A New Era of Ben 10 Begins, With Exciting Details

4 days ago 8

Ben 10 with his alien forms in the background

A whole new era of Ben 10 is just around the corner, and it might be the best thing fans have seen since the original series premiered.

Per a press release from Dynamite Entertainment, a whole new Ben 10 comic book series is set to reintroduce the franchise like never before. Original co-creator and Man of Action co-founder Joe Casey is set to write the new Ben 10 series, which will be illustrated by Outsiders and Jennifer Blood artist Robert Carey. The upcoming Ben 10 comic book series is set to take a more action-forward approach to its storytelling than past franchise entries, and will offer the titular hero an updated origin story before the wider Ben 10 mythos is expanded upon and refined, as the press release notes, "honing it down to its most perfect presentation" in a manner that Marvel and DC Comics fans are all-too familiar with already.

"Ben 10 is obviously very close to our hearts, and has been for the last 20 years," said writer and co-creator Joe Casey in a statement. "So we're psyched to finally present a vision of Ben and his mythology in the manner and format that we've always wanted to see. This is basically a straight-up superhero comic that's going to compete with every major series out there. This is Ultimate or Absolute Ben 10. We guarantee, this is the best that Ben 10 has ever been."

Created by Man of Action for Cartoon Network, Ben 10 premiered back in 2005 and immediately established itself as the then-latest hit animated sci-fi superhero series. Ben 10 follows the young Ben Tennyson, whose cross-country summer road trip with his cousin Gwen and grandfather Max leads the former to inadvertently recover the fabled Omnitrix. With this alien device, Ben is able to temporarily transform himself into a variety of different alien species, all with their own unique powers and abilities. As the series unfolds, it becomes clear that Ben isn't the only one with a vested interest in the Omnitrix, nor is he the only one in the universe who intends to use it for their own purposes.

The original Ben 10 series ran for 49 episodes across four seasons before being rebranded to Ben 10: Alien Force in 2008. The follow-up series ran for another 46 episodes across three seasons, all while setting up further sequel series down the line.

Following Alien Force was Ben 10: Ultimate Alien in 2010 and Ben 10: Omniverse in 2012, each adding 52 and 80 further episodes to the overarching Ben 10 story. In 2016, the franchise was rebooted with a new Ben 10 animated series, which failed to live up to its predecessors and received widely negative reviews from both critics and audiences. The series has also received three animated and two live-action feature films over the course of its run, albeit to wildly different degrees of success.