Ben 10 #1 Review
As soon as the Ben 10 comic was announced, I was completely on board. It was described as a retelling of the Ben 10 animated series with some elements of darker comics like the current Absolute Universe from DC Comics. Ben 10 was one of the formative cartoons for me as a child. I watched the original show, Alien Force, and Ultimate Alien plus all of the movies and crossovers with other shows on Cartoon Network. I had the action figures and had my very own Omnitrix. This series feels like it was made for people my age. Ben 10 helped pioneer my love for both superheroes and science-fiction. Ben 10 and the world he lived always felt like it could easily slip into the DC comics continuum. The villains and locations always very much felt DC adjacent to start with and the grander story at hand felt like it was similar to DC’s cosmic story telling. Or maybe it was just that it premiered on the same channel as Batman: The Brave and the Bold and Young Justice. Either way when I heard Dynamite and the original creators of the series were going to be doing a grown-up, dark retelling I knew I had to get my hands on this book.
This run is helmed by Man of Action (Joe Casey, Steven T. Seals, Joe Kelly, and Duncan Rouleau), who produced the original show. The script is by Joe Casey, art by Robert Casey, colors by Ren Spiller, and is elettered by Taylor Esposito.
This first issue does a good job of balancing the nostalgia and the newer elements. It starts almost exactly where the pilot of the original TV series did, with Ben, his cousin Gwen, and their Grandpa Max at the beginning of a summer long road trip. They’re stopped at a camp site for the night. Gwen and Ben are arguing like kids do. Ben storms off into the woods by himself to blow off steam and at that moment the Omnitrix crash lands in the forest. For those unfamiliar the onmitrix is an alien watch coded with the DNA of different alien species that allows the wearer to temporarily transform into said aliens. When the Omnitrix lands in the forest, Ben is the first one to get to the crash site and it attaches itself to his arm. The Military is not far behind as they were tracking the object heading toward Earth. Ben, while hiding, attracts the attention of a cybernetically enhanced bear. The watch presents its ability to Ben and he transforms into a large red alien with four arms, known in the show as “Four Arms.” Ben uses the alien enhanced strength and size to take on the bear. Once his transformation times out, Ben tries transforming again, this time into an alien composed of magma and black stone-like armor pieces known as “Heat Blast.” All the while, Ben’s Grandpa Max is trying to find him. This pretty much wraps up Ben’s story in the first issue but they do leave you with a cliffhanger introducing the series main villain, Villgax, who is hunting for the Omnitrix.
The first issue is a great jumping on point and leaves me really looking forward to the series to come. This first issue covers about half of the pilot of the original series. The most major differences to start off with are immediately the tone and style. The tone, while still light is definitely different from its predecessor; it’s very clearly setting a precedent that this series will be more serious. The best indication of this is the alien names. Ben transforms into the aliens who were known as Four Arms and Heat Blast in the show but in the book the names are used more as references to the characters or the destruction they leave behind, which I found to be quite clever. The original cartoon would feature Ben’s transformations being very simple and fast and then he would give a heroic pose and bellow the name of whomever he’d turned into. Here his transformations feel much more visceral, and, while still quick, they look much more like body horror.
The biggest difference is in some of the redesigns that come along with this book. Ben’s Omnitrix looks much less like a watch and more like a technological organism that is attached to his wrist. Some of the characters have also been given redesigns. As previously mentioned Ben used two Aliens in this first issue, Four Arms and Heat Blast. Four Arms looks very similar to his cartoon counterpart with just an upgraded and more sophisticated design but no major differences. While Heat Blast looks entirely different from his cartoon version. His new look is more like lava and flames contained in armor, not a bad change at all, just a big one compared to others I’ve seen in concept art and preview panels from the creative team on social media. Vilgax also gets some changes in his appearance but is the first character to truly remind me of the Absolute Universe. Vilgax looks more pieced together and beat up than his previous looks. It’s a design that to me is akin to the new Brainiac design from Absolute Superman. These redesigns are a great indicator for what the book has in store. The show has some really good designs for heroes and villains alike that I think will translate really well in this style. Ghost Freak for example is already a quite creepy character and could really be scary in this new run. The one change that I don’t particularly love is in Grandpa Max. Like many of my favorite plus-sized celebrities he seems to have been bitten by the GLP-1 bug. Grandpa Max is no longer that big friendly guy I’m used to from the show but seems a little more agile. I’m sure this will serve the story but it just wasn’t my favorite change. That being said he still rocks his classic red Hawaiian shirt.
This first issue was a solid read but did leave a little to be desired. I think it’s simply because of how much potential I see this book having. I know some of the crazy things that cartoon did and I’m curious to see if or how this book approaches or changes them. I have characters from the show whose debut in the comics I’m highly anticipating. Gwen in particular has a huge role in the show and is barely in this first issue. There is just so much for this book to explore that I felt the first issue was too short but left me wanting a bit more from it. Issue 2 comes out June 3rd and I plan to read it as soon as possible. Until this I’ll be continuing my rewatch of the TV series.
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