama. Ben not only beat his Big Bad , but also bring him back to life, and stil that Ungrateful Bastard dont want to give him a credit. What the heck?!
• If one Cannonbolt was strong enough to take down "The Big Tick," how did it destroy an entire planet full of them?
  • Aburia was a peaceful planet. The vacation spot of the galaxy were Aburian plerotas would roll around in giant hamster tubes through the busy streets. They probably tried to but a lei over the Tick peaceful as they were.
  • Maybe all the 10-year olds were on holiday that week?
  • Considering Ben effectively allowed himself to be "eaten", and the trend of his mentality in the original series, to pull off that trick, maybe the Cannonbolt species believed in "mercy" for the "slow"?
  • I can't remember where I saw it, but I believe Cannonbolt's attack is actually a defensive technique to run away. They are built more for defense than offense. Ben just has little concept of how to utilize Cannonbolt like he was intended.
  • This is another example of Ben's imagination and/or adaptability as a human thinking of something a normal member of an alien species wouldn't.
  • On top of everything else, aliens in the Omnitrix are said to be genetically-enhanced specimens, possibly through some tinkering with the samples. It's possible the planet of Arburian Pelarotae simply didn't have Cannonbolt's abilities.
  • Conservation of Ninjutsu ?
• In "Ben 4 Good Buddy" the Rustbucket gets stolen, but in an earlier episode Grandpa is shown to have a remote door lock-type thing on his keys that calls the RV to him on its own. Why didn't he use it? Even if the guy driving the RV could figure out how to override the thing, it would have at least distracted him for a bit.
  • The writers forgot, presumably.
  • The writers also forgot that the whole "newer isn't better" moral doesn't work when you're comparing a fancy earth RV to a disguised MIB tank. It'd be tolerable as a mistake if it weren't for the fact that the various weapons were being shot throughout the episode.
• Seems Uncle Max could have solved a lot more problems by revealing his Plumber past earlier then he did.
  • True. In fact, Gwen berated him for it during the first episode of the second season, and he apologized at the end.
  • One scene absolutely must be mentioned, though. It's the first season finale, and Ben has just been captured by Vilgax. Max's immediate reaction is to drive to Mt. Rushmore as fast as possible. Gwen asks him why they're going away from the battle, and why they're going to Mt. Rushmore. Max's response? There isn't enough time to explain. Um... you're driving, and for what sounds like over an hour. You're not being chased. You're heading to your secret organization's base with intent to pick up heavy weaponry. There's no way you're going to Mt. Rushmore and back without Gwen learning about things. Telling her what's going on is not only sensible, but about the only thing you can do for the duration of the drive.
    • The quote is "This is not the time to explain". While writing this, the episode is playing, so I can be very sure that's the exact line. However, I'm not sure how much that affects your complaint, it just implies he doesn't want to tell Gwen about it yet, not that there isn't an opportunity to do so.
• How did the Plumbers become Vilgax's greatest opposition? In a universe with such a large supply of superpowered races, it's odd that he would have the most trouble with a group of relatively powerless beings whose main advantage is their available technology, despite a) still being less technologically advanced than many of the others, especially the Galvans, and b) having a Masquerade on such technology, which only limits their ability to develop it. It makes less sense when you consider Earth's Insignificant Little Blue Planet status among most of the other races.
  • The Plumbers are an intergalactic organization consisting of many different alien species.
    • I would buy this if not for two things. First, Max described Xylene as an honorary Plumber. Second, in the flashback that marked the last time Max had seen him before retirement, Vilgax was stopped by two humans.
      • Any reason Xylene might only be an honorary plumber other than species? Prior contracts, an inability to abide by one or more Plumber rules, a history of being a morally ambiguous bounty hunter? And if Vilgax is Max's archenemy, or at least a major enemy, it would make sense that he'd been to Earth before, and was stopped in a situation that involved Max.
        • For starters, in the original series, the Plumbers were portrayed as a defunct, federal agency, meaning from the evidence in the show, they probably answered to the government before being shut down down and probably consisted of humans; the orignal series didn't portray the Plumbers has the still-active intergalatic police force in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien. The fact that Xylene was called "honorary plumber" and not an actual one actually is another piece of evidence that supports that the Plumbers were handled in the sequel series in another flaw of the sequel series.
• How did Ben mistake Myaxx for Vilgax? I mean yeah, they're both the same species, with the tentacle face and all, and she was wearing a hood, but come on, Vilgax is what, twelve feet tall? Whereas Myaxx is human sized. Why couldn't Ben make that distinction?
  • I was going to argue that Myaxx closely resembled Vilgax before his physical augmentation. Then I realized that Ben has never seen Vilgax looking like that, aside from a brief head-only dream sequence and a noncanon What If episode. That only compounds the problem, doesn't it?
    • Ben is not noticeably bright, particularly before the Time Skip. He probably just saw green skin and facial tentacles and assumed the worst, not thinking it through sufficiently to notice the minor detail of size.
    • Ben had only seen one member of Vilgax's species before the event and considering how dangerous that one alien is, one can forgive him for attacking before analyzing.
    • Myaxx was wearing a cloak at the time, likely having on other pieces of clothing, thus, the bulkiness of the outfit might be explained as her wearing a lot of clothes in this prison, besides, her body was very obscured, so, it might be a mistake, it might not, I don't know.
• Why is Diamondhead frequently cited as being indestructible, when he keeps getting broken? Whenever he makes a wall of diamond or something, whoever he happens to be fighting smashes it down without much trouble.
  • Because Diamondhead is already one of Ben's most useful forms. If he was as invulnerable as he is stated to be, there'd really be no point in bothering with most of Ben's other forms. Besides, he can regenerate anyway.
    • He's mostly invulnerable, but not indestructible. You can smash even regular diamond with a mallet because hardness is not the same as toughness. He's said to be invulnerable because he's a living crystal that can reform even when broken down.

• The Omnitrix aliens are ten, just like Ben. So when Tini had a crush on Fourarms, does that make her a pedophile?
  • Who's to say that all aliens age at the same rate? Just because they're 10 doesn't mean they can't be an adult or even a senior citizen for their species.
• Some alien stuff: How can Cannonbolt see where he rolling? How can Stinkfly shoot goo from his EYES? Why evolution give Ripjaws legs, if his whole planet is covered in water?
  • Cannonbolt's sense of direction may be something inherent to the species. As for the other two, pretty sure Word of God is that the samples in the Omnitrix have been artificially modified.
    • Would've been nice of them to modify Ripjaws so that he can actually survive more than a few minutes outside of water, wouldn't it?
    • But I saw Ripjaws with legs as prisoner in Secret of Omnitrix. Also it doesn't explain how Stinkfly shoots from eyes. Maybe he can open them. Hovewever I heard that Cannonbolt just have some kind of six sense.
      • In Secret of the Omnitrix, the Ripjaws alien was wearing a breathing apparatus over his gills, actually.
• OK Ben got a werewolf, a mummy and Frankenstein's monster and a ghost. Were is Ben- Vampire?
  • According to some of the supplementary material, the vampire-like aliens were destroyed by Ghostfreak's people.
• In ultimate alien and alien force, why do the use the same design so often? paradox's time machine, Kevin's portal, and aggregor's power stealer all look exactly the same
  • It's less expensive to use the same design rather than come up with a new one?
  • They are supposed to be the same thing. Or at least all of them are based on Paradox' machine.
• On Xylene's planet "once you hatch, you're on your own". That makes sense, but only with animals. Are they're born with ability to talk? Who teaches them law and stuff like that?
  • The only explanation I can think of is that its like the Jotok, where there's a mass-bred (litters of thousands) nonsapient phase left in the wild followed by metamorphosis of some sort into a sapient phase (with genetic mixing between phases to remove any incentive for parents to stick around and wait), with conventional child-rearing done by those with a ticking biological going to places where the metamorphosis happens and picking up the first newly-metamorphosed individual they see.
  • ...What.
• Gwen in the whole of "Gwen 10" and how she gets treated different than Ben does normally. Max seems to have no problem telling people the aliens are Gwen.
  • I personally chalk this up to small differences in the scenes between "And Then There Were 10" and "Gwen 10". Max didn't see transformed Gwen until the robot was already attacking, and she hadn't had a chance to discuss the situation with him yet. She wasn't exactly pretending to not be his granddaughter during the battle. And Ben had been talking about the Omnitrix and Vilgax since the beginning of the episode. All things considered, plausible deniability was less plausible in this timeline.
  • "Gwen 10" is just the most head-deskingly obvious example of the series' Double Standard and Gwen's Creator's Pet status in the entire original run. It's like they wanted to rub everyone's faces in it by making it as blatant and over-the-top as possible. Considering the entire episode is a Non Sequitur Scene that is neither explained or referenced again, it seems to exist just to cackle and flip the bird at anyone who disagreed with how they treated Ben versus how they treated Gwen.