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akinoameIn the future, Ben 10,000 is rushing through a battle with Vulkanus, running late for yet another birthday. Sick of prolonging it, Four-Arms demorphs and tosses a pokéball at Vulkanus, trapping him inside. He then speeds off as XLR-8 and makes it home just in time, stopping in front of Max, who steps aside to reveal the birthday boy—Ben’s son, Kenny. It’s Ken’s tenth birthday, and his dad’s finally there. While Kenny explains his dad’s day job to his friends, including an alien version of Billy from The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy, Ben asks Max to deposit the egg/pokéball in the Null Void Chamber, which I’m sure is a completely unimportant detail that will NEVER come up again. In the middle of the festivities, Gwendolyn appears via a hologram or an astral projection, and Ben teases her. She can’t make it to the party since she’s stuck working a case on Zoraster, tracking a red dragon from the Eighth Pit of Navato—at least, she says it’s a case; I think at this point she’s just caught up playing D&D. But she did manage to pick up a gift, and she opens a portal to send Kenny a golem-puppy thing. Apparently, like Charmcaster, she can summon them too. She then turns up her nose at Ben and disappears. Good to see that thirty years in the future, they still get along like bickering children. After cake, Kenny opens the rest of his presents, including a new hoverboard from Great-Grandpa Max. But it falls to Ben to give the last gift, and he admits that he’s been reluctant to bring Kenny into the family business, since it’s not kids’ stuff—at which, Max gives him a Look. Still, since Ben got the Omnitrix when he was ten, now that Ken’s the same age, he gets one too. The other kids immediately think this is awesome, and when Kenny’s about to play with ten-thousand aliens, Ben points out that if he only started with ten that he couldn’t pick out, then Ken’s stuck with the same luck. He’s specifically picked out a set for protection and escape: classics like XLR-8, Stinkfly, Wildvine, Ditto, newbies introduced in the last future episode Buzzshock and Spitter, and four we never see: Snakepit, Sandbox, Shellhead, and Toepick. At this point, the other kids start making their way away from Kenny and his lameness, especially since Toepick is even too gross for his taste. When he complains, Ben threatens to take the watch back, but Ken quickly strikes a deal to trade out Toepick for Grey Matter. Apparently, Ben takes care of this remotely, since right in the middle of the party, there’s an attack. A purple blob is attacking their hometown’s El Train, and it’s time for father and son to team up to take it down. The XLR-8s go into battle, and while Ben easily speeds through the sticky gunk, Ken gets trapped. Ben quickly wins the fight and throws a Null Void egg at the bad guy. The same deal goes for the next fight, against some…mouth-monster…guy. Hey, you try to figure out how to describe some of these guys! Ben steals a shot from Kenny and makes an awesome capture. The whole battle is covered by a hovering camera and appears on the local Jumbotron, where a hooded boy watches the show.
I’m sure he’s completely unimportant.
When they make it home, the party’s over, and Ken starts bitching about being his dad’s sidekick. Ben sees it this way: Ken’s role in a battle is to watch and learn, helping out only afterward, when it’s safe to do so. Ken, however, sees it that his dad is stealing all the shots and doesn’t trust him. Bitching about how his hoverboard is his only non-lame present (and right in front of his new dog, brat), he takes it and heads off while Ben wonders where the hell his kid gets his attitude from. The look on Max’s face is hysterical. As Kenny moodily hoverboards through town, another kid shows up and challenges him to show off his tricks, proving himself a talented boarder himself. Not to be outdone, Kenny goes Wildvine and shows off. The new kid watches with a suspiciously familiar predatory grin. They hang out on the huge statue of Ben, which has apparently been rebuilt bigger than before, and the new kid admits defeat, though joking that Ken cheated. His name is Devlin, and it’s bromance at first sight as they immediately strike up a friendship. Devlin recognizes Ken as son of the famous Ben 10,000, who has just joined the hero business, but Ken starts bitching about how his dad doesn’t trust him to do anything. There’s a genuine moment of disappointment from Devlin as he bitches that his dad pulls the same thing with him. So in the middle of this eerily familiar moment of a ten-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old boy meeting out of nowhere, impressing each other with their skills, and then bitching about their families, Ben calls Ken via Omnitrix-comm and tells him to come home for dinner. Devlin realizes he’s got to head home too, since if he misses curfew, his dad locks him out of the house. …That is…yeah, that’s fucked up. In fact, on the Fucked Up O Meter, that’s somewhere just below “I spoke out of turn, so Dad lit my face on fire.” Ken misses the subtle indication that his new friend is possibly being abused and jokes about how he’d get in, before flying home, leaving Devlin to sit and watch the statue in quiet contemplation.
In the middle of the night, an intruder alarm sounds in Tennyson HQ, which leads Kenny to wonder who on earth would be suicidal enough to attack the most powerful man on the planet on his home turf? Ben isn’t too worried about it, since every so often somebody is in fact stupid enough to try it (making me wonder if maybe Ben’s only just gotten custody of Ken or something—more on Ken’s parents later), and he says that between the two of them, they should be able to take care of the intruder. Ken is thrilled that Dad’s letting him fight alongside him as an equal, but that hope is dashed in less than a minute when the intruder blasts his way inside, and Ben’s heart sinks when he sees the intruder is none other than his old nemesis, Kevin 11. Let me say this: If you have watched Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, you know the look Ben has on his face at this moment. It is the exact same expression that Bruce had when the Joker appeared in the middle of a Wayne Enterprises function, apparently back from the dead. In the immediate aftermath, Bruce fired Terry and forbade him from ever facing his most dangerous enemy ever. This is more or less Ben’s exact reaction. He institutes an emergency lockdown and has the security system send Ken to his room for his own safety, above his son’s protests. Ben continues to fight “Kevin,” who is oddly a terrible fighter, and not in the way that Ben and Gwendolyn were in “Ben 10,000”—this Kevin just seems to have no idea what he’s doing, as if it’s a subtle indication that he’s never fought Ben and he’s not actually Kevin. But that’s just crazy talk, isn’t it? Stuck in his room and totally not taking this crap, Ken looks up and sees the air vent. And because Ben’s designed them not to be kid-sized, Ken goes Grey Matter to go through and try to track the progress of the fight. Ben knocks “Kevin” into the Null Void Chamber, which was apparently All According To Plan, except when “Kevin” realizes that the projector is missing. Yeah, Ben apparently moved it after Animo’s break-in. Ten to twelve years ago. Before his son was born. Without telling him. Either this is completely insane or the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen. But without the Null Void projector, “Kevin” has no reason to stick around and fight, so he blasts a hole into the wall for an escape. Ben’s about to stop him when Ken’s watch times out, trapping him in the vent. With Ben too distracted to chase him, “Kevin” exits stage right. Benmummy (god, he never really gave this one a name, did he? Because I refuse to think that this is the best he can come up with) rescues Kenny from the vent, and Ken bitches again about the lack of trust—first that Ben doesn’t trust him to fight, resulting in him in the air vent, and then that he didn’t trust him to know that the Null Void projector was moved.
Sometime later, Ken meets up with Devlin again, who’s bitching about how he was supposed to meet up with his dad the night before, but he never showed. Sweetie, your cover story is not only full of holes; it’s becoming more and more horrifying when the older audience members stop to think about it. Ken bitches about the battle, and Devlin admits that Kevin is bad shit. He then points out that if Kevin escaped from the Null Void, that means anybody could escape from it. Clearly, this is the most easily breached maximum security prison ever. …Why is the single most logical thinker in this entire franchise a kid who’s obviously lying through his teeth?! Devlin says that the projector should probably be fixed so nobody else can get out, and Kenny gets the brilliant idea that he should do it himself, without telling the adults, apparently to prove himself. Countdown to this backfiring. Ken takes Devlin home, where they meet up with the dog before hiding near the Rustbucket, waiting for Max to leave for his morning walk. Ken sneaks in and explains to Devlin that his dad’s been giving Max the Null Void eggs, so Max probably has the Null Void Chamber somewhere in the Rustbucket, which is apparently bigger on the inside. Or just has a hidden access port. Whatever. In order to speed up the search process, Ken goes Ditto, and they and Devlin begin the search. Meanwhile, Ben discusses things with Gwendolyn, who points out that Ben’s problems with Ken aren’t really hero stuff; they’re dad stuff. She sees it that Ben is having a hard time letting his little boy grow up, even though he himself has only gotten where he is because he had the freedom to make his own mistakes. You know, like nearly blowing up the universe once. In fact, where was this “you have to make your own mistakes” thing when she decided to future-shock kidlet Ben into not becoming a total asshole? Either way, it gets Ben thinking on things more deeply. In the meantime, the boys finally manage to find the hidden door, after accidentally finding Max’s disco ball—“Don’t ask,” Ditto says. I don’t wanna know. They reach the Null Void Chamber, and Devlin races to the controls ahead of Kenny. Grinning evilly, he transforms into an exact clone of Kevin’s alien form, throwing Kenny aside, and then activating the controls to free Kevin, who greets him with “Hello, son.” To which Devlin responds, “Hey, Dad.” Curse your sudden but…eh, you know the drill. Kevin sees Ditto and immediately mistakes him for Ben, though Devlin corrects him. Devlin urges Kevin to escape, but Kevin decides that revenge is a dish best served by beating the shit out of your nemesis’s son. Kenny tries to reason with his friend, and the dog decides that it’s not taking this shit and tries to attack. Except Kevin crushes it with this utterly insane look in his eyes. It’s creepy. Kevin then races forward like the Flash and grabs a demorphing Ken. Fortunately, Max has his usual “my grandkids are in danger” sense tingling, and takes a blaster and shoots Kevin into a wall, making him drop Kenny. Better than his first attempt to stop Kevin from attacking one of his grandkids. Max manages to sound the alarm, but Kevin speeds over and crushes his mechanical hand.
Hearing the alarm, Ben races down to find Max and Ken bound and gagged on the floor. Devlin attacks him in alien form, but Ben gets out of the way, pointing out that it was a painfully obvious trap. Kevin shows himself and introduces a demorphing Devlin, and Ben barely seems surprised. Then Kevin thanks Ben for trapping him in the Null Void. With all those various aliens he’s been capturing for the past thirty years. This gets him. With a dawning look of “Oh SHIT” on Ben’s face, Kevin transforms into his new form, Kevin 11,000, revealing that he’s evenly matched Ben’s ten-thousand aliens. That math doesn’t add up at all, given that Kevin 11 was one human form plus ten alien forms, so all he’s really managed to do is either add another ten-thousand (making him 10,011) or getting up to ten-thousand. However, bad math proves a point, and he manages to injure Ben in battle. As Ben tries to pick himself up, Devlin interferes, trying once again to convince his dad that they should leave. Kevin’s proven himself as the best now, so there’s no point in continuing. Unfortunately for Devlin, Kevin is totally guano loco and completely crazy-pants (please don’t ask for the distinction, but there is one). He grabs his son, lifts him up to eye-level while the kid quakes in fear, and then throws him across the room, admitting that he just likes this. While Devlin’s traumatized and crying, Ben gets his second wind and punches Kevin out, throwing him clear out of the building. Devlin then runs off, clutching his hurt arm and in tears, utterly making the audience wibble. With the Levins gone, Max decides it’s safe to escape, so he reveals the mini-laser attachment he has in his elbow to cut through the ropes. I love you, old man. Ken gets up and goes to the Omnitrix, deciding that he’s got the perfect alien to defeat the new Kevin.
The battle progresses through the city, with people running in terror, buildings taking damage, and Sephiroth’s theme playing in the background. Ben continues to try to take him down, but Kevin’s too strong, unleashing a sonic attack that even manages to crack through Diamondhead’s body and knock Ben out, in a scene that eerily ends up similar to the later “Absolute Power.” With Ben down for the count, he’s helpless against Kevin, until Grey Matter shows up, ready to kick ass and take names. To Kevin’s shock, Grey Matter immediately becomes Spitter, who blasts him away from Ben, and then Ken shifts to Buzzshock, electrifying the trail of alien saliva and zapping Kevin. Ken demorphs and brags that he went Grey Matter to hack the limiter off the Omnitrix, allowing him to transform to any of his forms at will, just like the Alien Force Omnitrix. Smart little kid! Why is it that when your dad decided to try to hack the Omnitrix, he ended up blowing up a warehouse, releasing the alien templates, and mutating his best friend? Kevin grabs Ken, ready to attack, but Devlin finally decides which side he’s on and makes his stand, throwing a building at his dad to make him drop his best friend. Devlin apologizes to Ken, admitting this isn’t what he thought would happen. As Kevin recovers, Devlin growls that he finally understands why most of his childhood, Dad’s been in jail, and the boys morph to kick some ass. Well, they mostly get their asses kicked, since they’re supposed to be sidekicks and they don’t know enough to face down probably the most powerful villain in the universe. Ben wakes up just in time to see his son collapse, injured. Your funeral, Kevin. As Kevin laughs maniacally, Ben goes Way Big and pounds him into the pavement, repeatedly, delivering the most epic “Get away from my kid!” since John Stewart blasted the guy who tried to attack his son, Warhawk. Or when Molly Weasley showed Bellatrix why you don’t threaten her daughter, you bitch. Whatever. It was still pretty awesome. With Kevin unconscious and his body contorted in a crater, Papa Bear Ben immediately rushes to pick up Kenny, who says he’s okay and reveals the Null Void egg he brought. Ben smiles at him, but Kevin attacks them from behind, forcing them to lose the egg. He’s ready to brag that it’ll take a lot more than them to defeat him, but then the pokéball from hell rolls right underneath him, and no matter how much he fights it, he can’t escape. Behind him is Devlin, who coldly watches and responds, “Goodbye, Dad,” like the heartbroken little badass he is. Max arrives via jetpack (hey, it’s the future. Someone had to have one eventually) and retrieves the egg, saying he’s got a special place to put Kevin. I hope to god it’s not the Null Void or Incarcecon. Ben praises Kenny for a job well done on his first real mission, and Ken asks if this means he’ll be allowed to use all ten-thousand aliens, but Ben tells him not to push it and gives him a noogie. Devlin watches this happy family moment and says goodbye, turning to leave. But Ben nods at Max, who reaches out his extendo-arm and puts a hand on Devlin’s shoulder to stop him. Despairingly, Devlin realizes they’re going to throw him in the Null Void, and without hesitation, Ken makes his stand, putting himself right between his family and his best friend. But Ben and Max offer a better alternative: they’ll adopt Devlin instead, giving him just the family he’s been looking for all this time. Thrilled, the boys agree, and just to round out the happy ending, the dog regenerates, leaving one big, happy Tennyson family.
“Ken 10” takes place some ten to twelve years after the events of “Ben 10,000,” and it’s implied by little things like the fake-out of Ben missing Max’s birthday and the reference to Animo’s break-in that this is the aftermath of the original episode instead of a second potential future. Sometime after the younger Ben made the older Ben realize how important it was to care about his family and his humanity, Ben apparently settled down a little bit, having a kid and generally having a much more optimistic outlook on life.
There’s apparently been some supplemental trivia in a pop-up edition of this episode, but like with Race Against Time, I generally treat the supplemental trivia as optional canon. Anything you don’t see in the episode itself and is answered by the writers or whomever later is fair game to be used or ignored at your own discretion. And at least this time, it doesn’t leave such massive holes in the story that it can’t hold water.
This episode focuses heavily on the bond between fathers and sons—legacies to uphold, the generation gap, the repetition of history, and the conflict between loyalty to family and loyalty to friends. It is the successor to “Kevin 11,” specifically establishing the friendship between Ken and Devlin as very similar to that between their fathers, but redeeming both Ben and Kevin through their sons. And while Kevin remains an evil asshole, Ben makes up for giving up on him by offering to adopt Devlin—and given Alien Force and Ultimate Alien’s revelations about Grandpa Max, he redeems himself too in that moment. The best way to describe the boys is as princes. They are heirs to very powerful and very infamous legacies, and though there are very evident differences between them, in the end the similarities are more important (as the direct opposite to Ben and Kevin).
Kenny Tennyson (presumably named for his cousin) is the ten-year-old son of Ben who just can’t wait to be king, so to speak. He looks up to his father, but at the same time, he wrestles with him on the issue of becoming a hero himself. Don’t get me wrong, I like the kid, but he does spend the entire episode bitching about how his dad doesn’t trust him to be a hero. He sounds like Speedy in Young Justice (oddly enough, also a Weisman production), constantly rebelling against being a sidekick. He believes that just because he’s Ben’s son and he’s ten years old, he should be allowed to have his own Omnitrix and go out and fight. I mean, really! It’s like if Batman’s kid said that he deserved to wear the cape just based on who his dad was—oh wait. Though, again, he’s a likable kid. He just fails to see that he really needs to earn his right to be a hero rather than expect to be given it on a silver platter, though he’s certainly willing to prove himself. He’s very intelligent, for one, and he’s smart enough to use Grey Matter to hack the Omnitrix and succeed. Sure, he can’t get it to the same level his dad’s is at now, but it is roughly on the same level of the Omnitrix in Alien Force, with transformations at his command, though like Ben goes through as an adult too, Ken seems to retain his injuries in human form.
Ken’s family is only explored up to the point of his father, his great-grandfather, his “Aunt Gwendolyn,” his dog, and his new adopted brother. There’s no mention of who his mother is, though supplemental trivia states it’s Kai Green. I’ve got to say, looking at Ken, Kai is the most likely candidate to be his mother, since his darker skin color is the only thing preventing him from being a total clone of his father at that age. Though if you want to make the case for, say, Elena Validus, go right ahead. I’m just going to go right ahead and say that Julie Yamamoto and Jennifer Nocturne are probably the least likely candidates in terms of phenotype to be his mom. Oddly enough, there is no mention of just what happened to his mom. This episode focuses heavily on the idea of fatherhood, so it ignores the idea of moms, given motherhood is a different kind of bond to explore. But I’ve got to say it is really weird that there’s no mention of her existing at all. I mean, they raise a big fuss about Ben needing to be at Ken’s party, and even Gwen phones it in to explain where she is, but there’s no mention whatsoever of why Ken’s mom isn’t there. Is she dead? Are she and Ben divorced and completely incapable of being in the same room together? Did she get sucked into a crack in time and totally get retconned from existence? Who knows? It’s really weird.
Ken is very straightforward and easy to understand, his issues out in the open and everything about him in the light. I’ve got to say, it’s kind of hard to analyze him that way. There’s nothing you really have to speculate about. He’s not a bland character, and he’s certainly not a bad character. He’s just very easy to understand, which paradoxically makes him difficult to play with. And apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so, given that as of January 9, 2011, there are thirty fics in all ratings and languages on Fanfiction.net that focus on Ken (to Devlin’s forty-one), and twenty-four of those also focus on Devlin. In contrast, Devlin is very much a mystery, the yin to his friend and brother’s yang, his entire known history a combination of lies and misconceptions.
Superficially, Devlin is just as much of a clone of Kevin as Ken is a clone of Ben. He’s the talented, cocky kid that Tennyson meets when he’s in the mood to bitch about a male parental figure, definitely should not be trusted, and manages to share enough of his life in lies and half-truths to gain Tennyson’s trust. However, Devlin is both sane and a decent person. I’d have to say that the episode focuses as much on his character conflict as it does on Ben’s, as you watch him struggle to really fit in his role. As a character, Devlin is pretty much Chris Kent meets Prince Zuko, though I hope that unlike them, his mom wasn’t named Ursa. Like Chris, Devlin was born to a notorious criminal trapped in a pocket dimension prison, sent to Earth to help his father escape said prison (supplemental trivia says that Devlin was born on a Saturn space colony, but if someone wants to take the Chris Kent parallel and run with it and have it that he was born in the Null Void, please link me the fic. It sounds awesome), and he’s adopted by his biological father’s greatest enemy, who happens to be Earth’s greatest hero. And yes, since Chris debuted in 2006 while Devlin debuted in 2007, Devlin’s the ripoff. But like Zuko, Devlin is torn between his own innocence and good heart and having to fulfill the will of his cruel and abusive father. He then delivers an epic “Fuck you, old man,” and joins the good guys. Well, that settles that analysis. That was easy!
Okay, okay. The truth is that Devlin really comes across as an appealing character that his innocence conflicting with his duty and the dark Levin legacy really is compelling. Probably the biggest thing is that you watch him make one crucial mistake in trying to carry out Kevin’s plan: He lets himself care. He ends up really falling for Ken and really treasuring that friendship he builds, and this is the one thing that makes it impossible for him to obey his father. The kid is looking for family. Whatever happened, however he ended up where he was, it’s clear that Kevin was manipulating him to get him to set him free. He taught the boy to love him—presumably because Kevin himself had learned to hate his family, and since he ended up just abandoning them, he probably wanted Devlin’s love to make him loyal. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that when Kevin attacked him in the Null Void Chamber, that was the first time he’d ever laid a hand on his son. There’s no doubt about it; the way he manipulated Devlin and forced him to do things that were totally against his nature was most certainly abuse. But I think it was a very subtle kind of abuse—manipulation and holding love hostage. Given the awkward way he even says “Hello, son,” and the comments Devlin lets slip about how Kevin doesn’t trust him and how he probably just left him to come up with a plan on his own on how to get him out of the Null Void, Kevin wasn’t exactly the most affectionate father either. So, yeah. Would not be surprised if that vice-like grip that nearly broke the kid’s arm was the first hug he’d ever gotten. But judging by the traumatized look on Devlin’s face, Devlin had never seen that from him before. That was the moment when he realized, “My father is crazy and evil, and I don’t matter to him.” I’m going to say that Devlin’s greatest strength is Kevin’s greatest mistake: he showed him love. Yep, love—that amazing, transformative power that conquers all. It was false love, but he managed to teach the boy to love. Here is a line from Power Rangers in Space, when Darkonda expresses his doubt that Astronema—originally the Red Ranger’s sister, Karone, who was kidnapped and raised to be evil—would be able to remain loyal to the side of evil:
”I’m afraid that Ecliptor [Astronema’s guardian] has tarnished Astronema’s evil spirit. You see, he has shown her caring. Caring and evil do not mix! It could be an explosive combination!”
Without spoiling Astronema’s fate (she becomes the Pink Ranger next season), I have to say that this is the exact thing that happened to Devlin. Caring and evil proved to be an explosive and incompatible mix. All throughout the episode, you watch him struggling with torn loyalties. When Ken says that Ben doesn’t trust him, Devlin has this very real look of disappointment and sympathy on his face when he admits that his dad doesn’t trust him either. And he lets slip the whole “Dad locks me out” thing, which definitely gives the sense of “Oh, hey, this kid has some serious problems at home. I think his dad is an abusive prick.” He actually stays behind and looks at the statue of Ben while Ken flies off, and in this quiet moment in the art, you see him struggling with internal conflict. He’s created a real friendship with Ken, and now he has to choose between saving his dad and being loyal to his friend—either way, he’d betray someone he cares about deeply. It all really comes to a head in the Null Void Chamber. You see his torn loyalties big time when Kevin spots Ken. Devlin immediately starts trying to appeal to reason with his dad, saying they should get out of there so they don’t blow the whole escape plan, and that’s when Ken knows he can still reason with Devlin. When Ben takes that hit, Devlin interferes and again asks Kevin that they leave. It’s very clear that he doesn’t like what’s going on, that he won’t let his dad hit a man when he’s down. As he puts it, Kevin’s proven who the strongest really is, so there’s no point in fighting any more. Ben is down. He lost. He’s weak. Let’s go already. And when he apologizes to Ken, he says that it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this; the plan he’d come up with definitely hadn’t involved Kevin fighting the Tennysons to the death. He was far too innocent to know what was really going on, and his love for his father left him blind to the truth until it was too late. When his eyes were finally opened, Kevin had already permanently scarred him, making it impossible for Devlin to show him mercy. So, yeah. The kid really has a way of making you want to hug him and squeeze him into itty-bitty pieces.
*slap*
Sorry. Don’t know where that came from.
On the other side are their dads, and we see just who they could have grown up to be. Personality-wise, Ben is very similar to the teenager we see in the majority of Alien Force and Ultimate Alien later: strong, a bit of a dork, and dear god do not attack anyone he cares about because he will make you pay. Yes, “beware the nice ones” incarnate. Kevin is a total crazy-pants sociopath who manipulates his son into breaking him out of jail and then throws him aside when the kid doesn’t turn out to be a perfect little minion and has a mind and heart of his own that won’t let him stand by and watch Dad’s evil. Kevin rivals Ozai for father of the year, I swear. But again, I think he was more subtle about his abuse than anything. While we don’t see much of Kevin’s parenting style up to that point, we get the implication that he was the anti-Ben—distant, leaving it up to Devlin to figure things out on his own, and more interested in his own goals than his son’s welfare.
Ben, on the other hand, well… I don’t know if it’s because I’m an adult (or I pretend to be, at least), but I find it hard not to take his side throughout this episode. He comes off to me like he’s trying his hardest just to be a good dad—stressing about missing his kid’s birthday because of work, reluctant to involve his young son in a job where the bad guys have no qualms about hurting or killing little kids, wanting Ken to just be able to defend himself and learn later how to save the day and everything, and scared as hell that someone dangerous is going to hurt his kid. Overprotective? Maybe. But when you’re the equivalent of the entire Justice League, yeah, you’re going to be worried about your little boy wanting to be your sidekick. It kind of grates on me watching Max and Gwendolyn take Kenny’s side and insist that Ben needs to give Ken his freedom. Ben is forty-something years old. At ten years old, he really had to fight to maintain a painful balance in his childhood—he had to deal with trying to be a kid while having the weight of the world on his shoulders, or rather, his wrist. And he knows exactly what that stress led to—him losing his sense of humanity at thirty. He’s finally achieved that balance, and here everyone wants him to put his kid through it? That’s the sense I’m getting from it. And it gets much, much worse when you factor in his fear of Kevin. As I said before, he seems to consider Kevin as his most dangerous enemy, just as old Bruce in Batman Beyond regarded the Joker. I’ve purposely reviewed this episode, “Ben 10,000,” and “Kevin 11” as counterpoints and supplemental points to the character growth Ben and Kevin went through in season one of Ultimate Alien. In that season, we watched Ben and Kevin become two of the greatest heroes in the universe—and honestly, very much like the promise we see for Ken and Devlin at the end of this episode—and then we watch them at their worst. Ben begins to lose his temper and stops relying on his friends and family as he becomes more lethal in scope, going very Ben 10,000. Kevin, of course, loses his sanity and becomes very much like Kevin 11,000. However, just as Ken and Devlin defy the cycle that their fathers trapped them in, Ben and Kevin defy their destinies to become the most powerful and hated enemies the universe has ever known. But Ultimate Kevin 11’s deeds do give a sense of just what Kevin 11,000 might have done in the past that led Ben 10,000 to fear him so much. In Ultimate Alien, Kevin attacked his and Ben’s former students, draining their powers with intent to maim or kill. I can’t help but think that if you take that and add to it Our Family Memories from Return of the Joker, that’s the kind of thing that would result in the absolute horror on Ben’s face when he thinks Kevin’s back. ‘Cause what Joker did to Tim? Definitely a reason to keep Kenny away from a villain like that.
And now I have to address an issue that I really hate having to address: Devlin’s mother. Again, this episode was lousy on mothers. While we all know that in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, Kevin and Gwen hook up, I’m going to shoot down the theory that Gwendolyn is Devlin’s mother. First, in Alien Force, Gwen didn’t enter a relationship with Kevin until she was sure he was a good guy. It’s a big deal for their characters, and Kevin himself admits that he likes being one of the good guys because he likes the fact that Gwen sees him as a hero. For Gwendolyn to hook up with someone who is blatantly evil, it seems pretty out of character. And if you’re going to argue rape, Kevin really doesn’t strike me as the type. I mean, it’s Ben he hates. He wants things personal between them. Gwen barely factors into the equation, and even if he tried to hurt her to hurt Ben, he’s more likely to go for maiming and killing. That’s the kind of stuff he likes. Second, even on the off-chance that Gwendolyn did for some reason fall in love with Kevin of her own free will, she would not give up on him. Or if she found out that he lied to her, she’d go after him with a vengeance. This girl is determined. Don’t believe me? Watch Ultimate Alien and watch her go toe-to-toe with her own cousin over his insistence on killing Kevin. Now imagine her turning that against Kevin, but without the whole worry about hurting him. Third, if she were Devlin’s mother, Devlin wouldn’t have ended up where he was. Why? It is wholly out of character that Gwendolyn would leave her son in the custody of his evil father, or out on the streets. Even if she didn’t keep him, she would have seen to it that he was taken care of, and she would have told somebody. Ben and Max would have known about Devlin, and the moment Ben saw him in the Null Void Chamber, he would have known that was his nephew and brought attention to it. You know, adding some Star Wars to the mix of pop culture references I already made here. So, yeah, Devlin would have already had that family he was looking for. And Gwendolyn would have dropped everything she was doing and gotten over there to hand Kevin his ass, because that’s how she rolls. Can it be done well? Probably. But it really has to be handled with care. And hopefully, that’s the last I’m going to say on that subject.
So there were three kids who came to Ken’s party—two aliens and a human, probably friends of his from school. And the human girl there looks oddly familiar. In fact, this is the exact same girl who appeared in the crowd in ”Ben 10,000”. Yes, there was some alien woman with a dog who also appeared in both episodes, but she was at least an adult. This is a ten-year-old girl. And she hasn’t aged in the past twelve years. I’ve seen speculation that this girl is Ken’s sister, drawing from the supplemental trivia that Kenny has a sister, who was somewhere with Mom off in that mysterious retconning time crack during the episode. But given that this girl is in the background of two episodes in two different points in time, I’ve got my own theory: she is the Ben 10 equivalent of Ryo Akiyama, the mysterious hero who appears in the background of the first and second seasons of Digimon and later ends up living in the alternate universe of season three after saving the world in the tie-in videogames only available in Japan. So I think that Rya hereit’s the best feminine variant of Ryo I can come up with, given that Ryoko sounds odd for a girl who isn’t Japanese might be some time-traveling, universe-hopping girl fighting an enemy that is secretly her partner and has some very questionable intentions for her. Or at least, that’s the story I want to see.
The last of my notes focus on the art of this episode, which I have to say really impressed me. Storywise, this is already one of my favorite episodes, but it’s particularly good because you get the sense that the staff really worked hard on it. Sure, design-wise, it might not be that strong. The only way you can really tell Ken from a ten-year-old Ben is by skin color, so you wonder sometimes if maybe he’s a clone that escaped Cadmus. Devlin’s design sometimes grates on me with all of its oddly not kid-looking angles, though you definitely notice his facial features softening the more he joins the light side. And while Kevin 11,000 does look monstrous and satanic, he really only looks like he added maybe one or two new aliens to his arsenal instead of ten-thousand, given his brimstone turns black and he adds some tentacles. But there are some strengths too. Somehow, forty-something year old Ben is incredibly hot, and moreso than when he was thirty. Sure, when we first see the demorphed Ben at thirty, his hair is slicked back and looks terrible, but even when he’s got his hair windswept and he looks better, he doesn’t seem quite as attractive as the father with grey at his temples. Ben strikes me as being able to age like Harrison Ford, with the whole “65 is the new 30” deal. And going back to Devlin’s design, I think it might have actually inspired the artists for Ultimate Alien when it came to redesigning Kevin for the flashback in “…Nor Iron Bars a Cage.” Check out some of these facial expressions: Devlin, Kevin. The son becomes the father, and the father becomes the son. Given that Devlin had that whole woobie thing about him, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the artists thought to base the new woobie version of Kevin off of him.
Aside from design, details and spectacle were great to see. Little things like taking note that Ken’s birthday candles number eleven: ten for his age and one to grow on. Or the fact that Ben wears a glove on his right hand since his Omnitrix covers his left hand, and he takes off the glove when he goes to bed. But then you’ve got these moments of emotion very powerfully portrayed just through the artwork. Like this moment I mentioned where Devlin looks at the statue of Ben—a very symbolic meeting place for him and Ken—as he begins to struggle with his torn loyalties. And this shot after Ben talks to Gwendolyn, where you can very clearly see the emotions on their faces: that Ben is second-guessing himself about raising Ken while Gwen is optimistic and knows that both Ben and Ken are going to do the right thing in the end. Given how much Ben 10 is about action and everything has to be going on loudly and explosively all the time, it is really nice to see that they can pull off these quiet, subtle things.
“Ken 10” was written by Greg Weisman. Charlie Schlatter played Devlin. Tara Strong played Ken.
I’m sure he’s completely unimportant.
When they make it home, the party’s over, and Ken starts bitching about being his dad’s sidekick. Ben sees it this way: Ken’s role in a battle is to watch and learn, helping out only afterward, when it’s safe to do so. Ken, however, sees it that his dad is stealing all the shots and doesn’t trust him. Bitching about how his hoverboard is his only non-lame present (and right in front of his new dog, brat), he takes it and heads off while Ben wonders where the hell his kid gets his attitude from. The look on Max’s face is hysterical. As Kenny moodily hoverboards through town, another kid shows up and challenges him to show off his tricks, proving himself a talented boarder himself. Not to be outdone, Kenny goes Wildvine and shows off. The new kid watches with a suspiciously familiar predatory grin. They hang out on the huge statue of Ben, which has apparently been rebuilt bigger than before, and the new kid admits defeat, though joking that Ken cheated. His name is Devlin, and it’s bromance at first sight as they immediately strike up a friendship. Devlin recognizes Ken as son of the famous Ben 10,000, who has just joined the hero business, but Ken starts bitching about how his dad doesn’t trust him to do anything. There’s a genuine moment of disappointment from Devlin as he bitches that his dad pulls the same thing with him. So in the middle of this eerily familiar moment of a ten-year-old boy and an eleven-year-old boy meeting out of nowhere, impressing each other with their skills, and then bitching about their families, Ben calls Ken via Omnitrix-comm and tells him to come home for dinner. Devlin realizes he’s got to head home too, since if he misses curfew, his dad locks him out of the house. …That is…yeah, that’s fucked up. In fact, on the Fucked Up O Meter, that’s somewhere just below “I spoke out of turn, so Dad lit my face on fire.” Ken misses the subtle indication that his new friend is possibly being abused and jokes about how he’d get in, before flying home, leaving Devlin to sit and watch the statue in quiet contemplation.
In the middle of the night, an intruder alarm sounds in Tennyson HQ, which leads Kenny to wonder who on earth would be suicidal enough to attack the most powerful man on the planet on his home turf? Ben isn’t too worried about it, since every so often somebody is in fact stupid enough to try it (making me wonder if maybe Ben’s only just gotten custody of Ken or something—more on Ken’s parents later), and he says that between the two of them, they should be able to take care of the intruder. Ken is thrilled that Dad’s letting him fight alongside him as an equal, but that hope is dashed in less than a minute when the intruder blasts his way inside, and Ben’s heart sinks when he sees the intruder is none other than his old nemesis, Kevin 11. Let me say this: If you have watched Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker, you know the look Ben has on his face at this moment. It is the exact same expression that Bruce had when the Joker appeared in the middle of a Wayne Enterprises function, apparently back from the dead. In the immediate aftermath, Bruce fired Terry and forbade him from ever facing his most dangerous enemy ever. This is more or less Ben’s exact reaction. He institutes an emergency lockdown and has the security system send Ken to his room for his own safety, above his son’s protests. Ben continues to fight “Kevin,” who is oddly a terrible fighter, and not in the way that Ben and Gwendolyn were in “Ben 10,000”—this Kevin just seems to have no idea what he’s doing, as if it’s a subtle indication that he’s never fought Ben and he’s not actually Kevin. But that’s just crazy talk, isn’t it? Stuck in his room and totally not taking this crap, Ken looks up and sees the air vent. And because Ben’s designed them not to be kid-sized, Ken goes Grey Matter to go through and try to track the progress of the fight. Ben knocks “Kevin” into the Null Void Chamber, which was apparently All According To Plan, except when “Kevin” realizes that the projector is missing. Yeah, Ben apparently moved it after Animo’s break-in. Ten to twelve years ago. Before his son was born. Without telling him. Either this is completely insane or the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen. But without the Null Void projector, “Kevin” has no reason to stick around and fight, so he blasts a hole into the wall for an escape. Ben’s about to stop him when Ken’s watch times out, trapping him in the vent. With Ben too distracted to chase him, “Kevin” exits stage right. Benmummy (god, he never really gave this one a name, did he? Because I refuse to think that this is the best he can come up with) rescues Kenny from the vent, and Ken bitches again about the lack of trust—first that Ben doesn’t trust him to fight, resulting in him in the air vent, and then that he didn’t trust him to know that the Null Void projector was moved.
Sometime later, Ken meets up with Devlin again, who’s bitching about how he was supposed to meet up with his dad the night before, but he never showed. Sweetie, your cover story is not only full of holes; it’s becoming more and more horrifying when the older audience members stop to think about it. Ken bitches about the battle, and Devlin admits that Kevin is bad shit. He then points out that if Kevin escaped from the Null Void, that means anybody could escape from it. Clearly, this is the most easily breached maximum security prison ever. …Why is the single most logical thinker in this entire franchise a kid who’s obviously lying through his teeth?! Devlin says that the projector should probably be fixed so nobody else can get out, and Kenny gets the brilliant idea that he should do it himself, without telling the adults, apparently to prove himself. Countdown to this backfiring. Ken takes Devlin home, where they meet up with the dog before hiding near the Rustbucket, waiting for Max to leave for his morning walk. Ken sneaks in and explains to Devlin that his dad’s been giving Max the Null Void eggs, so Max probably has the Null Void Chamber somewhere in the Rustbucket, which is apparently bigger on the inside. Or just has a hidden access port. Whatever. In order to speed up the search process, Ken goes Ditto, and they and Devlin begin the search. Meanwhile, Ben discusses things with Gwendolyn, who points out that Ben’s problems with Ken aren’t really hero stuff; they’re dad stuff. She sees it that Ben is having a hard time letting his little boy grow up, even though he himself has only gotten where he is because he had the freedom to make his own mistakes. You know, like nearly blowing up the universe once. In fact, where was this “you have to make your own mistakes” thing when she decided to future-shock kidlet Ben into not becoming a total asshole? Either way, it gets Ben thinking on things more deeply. In the meantime, the boys finally manage to find the hidden door, after accidentally finding Max’s disco ball—“Don’t ask,” Ditto says. I don’t wanna know. They reach the Null Void Chamber, and Devlin races to the controls ahead of Kenny. Grinning evilly, he transforms into an exact clone of Kevin’s alien form, throwing Kenny aside, and then activating the controls to free Kevin, who greets him with “Hello, son.” To which Devlin responds, “Hey, Dad.” Curse your sudden but…eh, you know the drill. Kevin sees Ditto and immediately mistakes him for Ben, though Devlin corrects him. Devlin urges Kevin to escape, but Kevin decides that revenge is a dish best served by beating the shit out of your nemesis’s son. Kenny tries to reason with his friend, and the dog decides that it’s not taking this shit and tries to attack. Except Kevin crushes it with this utterly insane look in his eyes. It’s creepy. Kevin then races forward like the Flash and grabs a demorphing Ken. Fortunately, Max has his usual “my grandkids are in danger” sense tingling, and takes a blaster and shoots Kevin into a wall, making him drop Kenny. Better than his first attempt to stop Kevin from attacking one of his grandkids. Max manages to sound the alarm, but Kevin speeds over and crushes his mechanical hand.
Hearing the alarm, Ben races down to find Max and Ken bound and gagged on the floor. Devlin attacks him in alien form, but Ben gets out of the way, pointing out that it was a painfully obvious trap. Kevin shows himself and introduces a demorphing Devlin, and Ben barely seems surprised. Then Kevin thanks Ben for trapping him in the Null Void. With all those various aliens he’s been capturing for the past thirty years. This gets him. With a dawning look of “Oh SHIT” on Ben’s face, Kevin transforms into his new form, Kevin 11,000, revealing that he’s evenly matched Ben’s ten-thousand aliens. That math doesn’t add up at all, given that Kevin 11 was one human form plus ten alien forms, so all he’s really managed to do is either add another ten-thousand (making him 10,011) or getting up to ten-thousand. However, bad math proves a point, and he manages to injure Ben in battle. As Ben tries to pick himself up, Devlin interferes, trying once again to convince his dad that they should leave. Kevin’s proven himself as the best now, so there’s no point in continuing. Unfortunately for Devlin, Kevin is totally guano loco and completely crazy-pants (please don’t ask for the distinction, but there is one). He grabs his son, lifts him up to eye-level while the kid quakes in fear, and then throws him across the room, admitting that he just likes this. While Devlin’s traumatized and crying, Ben gets his second wind and punches Kevin out, throwing him clear out of the building. Devlin then runs off, clutching his hurt arm and in tears, utterly making the audience wibble. With the Levins gone, Max decides it’s safe to escape, so he reveals the mini-laser attachment he has in his elbow to cut through the ropes. I love you, old man. Ken gets up and goes to the Omnitrix, deciding that he’s got the perfect alien to defeat the new Kevin.
The battle progresses through the city, with people running in terror, buildings taking damage, and Sephiroth’s theme playing in the background. Ben continues to try to take him down, but Kevin’s too strong, unleashing a sonic attack that even manages to crack through Diamondhead’s body and knock Ben out, in a scene that eerily ends up similar to the later “Absolute Power.” With Ben down for the count, he’s helpless against Kevin, until Grey Matter shows up, ready to kick ass and take names. To Kevin’s shock, Grey Matter immediately becomes Spitter, who blasts him away from Ben, and then Ken shifts to Buzzshock, electrifying the trail of alien saliva and zapping Kevin. Ken demorphs and brags that he went Grey Matter to hack the limiter off the Omnitrix, allowing him to transform to any of his forms at will, just like the Alien Force Omnitrix. Smart little kid! Why is it that when your dad decided to try to hack the Omnitrix, he ended up blowing up a warehouse, releasing the alien templates, and mutating his best friend? Kevin grabs Ken, ready to attack, but Devlin finally decides which side he’s on and makes his stand, throwing a building at his dad to make him drop his best friend. Devlin apologizes to Ken, admitting this isn’t what he thought would happen. As Kevin recovers, Devlin growls that he finally understands why most of his childhood, Dad’s been in jail, and the boys morph to kick some ass. Well, they mostly get their asses kicked, since they’re supposed to be sidekicks and they don’t know enough to face down probably the most powerful villain in the universe. Ben wakes up just in time to see his son collapse, injured. Your funeral, Kevin. As Kevin laughs maniacally, Ben goes Way Big and pounds him into the pavement, repeatedly, delivering the most epic “Get away from my kid!” since John Stewart blasted the guy who tried to attack his son, Warhawk. Or when Molly Weasley showed Bellatrix why you don’t threaten her daughter, you bitch. Whatever. It was still pretty awesome. With Kevin unconscious and his body contorted in a crater, Papa Bear Ben immediately rushes to pick up Kenny, who says he’s okay and reveals the Null Void egg he brought. Ben smiles at him, but Kevin attacks them from behind, forcing them to lose the egg. He’s ready to brag that it’ll take a lot more than them to defeat him, but then the pokéball from hell rolls right underneath him, and no matter how much he fights it, he can’t escape. Behind him is Devlin, who coldly watches and responds, “Goodbye, Dad,” like the heartbroken little badass he is. Max arrives via jetpack (hey, it’s the future. Someone had to have one eventually) and retrieves the egg, saying he’s got a special place to put Kevin. I hope to god it’s not the Null Void or Incarcecon. Ben praises Kenny for a job well done on his first real mission, and Ken asks if this means he’ll be allowed to use all ten-thousand aliens, but Ben tells him not to push it and gives him a noogie. Devlin watches this happy family moment and says goodbye, turning to leave. But Ben nods at Max, who reaches out his extendo-arm and puts a hand on Devlin’s shoulder to stop him. Despairingly, Devlin realizes they’re going to throw him in the Null Void, and without hesitation, Ken makes his stand, putting himself right between his family and his best friend. But Ben and Max offer a better alternative: they’ll adopt Devlin instead, giving him just the family he’s been looking for all this time. Thrilled, the boys agree, and just to round out the happy ending, the dog regenerates, leaving one big, happy Tennyson family.
“Ken 10” takes place some ten to twelve years after the events of “Ben 10,000,” and it’s implied by little things like the fake-out of Ben missing Max’s birthday and the reference to Animo’s break-in that this is the aftermath of the original episode instead of a second potential future. Sometime after the younger Ben made the older Ben realize how important it was to care about his family and his humanity, Ben apparently settled down a little bit, having a kid and generally having a much more optimistic outlook on life.
There’s apparently been some supplemental trivia in a pop-up edition of this episode, but like with Race Against Time, I generally treat the supplemental trivia as optional canon. Anything you don’t see in the episode itself and is answered by the writers or whomever later is fair game to be used or ignored at your own discretion. And at least this time, it doesn’t leave such massive holes in the story that it can’t hold water.
This episode focuses heavily on the bond between fathers and sons—legacies to uphold, the generation gap, the repetition of history, and the conflict between loyalty to family and loyalty to friends. It is the successor to “Kevin 11,” specifically establishing the friendship between Ken and Devlin as very similar to that between their fathers, but redeeming both Ben and Kevin through their sons. And while Kevin remains an evil asshole, Ben makes up for giving up on him by offering to adopt Devlin—and given Alien Force and Ultimate Alien’s revelations about Grandpa Max, he redeems himself too in that moment. The best way to describe the boys is as princes. They are heirs to very powerful and very infamous legacies, and though there are very evident differences between them, in the end the similarities are more important (as the direct opposite to Ben and Kevin).
Kenny Tennyson (presumably named for his cousin) is the ten-year-old son of Ben who just can’t wait to be king, so to speak. He looks up to his father, but at the same time, he wrestles with him on the issue of becoming a hero himself. Don’t get me wrong, I like the kid, but he does spend the entire episode bitching about how his dad doesn’t trust him to be a hero. He sounds like Speedy in Young Justice (oddly enough, also a Weisman production), constantly rebelling against being a sidekick. He believes that just because he’s Ben’s son and he’s ten years old, he should be allowed to have his own Omnitrix and go out and fight. I mean, really! It’s like if Batman’s kid said that he deserved to wear the cape just based on who his dad was—oh wait. Though, again, he’s a likable kid. He just fails to see that he really needs to earn his right to be a hero rather than expect to be given it on a silver platter, though he’s certainly willing to prove himself. He’s very intelligent, for one, and he’s smart enough to use Grey Matter to hack the Omnitrix and succeed. Sure, he can’t get it to the same level his dad’s is at now, but it is roughly on the same level of the Omnitrix in Alien Force, with transformations at his command, though like Ben goes through as an adult too, Ken seems to retain his injuries in human form.
Ken’s family is only explored up to the point of his father, his great-grandfather, his “Aunt Gwendolyn,” his dog, and his new adopted brother. There’s no mention of who his mother is, though supplemental trivia states it’s Kai Green. I’ve got to say, looking at Ken, Kai is the most likely candidate to be his mother, since his darker skin color is the only thing preventing him from being a total clone of his father at that age. Though if you want to make the case for, say, Elena Validus, go right ahead. I’m just going to go right ahead and say that Julie Yamamoto and Jennifer Nocturne are probably the least likely candidates in terms of phenotype to be his mom. Oddly enough, there is no mention of just what happened to his mom. This episode focuses heavily on the idea of fatherhood, so it ignores the idea of moms, given motherhood is a different kind of bond to explore. But I’ve got to say it is really weird that there’s no mention of her existing at all. I mean, they raise a big fuss about Ben needing to be at Ken’s party, and even Gwen phones it in to explain where she is, but there’s no mention whatsoever of why Ken’s mom isn’t there. Is she dead? Are she and Ben divorced and completely incapable of being in the same room together? Did she get sucked into a crack in time and totally get retconned from existence? Who knows? It’s really weird.
Ken is very straightforward and easy to understand, his issues out in the open and everything about him in the light. I’ve got to say, it’s kind of hard to analyze him that way. There’s nothing you really have to speculate about. He’s not a bland character, and he’s certainly not a bad character. He’s just very easy to understand, which paradoxically makes him difficult to play with. And apparently, I’m not the only one who thinks so, given that as of January 9, 2011, there are thirty fics in all ratings and languages on Fanfiction.net that focus on Ken (to Devlin’s forty-one), and twenty-four of those also focus on Devlin. In contrast, Devlin is very much a mystery, the yin to his friend and brother’s yang, his entire known history a combination of lies and misconceptions.
Superficially, Devlin is just as much of a clone of Kevin as Ken is a clone of Ben. He’s the talented, cocky kid that Tennyson meets when he’s in the mood to bitch about a male parental figure, definitely should not be trusted, and manages to share enough of his life in lies and half-truths to gain Tennyson’s trust. However, Devlin is both sane and a decent person. I’d have to say that the episode focuses as much on his character conflict as it does on Ben’s, as you watch him struggle to really fit in his role. As a character, Devlin is pretty much Chris Kent meets Prince Zuko, though I hope that unlike them, his mom wasn’t named Ursa. Like Chris, Devlin was born to a notorious criminal trapped in a pocket dimension prison, sent to Earth to help his father escape said prison (supplemental trivia says that Devlin was born on a Saturn space colony, but if someone wants to take the Chris Kent parallel and run with it and have it that he was born in the Null Void, please link me the fic. It sounds awesome), and he’s adopted by his biological father’s greatest enemy, who happens to be Earth’s greatest hero. And yes, since Chris debuted in 2006 while Devlin debuted in 2007, Devlin’s the ripoff. But like Zuko, Devlin is torn between his own innocence and good heart and having to fulfill the will of his cruel and abusive father. He then delivers an epic “Fuck you, old man,” and joins the good guys. Well, that settles that analysis. That was easy!
Okay, okay. The truth is that Devlin really comes across as an appealing character that his innocence conflicting with his duty and the dark Levin legacy really is compelling. Probably the biggest thing is that you watch him make one crucial mistake in trying to carry out Kevin’s plan: He lets himself care. He ends up really falling for Ken and really treasuring that friendship he builds, and this is the one thing that makes it impossible for him to obey his father. The kid is looking for family. Whatever happened, however he ended up where he was, it’s clear that Kevin was manipulating him to get him to set him free. He taught the boy to love him—presumably because Kevin himself had learned to hate his family, and since he ended up just abandoning them, he probably wanted Devlin’s love to make him loyal. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that when Kevin attacked him in the Null Void Chamber, that was the first time he’d ever laid a hand on his son. There’s no doubt about it; the way he manipulated Devlin and forced him to do things that were totally against his nature was most certainly abuse. But I think it was a very subtle kind of abuse—manipulation and holding love hostage. Given the awkward way he even says “Hello, son,” and the comments Devlin lets slip about how Kevin doesn’t trust him and how he probably just left him to come up with a plan on his own on how to get him out of the Null Void, Kevin wasn’t exactly the most affectionate father either. So, yeah. Would not be surprised if that vice-like grip that nearly broke the kid’s arm was the first hug he’d ever gotten. But judging by the traumatized look on Devlin’s face, Devlin had never seen that from him before. That was the moment when he realized, “My father is crazy and evil, and I don’t matter to him.” I’m going to say that Devlin’s greatest strength is Kevin’s greatest mistake: he showed him love. Yep, love—that amazing, transformative power that conquers all. It was false love, but he managed to teach the boy to love. Here is a line from Power Rangers in Space, when Darkonda expresses his doubt that Astronema—originally the Red Ranger’s sister, Karone, who was kidnapped and raised to be evil—would be able to remain loyal to the side of evil:
”I’m afraid that Ecliptor [Astronema’s guardian] has tarnished Astronema’s evil spirit. You see, he has shown her caring. Caring and evil do not mix! It could be an explosive combination!”
Without spoiling Astronema’s fate (she becomes the Pink Ranger next season), I have to say that this is the exact thing that happened to Devlin. Caring and evil proved to be an explosive and incompatible mix. All throughout the episode, you watch him struggling with torn loyalties. When Ken says that Ben doesn’t trust him, Devlin has this very real look of disappointment and sympathy on his face when he admits that his dad doesn’t trust him either. And he lets slip the whole “Dad locks me out” thing, which definitely gives the sense of “Oh, hey, this kid has some serious problems at home. I think his dad is an abusive prick.” He actually stays behind and looks at the statue of Ben while Ken flies off, and in this quiet moment in the art, you see him struggling with internal conflict. He’s created a real friendship with Ken, and now he has to choose between saving his dad and being loyal to his friend—either way, he’d betray someone he cares about deeply. It all really comes to a head in the Null Void Chamber. You see his torn loyalties big time when Kevin spots Ken. Devlin immediately starts trying to appeal to reason with his dad, saying they should get out of there so they don’t blow the whole escape plan, and that’s when Ken knows he can still reason with Devlin. When Ben takes that hit, Devlin interferes and again asks Kevin that they leave. It’s very clear that he doesn’t like what’s going on, that he won’t let his dad hit a man when he’s down. As he puts it, Kevin’s proven who the strongest really is, so there’s no point in fighting any more. Ben is down. He lost. He’s weak. Let’s go already. And when he apologizes to Ken, he says that it wasn’t supposed to turn out like this; the plan he’d come up with definitely hadn’t involved Kevin fighting the Tennysons to the death. He was far too innocent to know what was really going on, and his love for his father left him blind to the truth until it was too late. When his eyes were finally opened, Kevin had already permanently scarred him, making it impossible for Devlin to show him mercy. So, yeah. The kid really has a way of making you want to hug him and squeeze him into itty-bitty pieces.
*slap*
Sorry. Don’t know where that came from.
On the other side are their dads, and we see just who they could have grown up to be. Personality-wise, Ben is very similar to the teenager we see in the majority of Alien Force and Ultimate Alien later: strong, a bit of a dork, and dear god do not attack anyone he cares about because he will make you pay. Yes, “beware the nice ones” incarnate. Kevin is a total crazy-pants sociopath who manipulates his son into breaking him out of jail and then throws him aside when the kid doesn’t turn out to be a perfect little minion and has a mind and heart of his own that won’t let him stand by and watch Dad’s evil. Kevin rivals Ozai for father of the year, I swear. But again, I think he was more subtle about his abuse than anything. While we don’t see much of Kevin’s parenting style up to that point, we get the implication that he was the anti-Ben—distant, leaving it up to Devlin to figure things out on his own, and more interested in his own goals than his son’s welfare.
Ben, on the other hand, well… I don’t know if it’s because I’m an adult (or I pretend to be, at least), but I find it hard not to take his side throughout this episode. He comes off to me like he’s trying his hardest just to be a good dad—stressing about missing his kid’s birthday because of work, reluctant to involve his young son in a job where the bad guys have no qualms about hurting or killing little kids, wanting Ken to just be able to defend himself and learn later how to save the day and everything, and scared as hell that someone dangerous is going to hurt his kid. Overprotective? Maybe. But when you’re the equivalent of the entire Justice League, yeah, you’re going to be worried about your little boy wanting to be your sidekick. It kind of grates on me watching Max and Gwendolyn take Kenny’s side and insist that Ben needs to give Ken his freedom. Ben is forty-something years old. At ten years old, he really had to fight to maintain a painful balance in his childhood—he had to deal with trying to be a kid while having the weight of the world on his shoulders, or rather, his wrist. And he knows exactly what that stress led to—him losing his sense of humanity at thirty. He’s finally achieved that balance, and here everyone wants him to put his kid through it? That’s the sense I’m getting from it. And it gets much, much worse when you factor in his fear of Kevin. As I said before, he seems to consider Kevin as his most dangerous enemy, just as old Bruce in Batman Beyond regarded the Joker. I’ve purposely reviewed this episode, “Ben 10,000,” and “Kevin 11” as counterpoints and supplemental points to the character growth Ben and Kevin went through in season one of Ultimate Alien. In that season, we watched Ben and Kevin become two of the greatest heroes in the universe—and honestly, very much like the promise we see for Ken and Devlin at the end of this episode—and then we watch them at their worst. Ben begins to lose his temper and stops relying on his friends and family as he becomes more lethal in scope, going very Ben 10,000. Kevin, of course, loses his sanity and becomes very much like Kevin 11,000. However, just as Ken and Devlin defy the cycle that their fathers trapped them in, Ben and Kevin defy their destinies to become the most powerful and hated enemies the universe has ever known. But Ultimate Kevin 11’s deeds do give a sense of just what Kevin 11,000 might have done in the past that led Ben 10,000 to fear him so much. In Ultimate Alien, Kevin attacked his and Ben’s former students, draining their powers with intent to maim or kill. I can’t help but think that if you take that and add to it Our Family Memories from Return of the Joker, that’s the kind of thing that would result in the absolute horror on Ben’s face when he thinks Kevin’s back. ‘Cause what Joker did to Tim? Definitely a reason to keep Kenny away from a villain like that.
And now I have to address an issue that I really hate having to address: Devlin’s mother. Again, this episode was lousy on mothers. While we all know that in Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, Kevin and Gwen hook up, I’m going to shoot down the theory that Gwendolyn is Devlin’s mother. First, in Alien Force, Gwen didn’t enter a relationship with Kevin until she was sure he was a good guy. It’s a big deal for their characters, and Kevin himself admits that he likes being one of the good guys because he likes the fact that Gwen sees him as a hero. For Gwendolyn to hook up with someone who is blatantly evil, it seems pretty out of character. And if you’re going to argue rape, Kevin really doesn’t strike me as the type. I mean, it’s Ben he hates. He wants things personal between them. Gwen barely factors into the equation, and even if he tried to hurt her to hurt Ben, he’s more likely to go for maiming and killing. That’s the kind of stuff he likes. Second, even on the off-chance that Gwendolyn did for some reason fall in love with Kevin of her own free will, she would not give up on him. Or if she found out that he lied to her, she’d go after him with a vengeance. This girl is determined. Don’t believe me? Watch Ultimate Alien and watch her go toe-to-toe with her own cousin over his insistence on killing Kevin. Now imagine her turning that against Kevin, but without the whole worry about hurting him. Third, if she were Devlin’s mother, Devlin wouldn’t have ended up where he was. Why? It is wholly out of character that Gwendolyn would leave her son in the custody of his evil father, or out on the streets. Even if she didn’t keep him, she would have seen to it that he was taken care of, and she would have told somebody. Ben and Max would have known about Devlin, and the moment Ben saw him in the Null Void Chamber, he would have known that was his nephew and brought attention to it. You know, adding some Star Wars to the mix of pop culture references I already made here. So, yeah, Devlin would have already had that family he was looking for. And Gwendolyn would have dropped everything she was doing and gotten over there to hand Kevin his ass, because that’s how she rolls. Can it be done well? Probably. But it really has to be handled with care. And hopefully, that’s the last I’m going to say on that subject.
So there were three kids who came to Ken’s party—two aliens and a human, probably friends of his from school. And the human girl there looks oddly familiar. In fact, this is the exact same girl who appeared in the crowd in ”Ben 10,000”. Yes, there was some alien woman with a dog who also appeared in both episodes, but she was at least an adult. This is a ten-year-old girl. And she hasn’t aged in the past twelve years. I’ve seen speculation that this girl is Ken’s sister, drawing from the supplemental trivia that Kenny has a sister, who was somewhere with Mom off in that mysterious retconning time crack during the episode. But given that this girl is in the background of two episodes in two different points in time, I’ve got my own theory: she is the Ben 10 equivalent of Ryo Akiyama, the mysterious hero who appears in the background of the first and second seasons of Digimon and later ends up living in the alternate universe of season three after saving the world in the tie-in videogames only available in Japan. So I think that Rya here
The last of my notes focus on the art of this episode, which I have to say really impressed me. Storywise, this is already one of my favorite episodes, but it’s particularly good because you get the sense that the staff really worked hard on it. Sure, design-wise, it might not be that strong. The only way you can really tell Ken from a ten-year-old Ben is by skin color, so you wonder sometimes if maybe he’s a clone that escaped Cadmus. Devlin’s design sometimes grates on me with all of its oddly not kid-looking angles, though you definitely notice his facial features softening the more he joins the light side. And while Kevin 11,000 does look monstrous and satanic, he really only looks like he added maybe one or two new aliens to his arsenal instead of ten-thousand, given his brimstone turns black and he adds some tentacles. But there are some strengths too. Somehow, forty-something year old Ben is incredibly hot, and moreso than when he was thirty. Sure, when we first see the demorphed Ben at thirty, his hair is slicked back and looks terrible, but even when he’s got his hair windswept and he looks better, he doesn’t seem quite as attractive as the father with grey at his temples. Ben strikes me as being able to age like Harrison Ford, with the whole “65 is the new 30” deal. And going back to Devlin’s design, I think it might have actually inspired the artists for Ultimate Alien when it came to redesigning Kevin for the flashback in “…Nor Iron Bars a Cage.” Check out some of these facial expressions: Devlin, Kevin. The son becomes the father, and the father becomes the son. Given that Devlin had that whole woobie thing about him, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if the artists thought to base the new woobie version of Kevin off of him.
Aside from design, details and spectacle were great to see. Little things like taking note that Ken’s birthday candles number eleven: ten for his age and one to grow on. Or the fact that Ben wears a glove on his right hand since his Omnitrix covers his left hand, and he takes off the glove when he goes to bed. But then you’ve got these moments of emotion very powerfully portrayed just through the artwork. Like this moment I mentioned where Devlin looks at the statue of Ben—a very symbolic meeting place for him and Ken—as he begins to struggle with his torn loyalties. And this shot after Ben talks to Gwendolyn, where you can very clearly see the emotions on their faces: that Ben is second-guessing himself about raising Ken while Gwen is optimistic and knows that both Ben and Ken are going to do the right thing in the end. Given how much Ben 10 is about action and everything has to be going on loudly and explosively all the time, it is really nice to see that they can pull off these quiet, subtle things.
“Ken 10” was written by Greg Weisman. Charlie Schlatter played Devlin. Tara Strong played Ken.