Ben Tennyson (Classic)

Benjamin Kirby "Ben" Tennyson was a normal ten-year-old kid until he found the Omnitrix, a powerful watch-like device that allowed him to turn into ten different aliens. Though initially immature and clumsy, Ben grew to be a true hero. By the time he was sixteen, he had become famous in not only his hometown of Bellwood but on Earth and beyond. Ben has also been deputized by the Plumbers and gained more aliens as time progressed.

He is the main protagonist of the entire Ben 10 franchise.

Appearance
Ben's physical appearance has changed throughout the series from a ten-year-old to a sixteen-year-old. However, he retains some recurring characteristics. He has shaggy brown hair, green eyes, pale skin, and he's quite skinny for his age, though he shows a lot of muscle definition due to being athletic.

Regular Appearances
In the Omniverse flashbacks in which he was 5 years old, Ben wore green overalls with a white shirt underneath it. White numbers saying "5 1/2" were on a black square in front of his overalls.

In the original series and Omniverse flashbacks, Ben's usual clothes consisted of a black-striped, white shirt with short sleeves, military green cargo pants with side pockets, and black and white sneakers with black stripes. Ben wore the prototype Omnitrix on his left wrist.

In Alien Force and Ultimate Alien, Ben wore a black shirt, blue jeans and a green jacket with white stripes and the number 10 on it, and black and white Converse-style shoes. Ben wore the prototype Omnitrix in Alien Force and the Ultimatrix in Ultimate Alien on his left wrist.

In Ultimate Alien, he wore a standard Plumber suit during a few of his off-world excursions.

In Omniverse, Ben wears a black shirt that has a green stripe in the middle with a white 10 and green stripes on the sides of his shirt. He wears brown cargo pants with pockets at the knees and green and white shoes. He later gains a white hooded jacket with green stripes on both arms and a green number 10 on the right side for some time. He wears the Omnitrix on his left wrist.

In Omniverse, while riding the Tenn-Speed, he wears a white helmet with the number 10 on it, a green visor, a short-sleeved black T-shirt, long white pants and a belt with the number 10 on it.

Occasional Appearances
In The Unnaturals, he wore a blue baseball shirt with the letter "C" at the front and number 23 at the back, white shorts, blue and yellow socks, blue and white shoes, and a blue baseball helmet. Before the baseball game and after he battled the Squires and Coach Finn, he wore a blue and yellow baseball hat with the letter "C" in the middle.

During water-based activities in the original series, he wore a blue swimsuit in The Krakken and A Small Problem and a red and yellow swimsuit in Divided We Stand and Big Fat Alien Wedding.

In Big Fat Alien Wedding, during the wedding ceremony, he wore a purple tuxedo with a red ribbon and white polo shirt.

In Secret of the Omnitrix, he wore a light-blue pajamas. Later in the movie, he wore a spacesuit.

In Ben 10 Returns: Part 1 and War of the Worlds: Part 1, Ben's soccer clothes consisted of the T-shirt he wore as a 10/11 year old but with the number 10 at the back, a long-sleeved green undershirt, green shorts, gray gloves with black stripes, and knee-high socks.

In What Are Little Girls Made Of? and In Charm's Way, he wore green trunks.

In Fused and Revenge of the Swarm, Ben's sleeping clothes consisted of his usual black T-shirt and white shorts.

In Basic Training, while at the barracks in the Plumbers' Academy, he wore an olive tank top and black shorts.

In Inspector 13, he wore a green T-shirt and black shorts.

In Special Delivery, while working for Mr. Baumann, he wore a pink and white cap and a pink apron with a black 'B' on it.

Personality
Initially cocky, childish, and arrogant, Ben's immaturity and attention-seeking behavior often led him to joke around, regardless of the situation. His allies often criticized his attitude, unaware of the fact that he used humor to mask his fears. Despite some childish attitude, he was heroic, caring and generally good-natured, always willing to save others at any time. As seen in Heroes United, Ben seems to be oblivious to certain things, such as the fact that he was transported to another dimension, yet he thought he was still in his world.

Over the years, Ben has displayed good leadership skills, as well as the ability to adapt his attitude to a situation, becoming serious when it's called for. He became more mature, responsible and sensible. He's kind-hearted, willing to sacrifice even his own life for others. His idealistic views and unwillingness to compromise his values – aspects condemned by Azmuth, yet commended by others – sometimes drive him to act against reason, such as helping his enemies if they need it (most remarkably Vilgax). Professor Paradox has praised Ben's good nature, going so far as to say he had the gift to make the right choices at the right moments.

However, when Ben fails to save someone, or if someone gets hurt because of his failures, he becomes angry and much more violent. Perhaps the most notable of these instances is when Kevin willingly mutated himself to succeed where Ben had failed and stop Aggregor, Ben was set on killing Kevin, even fighting Gwen when she refused to help him. He also threatened to hunt down and destroy the Forever Knights once making Driscoll promise to cease the hunting of aliens.

Though often stated to be silly or unintelligent because of his immaturity, Ben is cunning and resourceful when needed, quickly adapting when the Omnitrix doesn't provide him with the alien he wanted.

Later on, Ben starts thinking of himself as more of a superhero than a Plumber, often remarking that he's not a cop, but a superhero. Although he once again became cocky, he retained his selfless and heroic nature.

Powers and Abilities
Ben has been trained in hand-to-hand combat by black belt Gwen, Max, as well as various years fighting aliens, and received a basic Plumber training. He proved to be quite skilled in basic hand-to-hand combat as well armed and unarmed combat, being able to easily dodge shots from Manny's blasters and proceed to disarm him while in human form. Ben was able to hold his own against Pierce, and Max hinted that Ben was a highly skilled fighter, even as a human. Another hint of his exceptional hand-to-hand skill is when he succeeded in the Plumbers' Academy with a 95 out of a 100. He is also a crafty fighter and actually uses freestyle fighting.

It's evident that Ben is smart in some respects, possessing an above average intelligence. Gwen even stated that he really isn't working up to his potential at school. He also has fairly moderate grades. Physics and Chemistry are his toughest subjects, yet he still maintains a B+ average.

Ben has an extraordinarily sharp memory, as he was perfectly capable of remembering and writing down the mystic rune-like symbols for entering the inter-dimensional realm of Ledgerdomain with just one glance from a distance. This is even more true for things that interest him.

Ben is also a cross dominant, skillfully wielding tools and weapons in either hand, in human or alien form.

Equipment
Ben is the wielder of the Omnitrix (formerly the Ultimatrix and first Omnitrix), which gave him the power to modify his own genetic code in order to turn into various alien creatures. Traditionally, he could only transform into ten aliens at the beginning of both the original series and Alien Force, but he later gains additional forms by either unlocking them or by scanning the DNA of aliens he meets.

When transforming into an alien, Ben gets all the creature's features, including its appearance, voice, all of its unique and special abilities and powers, strengths and weaknesses. Though he mostly retains his personality, there are some cases where the transformation causes a change in it, like with Rath and Juryrigg.

Though he usually uses his alien forms to fight, he can impersonate aliens as he did with Water Hazard to convince P'andor to go home, and though he was unsuccessful at convincing him, P'andor believed him to be Bivalvan.

In addition to transforming into aliens, the Ultimatrix included what is referred as an "evolutionary function", that allowed Ben to evolve his alien forms in order to get upgraded versions of them, referred to as Ultimate Forms.

In addition to the primary transformations and evolutionary function, the Omnitrixes and Ultimatrix can both be used for various purposes. Both have a built-in Universal Translator that allows Ben to communicate with most aliens that don't speak English.

The prototype Omnitrix displayed the ability to manipulate and repair genetic damage, a function he used to cure DNAliens and save the Highbreed from extinction. Azmuth also mentioned that Ben could use the prototype Omnitrix to bring back to life any species stored on Primus.

The Omnitrix also has a failsafe to help prevent Ben from dying. If Ben is in mortal danger and the Omnitrix is in recharge mode, it will automatically go into active mode.

Weaknesses
Whenever the Omnitrix times out, Ben is left powerless until he either dodges or switches to a new alien form. In addition to gaining the selected alien's powers and strengths, he gains its weaknesses. Additionally, at times the natural biological behavior of certain aliens can override Ben's behavior, such as Big Chill's reproductive phase or Swampfire's blossoming process. Furthermore, any illness Ben is experiencing in his human form will also affect his alien forms.

Whenever Ben unlocks a new alien form, he is at a disadvantage of not knowing its abilities and weaknesses until he gains experience with using the new alien.

Despite his experience in using the Omnitrixes and Ultimatrix, Ben still does not know every function of them. Due to his inquisitive nature and impatience, he has accidentally unlocked new functions such as the Master Control and the randomizer, which can at times do more harm than good.

Though the current Omnitrix is designed to work only for him, Ben still has not mastered it. According to Azmuth, Ben may get the Master Control on his 18th birthday.

The Omnitrix does not actually mistransform, but rather it is due to Ben hitting the Omnitrix too hard, thereby causing the time-out function to select another alien at random.

Ben has an allergy to peanuts and has a fear of peacocks. He also has coulrophobia, the fear of clowns.

Ben's left eye twitches whenever he tells a lie, but only Kevin appears to notice this.

Ben appears to have a short attention span at times, and more often than not it can get him into trouble.

Though he has matured substantially since receiving the original Omnitrix, he is still a teenager with much to learn and is prone to irrational impulses and recklessness.

Episodes
Ben has been in every episode, movie and short except of the what if episodes, Gwen 10, Goodbye and Good Riddance and Ben 10: Race Against Time, which feature Ben from alternate timelines. Here's a list of all his appearances throughout the series.