The television series Ben 10 has entered the animated universe with a bang and people are reacting to it in different ways. While some argue that one kid possessing near-invincibi-lity guarantees a ‘no-defeat’ situation, others adore the boy’s adventures.
For starters, Ben Tennyson (Ben 10) is a boy with a device on his wrist called the omnitrix. Alien in origin, this gadget helps him to transform into 10 possible creatures to take on vill-ainous monsters that happen to rampage the same territory he chooses to pass by.
Ben 10: Washington B.C. begins on a fiery note. A building has caught fire. Ben rescues a mother and son in the form of Heatblast, a Pyronite from the star Pyros. This avatar has the ability to go through fire. He manipulates it in such a way that mortals can be saved from getting burned. Ben discovers that the boy he bailed out has a Gold Sumo Slammer card. This excites the hero because he had badly wanted it. However, the fire was a diversion created to ensure the success of another robbery. Ben immediately goes to do the needful and the day is saved.
Elsewhere, a sinister Dr Animo is hatching a plot, and to execute it, he first transforms a frog into its giant version using his invention — the transmodulator. The overgrown amphibian takes him to M-Mart to go to the next stage. There, he uses his transmodulator on pets: a hamster and a parrot to be precise. Their growth rate accelerates as well.
In the same superstore, Ben, his cousin sister Gwen and grandpa Max are shopping, and with Animo’s intrusion occurring there, it was obviously mandatory for the trio to intervene. There was a problem, though. Ben’s omnitrix was not functioning at the optimum level, implying that he could not transform into an alien to combat the robber.
As for the villain: he was a scient-ist committed to his research in veterinary science, and was denied the Verities Award, which had subsequently led him to become a villain. This parallels Ben’s own obsession to get the Gold Sumo Slammer card.
Things then get weirder for the heroes as they trace Dr Animo to the Natural History Museum, where they encounter him again. This time, the antagonist has a lot more to offer as far as challenges are concerned. Whether Ben’s omnitrix will help him out of this jam remains to be seen.
Fans of Ben 10 need not use any imagination to think whether the print version will be any different from the televised one. It isn’t. In some ways it might reinforce a reader’s nostalgia. In other cases, it may make a person say, “So what else is new?” The artwork has the same look and feel of the series itself, and the narration must have been written to accommodate the sensibilities of a child, or someone familiar with the old school of comics. Yes, additional literature describing the character’s actions is present.
Reverting to the concept put forward by Duncan Rouleau, Joe Casey, Joe Kelly and Steven T Seagle that a boy has the power to overcome others with his wristwatch-like omnitrix, one may wonder whether it is somehow reminiscent of Harry Potter and his magic wand, although Potter has not really come into the television medium. The only difference is that Ben 10 is based on science fiction and the other on witchcraft.
There are voices that say the new-age fant-asy stories of characters like Ben 10 and Harry Potter are quite dark for children. Young protagonists may know how to use their abilities to benefit humanity, and if they do not, they will at least learn the importance of helping others the hard way. Ben 10 may be just the beginning of a new wave of ‘child-empowerment literature’.
— Nithin blogs at www.atlasreborn.blogspot.com