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akinoameA fleet of Highbreed warships appears in the skies over the planet Galvan, all the while the population stands in the streets of the city, staring in horror. All but Azmuth, who watches the end from his lab. He’s content to go down with his planet, but Paradox tries to persuade him otherwise. Azmuth declares that without the Galvan, the entire galaxy is doomed, but Paradox wars that there is another hope—the Omnitrix, which Azmuth vehemently disputes. After much convincing, Paradox manages to get him off the planet seconds before an orbital laser destroys the lab and the rest of the planet.
On Earth, Ben is getting ready for a soccer game when Paradox and Azmuth interrupt, telling him to gather his team. The Highbreed are ready to send their warships through the Jumpgate, and nothing can defeat one of the warships, let alone the hundreds they will send. This is it—hero time, and they’re going to need all the help they can get. Kevin and Gwen go with Paradox to gather everyone who can help: Alan Albright, Cooper, Julie and Ship, and surprisingly Darkstar. Meanwhile, Azmuth has an important revelation for Ben regarding the Omnitrix and why he can’t be allowed to fight. Besides allowing other races to experience life as one another, the DNA repository serves a higher purpose—a database of every sentient species in the Milky Way, so that if the Highbreed succeed in wiping out the rest of the galaxy, there is a genetic sample allowing for the resurrection of the other races. As Azmuth tells him, “The Omnitrix is Noah’s Ark, and you are Noah.”
With this on the line, Azmuth is incredibly hesitant to let Ben fight, but Ben is all the more determined. At last, Azmuth relents, and knowing that Ben’s (and the galaxy’s) best hope for survival is the full power of the Omnitrix, he unlocks the Master Control, giving Ben access to all 1,000,903 aliens inside. The team gathered and the Omnitrix unlocked, the entire Alien Force heads to Los Soledad as Ben warns that no matter what they were before, today they are a team.
The battle starts out going well, particularly with Ben’s old aliens Cannonbolt, Upchuck, and Way Big back in action. Seeing the Omnitrix cure the DNAliens, Cooper devises weapons for everybody that allow them to heal the mutated humans while not putting as much strain on Ben. However, the Highbreed panic and activate the Jumpgate, and the armada appears over the skies of Los Soledad. Deciding on a new strategy, Ben, Gwen, and Kevin head to the control tower to convince the Highbreed Commander to stop the invasion. However, the battle is not easily won. While Ben decides to settle things with the Highbreed Commander (from “Grounded”), Gwen and Kevin have trouble with his number two. As Kevin gets pummeled, Gwen freaks and a bright pink light fills the room, blasting the Highbreed out the window. Gwen’s skin then melts away to reveal her Anodyte within. Though she’s sure that in this form, she has the power to end the war, Kevin must talk her down, reminding her that if she gives in, she will forget everything about her human life, about Ben, and about him. Affirming that Ben will find another way, Kevin finally manages to convince her to stop.
By this point, Ben has finally stopped the Highbreed Commander, but there’s a problem: the invasion is being controlled on the other side of the ‘Gate, on the Highbreed homeworld. And to add to the problems, more DNAliens burst in the door behind them. Fortunately, a certain trio decides to crash the party, and as Ben recognizes Helen, Manny, and Pierce, he realizes just who else has joined the battle: Grandpa Max. With him and his “Max Force” (as dubbed by Manny) to hold the fort on Earth, the kids grab Ship and Azmuth and head through the Jumpgate. Unfortunately, they’re attacked soon on arrival, and the kids and Azmuth are captured. Using the voice-activation of the Omnitrix to turn into Humongousaur, Ben busts everyone out and they smash their way to the Highbreed Council Chamber, where court is in session. There, the Council begins their usual tirade of badmouthing the other races when Azmuth basically tells them to shove it, and he reveals the true reason behind the war. The Highbreed, in their quest for racial purity, have rendered themselves sterile after generations of inbreeding. The attack on the galaxy is in essence a suicide pact to take out every other race with them. Ben decides that instead of fighting, maybe he should concentrate on helping them, and using the Omnitrix, he creates a massive wave of bio-energy that combines the Highbreed’s DNA with random samples from the database, bringing genetic diversity back to the species. And with the Jumpgates open all over the galaxy, damn near all of the race is now affected. The Highbreed are at first appalled and seem ready to announce a mass suicide. Fortunately, tragedy is averted by the arrival of yet another friend: Reiny (“Alone Together”), who realized that Ben’s philosophy really was right after all, and he ended his exile. Because of his newfound wisdom, the Council elects him to lead their race into a new age of prosperity, and he calls off the attack before reaffirming his friendship with “Ben-Ben Tennyson.”
Everyone returns to Earth as the invasion fleet leaves, and Grandpa Max destroys the Jumpgate behind them. Darkstar has escaped, but the others know it’s only a matter of time before they catch him again. Julie can’t miss curfew, so she and Ship leave. Grandpa Max promises Ben and Gwen that he’s going to stay now that the Null Void is back to normal, but he thinks his grandkids have grown enough that they don’t need his help anymore; the new kids, however, definitely do, so he takes off after them on his Null Guardian to start training. Kevin is mourning the loss of his car, sacrificed in their raid on the control tower, and Gwen promises to go with him to the auto show to check out a new one even though she hates it. And Azmuth and Paradox announce that they have a lot of work to do trying to rebuild Galvan. But before they leave, Ben asks Azmuth to access the Master Control again, as the DNA Wave forced it to reset. Azmuth simply smiles and says, “So it has,” before leaving Ben to figure it out on his own again.
Ben looks at the Omnitrix and frowns as he runs through the selections, muttering that he doesn’t recognize any of these aliens. But soon, a grin spreads on his face as he declares, “Oh well, here we go again!” before selecting a new alien and hitting the dial.
In the earlier episode “Good Copy, Bad Copy,” Ben asked Azmuth two very strange questions: “What is the watch really for, and how many aliens can I turn into?” These were questions he supposedly already knew the answers to because of the original series. The movie Secret of the Omnitrix revealed that the Omnitrix was designed to allow different aliens the chance to experience life as another alien, to allow them to understand things from another point of view (re-affirmed by Ben in “Alone Together”). In the episode “Ben 10,000,” Ben learned that twenty years in the future, he would unlock the Master Control and have access to ten thousand different alien forms. Ben repeats these lessons when Azmuth confesses that he hasn’t told Ben the entire truth.
The Omnitrix, however, proves to be far more powerful than the original series ever hinted. In addition to being Noah’s Ark and having over a million genetic samples, it has the ability to heal genetic damage from a range (instead of Ben having to make physical contact with DNAliens, as in “Max Out” and “Inside Man”) and can even allow hybridization by splicing DNA samples from the database. Azmuth didn’t explain just how the Omnitrix could resurrect the alien species already killed off (such as the Petrosapiens, which could hint at a future appearance by Tetrax), but it doesn’t look like it would be too hard, given all this. And given all the power we saw, it’s no wonder that the Omnitrix got reset at the end of the episodes; that kind of power could not be granted to a fifteen-year-old. But it does indicate that the Ben of Alien Force may become a far bigger hero than Ben 10,000 was.
Azmuth calls Ben “Noah” to complete the analogy of the Omnitrix being the Ark. But there are some differences. When told that he needed to take the Ark and allow the destruction of Earth, Noah calmly accepted his orders. The rest of the world would die, but he had the hope for a new world with him. Ben, on the other hand, essentially flipped God off, took the Ark right through the flood, and used it to stop the rain. He refuses to accept that as his destiny—he may be the only hope for the millions of aliens throughout the Milky Way, but he only sees that as reason more to fight for their sake. Rather than save his power as a last resort, he would prefer to prevent things from ever getting that bad in the first place—a choice that initially annoyed Azmuth, as he believed Ben was being reckless, but appears to have later impressed him. He had confessed in “Good Copy, Bad Copy” that Ben had managed to use the Omnitrix as a force for good in ways he’d never thought possible, and this only proves that Ben is still capable of surprising him.
A final note on the Omnitrix itself is an apparent side-effect on Ben. When Ben used the DNA Repair on Ken and Tyler, he had no problem whatsoever. In fact, even when rewriting the DNA of the entire Highbreed race and using up all of the Omnitrix’s power doing so, he’s still okay. But the first DNAlien he tries to heal in the battle ends up leaving him exhausted and breathing heavily. He manages to heal several more before the Omnitrix gives out and has to recharge, and Ben reverts to human form unconscious. When he wakes up, Azmuth berates him for wasting energy—indicating that DNA Repair uses far more energy than splicing. However, it’s odd that just as the Omnitrix needs to recharge, Ben passes out. Similarly, Ben had lost consciousness after his first instant slide-morphs to defeat Darkstar, which had originally looked like a side-effect of energy drain (“Darkstar Rising”). It’s unknown if these instances are related, and it’s hard to tell if there’s an explanation for Ben’s sudden energy loss this episode, or if it will be resolved next season or in Evolutions.
Like several season finales in Justice League, “War of the Worlds” was conceived as the series finale for Ben 10: Alien Force, and as such, it tries to go out with a bang, being sure to make several continuity nods along the way. The guest appearances by almost everybody were welcome, as were the returns of some of Ben’s old aliens. Due to the different art team working Alien Force compared to the original, there are some artistic differences: notably, Cannonbolt’s coloring changed from yellow to green, and to fit in line with all of the aliens in this series, the Omnitrix emblem was moved from his forehead to his chest. Yes, hardcore fans complain about this, but seriously? It’s a treat having them back at all! And not to be beat out by the old guys, one of the newer aliens, Swampfire, pulls some pretty awesome surprises. For one, he can throw seeds into a plant-free environment and then be able to control their growth. That’s effective. He can also get his head punched right off his body and get soon back up soon after. That’s just plain cool.
But if you thought Ben was the only member of the main team with some surprises, you’re wrong. Kevin proves just what the hell he’s been doing with all that alien tech and his car, revealing it to be combat-ready and just looking for a fight. Sadly, it is heroically sacrificed to keep the DNAliens busy while the trio makes their way up to the control tower. And in an even more spectacular display, we get to see Gwen go full-Anodyte on everyone, after the tiny foreshadowing in “Unearthed” (sadly, this is the only real reference to the two episodes before the finale; they never try to call for help using the communication station from “Birds of a Feather,” and there’s really not much else revealed in “Unearthed” that we didn’t already know). Kevin manages to get her to calm down after, and she doesn’t end up sacrificing her humanity to try and win the war, continuing the theme of “there’s always another hope” throughout this episode.
However, like with the DCAU post-“Destroyer,” there are still some unanswered questions left in Alien Force, ranging from “what happens to the unconscious humans left behind at Los Soledad?” to “what other surprises does Azmuth have in store for Ben?” Paradox’s hints about Ben saving the universe definitely seem to apply here, though not quite his comment of Ben in that episode being “much more like himself” than later. Time will only tell what season 3 will have to reveal. Fortunately, we’ll all start to find out in September.
While on the subject of Paradox, he seems to play Obi-Wan to Azmuth’s Yoda and Ben’s Luke. He’s the one who insists that Azmuth should trust Ben’s ability to save the galaxy, despite Azmuth’s insistence that Ben’s too reckless and knows far too little to do anything other than get himself killed and the Omnitrix destroyed. And ultimately, Paradox proves to be right, though he does end up cheating a little bit to ensure that things work just as Ben needs them to (such as telling Julie to answer her phone so that Ben will be able to use Ship to get to the Highbreed homeworld). One can only imagine how many times he’s gone through the battle until it got to this point, with everything finally going according to plan.
Finally, we come to the ending. People have complained about it. After such an epic battle, it comes down to Ben using the Omnitrix as the ultimate deus ex machina to cure the Highbreed’s sterility, and then Reiny shows up to convince them to stop attacking? Sounds pretty hokey, I’ll be honest. Hell, I think people are still complaining about the “talking Belial Vamdemon to death” from the finale of Digimon Zero Two (if they’re not complaining about the epilogue). But it’s not so much about what you’re doing as much as it is why.
I’ve previously drawn comparisons to both Avatar: The Last Airbender and Harry Potter in my reviews, “Alone Together” and “Good Copy, Bad Copy” respectively. “War of the Worlds” continues this parallel in trying to keep the hero’s hands clean of blood. Aang was devastated in “Sozin’s Comet” by the possibility that he would have to kill Ozai to end the war; he’d learned to respect all life, and even hearing it from the previous Avatars didn’t make him feel any more comfortable with it. Harry was worried about having to kill Voldemort when he learned of the prophecy, and even when trying to use the Unforgivable Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix, he couldn’t do it properly. Both of them lacked that inner quality that can allow you to kill, and in Harry Potter, it’s emphasized that killing “rips the soul apart.” In the end, Aang used a major deus ex machina, the energybending he learned from the Lion Turtle—one that definitely outdoes the Omnitrix—and blocks Ozai’s ability to firebend forever. Harry proves everyone from Order of the Phoenix onward wrong by defeating Voldemort with an Expilliarmus, which rebounds Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra right back at him: a really well managed accident.
Given those two major examples, you start to notice that there’s this new trend in children’s fiction to try and keep the hero innocent to some degree. Complain all you want about Messiah Creep, but it is important to keep the heroes from crossing the line, beautifully explored throughout the first and second seasons of Justice League Unlimited particularly regarding Superman. After everything that’s been done to the heroes, you can’t make them killers. If so, then they’re not heroes anymore. And in Ben’s case, wiping out a whole race of people as a lesson for trying to wipe out the rest of the galaxy isn’t going to teach anyone anything. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, and genocide cannot drive out genocide. Only life can do that. It would undermine the entire reason why the heroes are fighting, and it would undermine the entire point of the Omnitrix. The Omnitrix is both to allow the user a chance to walk a mile in the shoes of another race, and to restore life to races that have died out. It was never meant as a weapon, and Ben proves that it is so much more than that in this battle.
“War of the Worlds” was written by Dwayne McDuffie. All speaking characters in this episode had their voices reprised, except for Way Big, Cannonbolt, and Upchuck, who were played by Dee Bradley Baker rather than Fred Tatasciore (Way Big and Cannonbolt) and Dave Wittenburg (Upchuck).
On Earth, Ben is getting ready for a soccer game when Paradox and Azmuth interrupt, telling him to gather his team. The Highbreed are ready to send their warships through the Jumpgate, and nothing can defeat one of the warships, let alone the hundreds they will send. This is it—hero time, and they’re going to need all the help they can get. Kevin and Gwen go with Paradox to gather everyone who can help: Alan Albright, Cooper, Julie and Ship, and surprisingly Darkstar. Meanwhile, Azmuth has an important revelation for Ben regarding the Omnitrix and why he can’t be allowed to fight. Besides allowing other races to experience life as one another, the DNA repository serves a higher purpose—a database of every sentient species in the Milky Way, so that if the Highbreed succeed in wiping out the rest of the galaxy, there is a genetic sample allowing for the resurrection of the other races. As Azmuth tells him, “The Omnitrix is Noah’s Ark, and you are Noah.”
With this on the line, Azmuth is incredibly hesitant to let Ben fight, but Ben is all the more determined. At last, Azmuth relents, and knowing that Ben’s (and the galaxy’s) best hope for survival is the full power of the Omnitrix, he unlocks the Master Control, giving Ben access to all 1,000,903 aliens inside. The team gathered and the Omnitrix unlocked, the entire Alien Force heads to Los Soledad as Ben warns that no matter what they were before, today they are a team.
The battle starts out going well, particularly with Ben’s old aliens Cannonbolt, Upchuck, and Way Big back in action. Seeing the Omnitrix cure the DNAliens, Cooper devises weapons for everybody that allow them to heal the mutated humans while not putting as much strain on Ben. However, the Highbreed panic and activate the Jumpgate, and the armada appears over the skies of Los Soledad. Deciding on a new strategy, Ben, Gwen, and Kevin head to the control tower to convince the Highbreed Commander to stop the invasion. However, the battle is not easily won. While Ben decides to settle things with the Highbreed Commander (from “Grounded”), Gwen and Kevin have trouble with his number two. As Kevin gets pummeled, Gwen freaks and a bright pink light fills the room, blasting the Highbreed out the window. Gwen’s skin then melts away to reveal her Anodyte within. Though she’s sure that in this form, she has the power to end the war, Kevin must talk her down, reminding her that if she gives in, she will forget everything about her human life, about Ben, and about him. Affirming that Ben will find another way, Kevin finally manages to convince her to stop.
By this point, Ben has finally stopped the Highbreed Commander, but there’s a problem: the invasion is being controlled on the other side of the ‘Gate, on the Highbreed homeworld. And to add to the problems, more DNAliens burst in the door behind them. Fortunately, a certain trio decides to crash the party, and as Ben recognizes Helen, Manny, and Pierce, he realizes just who else has joined the battle: Grandpa Max. With him and his “Max Force” (as dubbed by Manny) to hold the fort on Earth, the kids grab Ship and Azmuth and head through the Jumpgate. Unfortunately, they’re attacked soon on arrival, and the kids and Azmuth are captured. Using the voice-activation of the Omnitrix to turn into Humongousaur, Ben busts everyone out and they smash their way to the Highbreed Council Chamber, where court is in session. There, the Council begins their usual tirade of badmouthing the other races when Azmuth basically tells them to shove it, and he reveals the true reason behind the war. The Highbreed, in their quest for racial purity, have rendered themselves sterile after generations of inbreeding. The attack on the galaxy is in essence a suicide pact to take out every other race with them. Ben decides that instead of fighting, maybe he should concentrate on helping them, and using the Omnitrix, he creates a massive wave of bio-energy that combines the Highbreed’s DNA with random samples from the database, bringing genetic diversity back to the species. And with the Jumpgates open all over the galaxy, damn near all of the race is now affected. The Highbreed are at first appalled and seem ready to announce a mass suicide. Fortunately, tragedy is averted by the arrival of yet another friend: Reiny (“Alone Together”), who realized that Ben’s philosophy really was right after all, and he ended his exile. Because of his newfound wisdom, the Council elects him to lead their race into a new age of prosperity, and he calls off the attack before reaffirming his friendship with “Ben-Ben Tennyson.”
Everyone returns to Earth as the invasion fleet leaves, and Grandpa Max destroys the Jumpgate behind them. Darkstar has escaped, but the others know it’s only a matter of time before they catch him again. Julie can’t miss curfew, so she and Ship leave. Grandpa Max promises Ben and Gwen that he’s going to stay now that the Null Void is back to normal, but he thinks his grandkids have grown enough that they don’t need his help anymore; the new kids, however, definitely do, so he takes off after them on his Null Guardian to start training. Kevin is mourning the loss of his car, sacrificed in their raid on the control tower, and Gwen promises to go with him to the auto show to check out a new one even though she hates it. And Azmuth and Paradox announce that they have a lot of work to do trying to rebuild Galvan. But before they leave, Ben asks Azmuth to access the Master Control again, as the DNA Wave forced it to reset. Azmuth simply smiles and says, “So it has,” before leaving Ben to figure it out on his own again.
Ben looks at the Omnitrix and frowns as he runs through the selections, muttering that he doesn’t recognize any of these aliens. But soon, a grin spreads on his face as he declares, “Oh well, here we go again!” before selecting a new alien and hitting the dial.
In the earlier episode “Good Copy, Bad Copy,” Ben asked Azmuth two very strange questions: “What is the watch really for, and how many aliens can I turn into?” These were questions he supposedly already knew the answers to because of the original series. The movie Secret of the Omnitrix revealed that the Omnitrix was designed to allow different aliens the chance to experience life as another alien, to allow them to understand things from another point of view (re-affirmed by Ben in “Alone Together”). In the episode “Ben 10,000,” Ben learned that twenty years in the future, he would unlock the Master Control and have access to ten thousand different alien forms. Ben repeats these lessons when Azmuth confesses that he hasn’t told Ben the entire truth.
The Omnitrix, however, proves to be far more powerful than the original series ever hinted. In addition to being Noah’s Ark and having over a million genetic samples, it has the ability to heal genetic damage from a range (instead of Ben having to make physical contact with DNAliens, as in “Max Out” and “Inside Man”) and can even allow hybridization by splicing DNA samples from the database. Azmuth didn’t explain just how the Omnitrix could resurrect the alien species already killed off (such as the Petrosapiens, which could hint at a future appearance by Tetrax), but it doesn’t look like it would be too hard, given all this. And given all the power we saw, it’s no wonder that the Omnitrix got reset at the end of the episodes; that kind of power could not be granted to a fifteen-year-old. But it does indicate that the Ben of Alien Force may become a far bigger hero than Ben 10,000 was.
Azmuth calls Ben “Noah” to complete the analogy of the Omnitrix being the Ark. But there are some differences. When told that he needed to take the Ark and allow the destruction of Earth, Noah calmly accepted his orders. The rest of the world would die, but he had the hope for a new world with him. Ben, on the other hand, essentially flipped God off, took the Ark right through the flood, and used it to stop the rain. He refuses to accept that as his destiny—he may be the only hope for the millions of aliens throughout the Milky Way, but he only sees that as reason more to fight for their sake. Rather than save his power as a last resort, he would prefer to prevent things from ever getting that bad in the first place—a choice that initially annoyed Azmuth, as he believed Ben was being reckless, but appears to have later impressed him. He had confessed in “Good Copy, Bad Copy” that Ben had managed to use the Omnitrix as a force for good in ways he’d never thought possible, and this only proves that Ben is still capable of surprising him.
A final note on the Omnitrix itself is an apparent side-effect on Ben. When Ben used the DNA Repair on Ken and Tyler, he had no problem whatsoever. In fact, even when rewriting the DNA of the entire Highbreed race and using up all of the Omnitrix’s power doing so, he’s still okay. But the first DNAlien he tries to heal in the battle ends up leaving him exhausted and breathing heavily. He manages to heal several more before the Omnitrix gives out and has to recharge, and Ben reverts to human form unconscious. When he wakes up, Azmuth berates him for wasting energy—indicating that DNA Repair uses far more energy than splicing. However, it’s odd that just as the Omnitrix needs to recharge, Ben passes out. Similarly, Ben had lost consciousness after his first instant slide-morphs to defeat Darkstar, which had originally looked like a side-effect of energy drain (“Darkstar Rising”). It’s unknown if these instances are related, and it’s hard to tell if there’s an explanation for Ben’s sudden energy loss this episode, or if it will be resolved next season or in Evolutions.
Like several season finales in Justice League, “War of the Worlds” was conceived as the series finale for Ben 10: Alien Force, and as such, it tries to go out with a bang, being sure to make several continuity nods along the way. The guest appearances by almost everybody were welcome, as were the returns of some of Ben’s old aliens. Due to the different art team working Alien Force compared to the original, there are some artistic differences: notably, Cannonbolt’s coloring changed from yellow to green, and to fit in line with all of the aliens in this series, the Omnitrix emblem was moved from his forehead to his chest. Yes, hardcore fans complain about this, but seriously? It’s a treat having them back at all! And not to be beat out by the old guys, one of the newer aliens, Swampfire, pulls some pretty awesome surprises. For one, he can throw seeds into a plant-free environment and then be able to control their growth. That’s effective. He can also get his head punched right off his body and get soon back up soon after. That’s just plain cool.
But if you thought Ben was the only member of the main team with some surprises, you’re wrong. Kevin proves just what the hell he’s been doing with all that alien tech and his car, revealing it to be combat-ready and just looking for a fight. Sadly, it is heroically sacrificed to keep the DNAliens busy while the trio makes their way up to the control tower. And in an even more spectacular display, we get to see Gwen go full-Anodyte on everyone, after the tiny foreshadowing in “Unearthed” (sadly, this is the only real reference to the two episodes before the finale; they never try to call for help using the communication station from “Birds of a Feather,” and there’s really not much else revealed in “Unearthed” that we didn’t already know). Kevin manages to get her to calm down after, and she doesn’t end up sacrificing her humanity to try and win the war, continuing the theme of “there’s always another hope” throughout this episode.
However, like with the DCAU post-“Destroyer,” there are still some unanswered questions left in Alien Force, ranging from “what happens to the unconscious humans left behind at Los Soledad?” to “what other surprises does Azmuth have in store for Ben?” Paradox’s hints about Ben saving the universe definitely seem to apply here, though not quite his comment of Ben in that episode being “much more like himself” than later. Time will only tell what season 3 will have to reveal. Fortunately, we’ll all start to find out in September.
While on the subject of Paradox, he seems to play Obi-Wan to Azmuth’s Yoda and Ben’s Luke. He’s the one who insists that Azmuth should trust Ben’s ability to save the galaxy, despite Azmuth’s insistence that Ben’s too reckless and knows far too little to do anything other than get himself killed and the Omnitrix destroyed. And ultimately, Paradox proves to be right, though he does end up cheating a little bit to ensure that things work just as Ben needs them to (such as telling Julie to answer her phone so that Ben will be able to use Ship to get to the Highbreed homeworld). One can only imagine how many times he’s gone through the battle until it got to this point, with everything finally going according to plan.
Finally, we come to the ending. People have complained about it. After such an epic battle, it comes down to Ben using the Omnitrix as the ultimate deus ex machina to cure the Highbreed’s sterility, and then Reiny shows up to convince them to stop attacking? Sounds pretty hokey, I’ll be honest. Hell, I think people are still complaining about the “talking Belial Vamdemon to death” from the finale of Digimon Zero Two (if they’re not complaining about the epilogue). But it’s not so much about what you’re doing as much as it is why.
I’ve previously drawn comparisons to both Avatar: The Last Airbender and Harry Potter in my reviews, “Alone Together” and “Good Copy, Bad Copy” respectively. “War of the Worlds” continues this parallel in trying to keep the hero’s hands clean of blood. Aang was devastated in “Sozin’s Comet” by the possibility that he would have to kill Ozai to end the war; he’d learned to respect all life, and even hearing it from the previous Avatars didn’t make him feel any more comfortable with it. Harry was worried about having to kill Voldemort when he learned of the prophecy, and even when trying to use the Unforgivable Cruciatus Curse on Bellatrix, he couldn’t do it properly. Both of them lacked that inner quality that can allow you to kill, and in Harry Potter, it’s emphasized that killing “rips the soul apart.” In the end, Aang used a major deus ex machina, the energybending he learned from the Lion Turtle—one that definitely outdoes the Omnitrix—and blocks Ozai’s ability to firebend forever. Harry proves everyone from Order of the Phoenix onward wrong by defeating Voldemort with an Expilliarmus, which rebounds Voldemort’s Avada Kedavra right back at him: a really well managed accident.
Given those two major examples, you start to notice that there’s this new trend in children’s fiction to try and keep the hero innocent to some degree. Complain all you want about Messiah Creep, but it is important to keep the heroes from crossing the line, beautifully explored throughout the first and second seasons of Justice League Unlimited particularly regarding Superman. After everything that’s been done to the heroes, you can’t make them killers. If so, then they’re not heroes anymore. And in Ben’s case, wiping out a whole race of people as a lesson for trying to wipe out the rest of the galaxy isn’t going to teach anyone anything. Darkness cannot drive out darkness, and genocide cannot drive out genocide. Only life can do that. It would undermine the entire reason why the heroes are fighting, and it would undermine the entire point of the Omnitrix. The Omnitrix is both to allow the user a chance to walk a mile in the shoes of another race, and to restore life to races that have died out. It was never meant as a weapon, and Ben proves that it is so much more than that in this battle.
“War of the Worlds” was written by Dwayne McDuffie. All speaking characters in this episode had their voices reprised, except for Way Big, Cannonbolt, and Upchuck, who were played by Dee Bradley Baker rather than Fred Tatasciore (Way Big and Cannonbolt) and Dave Wittenburg (Upchuck).
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(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-09 10:40 pm (UTC)I'll admit, after realizing your comparisons I find myself kinda waiting for Paradox to say 'may the Omnitrix be with you, Ben.' as a nod to Obi-Wan's 'may the Force be with you.' I'm also pretty sure Ben will keep surprising 'Yoda' as the upcoming Season 3 debuts.
But if Ben shaves his hair, I'm gonna laugh. For quite a while. (Did you happen to notice the Jumpgate looked like a Supergate, and/or a really big Stargate?)
(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-10 01:54 am (UTC)Yep. I still call it a Stargate, no matter what anyone else says.