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Fans: "Why does Kevin's story have a bunch of inconsistencies?" Kuro: *gives a 20+ minute explanation about the writings of the various shows to explain things.* Chadzmuth: "Celestial sapiens change the universe all the time..."
@@Adventist1997 Great way to allow the infinite impossibility of things to happen. As nothing is concrete and can *warp* from its original trajectory leading the Celestial sapiens meaning to the explanation of causality the order to chaos.
@@kanemccarthy1979 I tought of him in the original show as that typical street kid with a darker taste. In UAF he looks way more 'clean' if you understand, even with nicely made hair and clothes. I think his longer hair fits in Omniverse, but why is he wearing eyeliner?!
I think the most annoying part about the retcon is that it serves no purpose to the actual story. They never do anything with the fact that Kevin is a mutant, and the rooter storyline would've worked justas well with Kevin's alien origins. All this retcon does is undo some of the work that the uaf crew did for this franchise and introduce several plot holes
I know right?? Kevin staying as an Osmosian would have been fine. everything would still work out. In fact, Devin being a plumber osmosian should have been the reason why Servantis even got a hold of Kevin, because he had information on him.
Like the UAF crew did with Eon in Ben 10,000 Returns? Oh yeah, i forgot the UAF crew could do anything without being criticized. Silly little me trying to treat all shows equally...
To be fair, it does gloss over how some of these hybrids came to be. I don’t care if an alien love a human, how does a Pyronite create a child with a human?! They are literal open flames!
@@parry3439 whoa whoa let's not get hypocritical here and act as if UAF was so original and faithful to the original series. UAF RETCONNED KEVIN FIRST. Let's not forget that
My biggest issue with Omniverse is how much it goes out of its way to be a Ben 10,000 prequel rather than having its own identity. Retconing things that happened so that they can line up more with those two Ben 10,000 episodes despite how little sense it makes. They even say that our Kevin ends up as Kevin 11,000 which just muddies up Kevin and Gwen’s relationship hard, also forcing Ben to get together with Kai
@@purpleclaws202 OS might be a great series but that doesn't mean that all of its lore was great, it's world building was very inconsistent. UAF not being great is subjective.
@@purpleclaws202 The comment has no actual components of an argue. It's just an assertion of a bunch of subjective information. You don't have to like UAF but just coming in and saying "I don't like UAF" doesn't add anything to the conversation.
as someone who frequently submitted questions to him back in the day, derrick was responsible for pretty much all the omniverse retcons. always bugged me
@@purpleclaws202 What were all of UAF's retcons? Like Kuro said, just because something was originally intended, doesn't make it canon if a different development happens. Like Kevin being an alien wasn't a retcon, it was a further development of his mostly non-existent history.
@@ravio5868 Gwen being an alien, the plumbers being of galactic origin and Eon being an alternate Ben are all retcons made by UAF as they directly contradict what was shown in the original series
@@red20753 The other two I’ll grant you, but Gwen being an alien isn’t a retcon, it’s directly addressed within the show. Nothing is removed from her backstory without explanation. If anything, the unaddressed reinstatement of magic as the status quo in season 3 is more of a retcon than Gwen being an alien. That’s the same “evolution” aspect as Kevin’s story in UAF, not a retcon.
The biggest problem is that there was no need to make Kevin a mutant in OV. Literally nothing changes if Kevin is half-osmosian and Servantis decides to use him because of his alien DNA.
@@anotherpawn , Ben and Gwen are both part Anodite in the retcon of UAF, so according to you line of reasoning supporting the UAF retcon for Kevin being an Alien Hybrid then you can easily use your same line of reasoning to justify that nothing would change in the lore of Ben 10 if he used the exact same powers as his cousin Gwen because they share almost the identical DNA traits of one another.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr Grammarly, my friend. Grammarly. The lore literally says that you have to have "the spark" to use your powers. Gwen's father isn't an antodite despite also having that DNA.
@@anotherpawn I do remember Ultimate Ben 10 000(no longer part of the main timeline) using magic(he said future Gwen taught him). Plus their grandma also didn't notice Gwen's spark(she checked all her grandchildren when they were born). So maybe Ben's spark was so miniscule that it didn't develop(or even noticeable) until his 30s. This detail wouldn't affect anything since 99% of the story is about young Ben not 30s Ben
I think the only retcon that was made in UAF regarding Kevin was his father working with Max and Max, even promising to help Devin's son, didn't help and still trapped him in the Null Void without any kind of remorse. Even so, his father could still be a false memory without Kevin ceasing to be Osmosian.
I like Kevin’s UAF origin better, the only problem I have with it is that it makes no sense to why Max never tried to talk to Kevin in any of his appearances from the classic series (minus the time where he was unconscious at the beginning of Grudge Match) or tell Ben to reason with him more since he was suppose to be Devin’s son, even though I know his backstory was suppose to be ambiguous in the classic series.
Yeah that Is a legit criticism - though in my opinion hardly worth retconning the entire thing. Personally my best guess is that Max didn't recognize him back then, since technically he was without his parents and his family name never was mentioned. But I acknowledge this is far-stretched at best.
@@horse14tI respectfully disagree. Persay my good friend asked me to be their kid's godparent, I'd be honored and dutiful. Max is a chivalrous man so he'd definitely do it, but I genuinely believe nobody thought of the idea of Max having a friendship with Kevin's father because both were plumbers (note: I say the idea, as in by 2005
While I certainly enjoyed the Servantis story in Omniverse, I would have preferred if they had kept Kevin's backstory from UAF intact. While it was a little convenient that Kevin's father was partners with Max I still felt like he was pretty much Kevin's Uncle Ben in a way. I also prefer the concept of Osmosians as aliens.
I liked the Servantis story in Omniverse, but it's hard for me to get that Osmosians don't exist when in UA, it was mentioned and treated like it was a real thing.
The weirdest thing is you could remove all the stuff that retcons Kevin as a mutant and you could keep the arc mostly the same. It's nearly entirely removable as far as i can recall.
@@phantom-X2086 iirc there was supposed to be a scene with aggregor coming to kevin and explaining that those were false memories implanted in him, but in that case i really want to know what planet he intended to travel to when he set a course for osmos
Some extra info: The OV crew (and Derrick J.) also wanted to change Kevin's powers because they found it boring how UAF tied everything tied back to aliens instead of keeping powers unique. They also rarely intentionally ignored pop-up trivia; DJW actually tried to get a list of all those facts, but since many of those are lost media (like the Bazel statement), they had to rely mostly on memory, peoples' word, or like Rob said- the wiki. They were plans to address Aggregor in "The Rooters of All Evil". Originally, he would have been the one trying to track down Kevin, and would have revealed their true origins. He was going to be an attempt by Servantis to re-create Kevin's powers through cloning, and he was seeking Kevin's help as his genetics were breaking down, possibly dying and melting into "ooze" at the end of the episode. He was scrapped from the plot, as the Ben 10 team weren't keen on another big Aggregor story so soon after the first. DJW had also tried to explain some weirdness through writer's statements, although these answers might just be last-minute fixes. The OV crew considered Ragnarak for the Rooters and "definitely" a part of their conspiracy, but they had no solid plans for him. Kevin's Father was "some abusive bum", and is part of the reason Kevin ran away from home as a kid. He grew up poor and mistreated, and his and his Mom's memories of Devln Levin were implanted by Servantis. Unfortunately, how Paradox, Azmuth, Kwarrel, or others knew of Osmos V or its people when neither actually exist was never explained.
Mhm... these are actually interesting facts, particularly regarding the pop-up trivia. Kinda glad they didn't go for that for Aggregor, though, because I friggin' hate this explanation. I don't know why, but the idea that this scary near-unstoppable villain who almost became a god was just a failed experiment from the Rooters all along feel.... I don't know, it's kinda like the Xenomorphs being made a creation of David in Covenant, it ruins the mystic.
@@Theokal3 Maybe it could have been better if it was like that by design for Aggregor to be like that, like he had accelerated aging and thus would have a really short life, explaining too why he wanted to be a celestialsapien so bad to live longer
Using the pop-up trivia as concrete canon isn't much better than using a wiki. If what the pop-up trivia says isn't backed up in the show itself, there's no more reason to treat it as canon than there is to treat internal writer headcanons that are never revealed to the public as canon.
I think it's kind of interesting how fan edits to the wiki became canon, like Dr Animo's middle name or Anur Vladius. Kinda makes me wish they did fan votes to create characters, like transformers did with Windblade
Imagine some little kid gaslighting an official show's production team into thinking they wrote something they didn't years after the fan edit was made.
It really caused me an emotional damage as a kid that Kevin's father story was just a mind manipulation... but they would kept this with servantis.....but it also causes a question that how the hell servantis know that Ragnarok killed Devin levin?
As I recall, the the question of Ragnarok was asked to Derrick J. Wyatt. The response being that Ragnarok was actually part of the Rooter conspiracy. Also technically Ragnarok didn't kill Devin Levin, because as part of the retcon, Devin didn't exist.
The final question should be more like, how Ragnarok even knew about Devin Levin in first place? As he was only a fake memory implanted in Grandpa Max, Kevin and possibly his mother. Though that as Ender mentioned, this could implies that Ragnarok was involved with the Roots. Yet, Servantis never mentioned nor talks about Ragnarok, leaving the aspects, objectives and reasons of Ragnarok as part of this conspiration like a mystery.
@@Master-Works Perhaps. Yet, we can't be completely sure about the exact role of Ragnarok in the Roots, as Servantis don't even mentioned him. I mean, Ragnarok was a lieutenant of Servantis that knew several details about the plans of the organization, or he was another brainwashed amalgam kid, like the Plumbet helpers, that though that was a criminal and the murderer of Devin Levin? Making that the Rooter arc ended leaving several doubts and plotholes, regarding some aspects of the continuity and some characters, like Ragnarok.
There is also something with "cyclical sourcing". Where someone makes something up, writes it on a Wikia, and then someone else quotes it on a blog. That blog then gets added to the sources of the wikia and then gets cited again and again, making it impossible to figure out where the information originally came from.
@@Master-Works Okay, sorry for assuming you didn't like it, but why are you saying this in the first place? Your original reply doesn't seem particularly relevant?
@Caitlyn Carvalho so that what it's called When l tried to rewatch TMNT 03 it kinda was the same type of every episode has some random supernatural or technobabble shit happening judt because
They should have just combined the Mutant and Alien aspects of Osmosians into one by saying Osmosians are both genetically modified/ mutated humans experimented on by Servantis and clones who were just dumped on a random planet. I know this sounds too goofy but meh Ben 10 has gotten away with goofy stuff before
Yeah it's crazy that everyone tripped so much that they mistakenly believe an entire species existed while it wasn't. It's much better to have them been experiments too, asmuth has already done this a few times
So they're kind of like Ben 10's version of Marvel's Inhumans or Eternals; mutants created through alien experimentation that created their own civilizations.
I have to agree with what you said about the Rooters arc, in that I do really enjoy a lot of concepts from it. Like the Plumbers having a Black Ops team, Servantis's motives that bring up an interesting discussion regarding Ben and the watch, and even letting the Plumber Kids have another chance to shine, and interact with Kevin. The problem comes when writing a story for your audience, the story should feel like a natural progression in this world we watch, to not make it feel like there's a bunch of writers in the background obviously puppeting the characters. When you break the illusion of the world you're watching and use it as a means to state "Look at this, my idea is better" then your story falls flat and can take people out of the experience. There's a lot this story arc had to offer, and it's a shame it went down the path it did.
I would say both. Born half alien half human = mutant. If we’re looking at cartoon/comic logic(X-men being the main view point.) him being born with powers make him a mutant with a alien/human heritage. But that’s how I look at it.
Honestly the origin of Kevin powers is the same as the way Stan Lee come up with the X-Men, they just born with powers since they didn't want to come up with a more complicated origin
X-Men doesn't even work like that. You have to be born with a specific gene to be considered a mutant. If you're half-human half-alien you're just considered a hybrid. Or colloquially referred to as a human depending on their own personal views.
Personally I wouldn't have scratched off the classic series completely. You can pretty solidly conclude from his family not wanting a freak for a son strongly leads towards a mutant origin with normal human parents. If he were half alien his parents or at least one of them wouldn't have been freaked out.
Lets keep in mind that, the people behind Omniverse took any and ALL cannon from the original series very fucking seriously. That is why Ben and Kai become a thing in Omniverse, cause one little info thingy popped up on screen for 5 seconds saying they were a couple in the future. That is one of the reasons Jullie got fucked over, so badly.
They could've had the best of both worlds. Osmosians could've been human mutants that left Earth a long, long, long, long time ago in space stations built by a technology based Osmosian. Devin could have been someone who left, maybe became a bounty hunter, and was killed by Ragnarok and Max could've still had his memory rewritten to make him think that Devin was a Plumber and his partner. It's still not a perfect retcon but it would've been neat.
@@purpleclaws202Kevin being an Osmosian is something that was explained in Classic. He had no origin in Classic, unfortunately some details do make certain events weird in retrospect, like Kevin's father being one of Max's old partners and Ragnarok and Aggregor's entire existence. Derrick J. Wyatt and the Omniverse writers realized this and tried to course correct but went too far by entirely erasing everything about Osmosians making the entire first half of Ultimate Alien obsolete.
So let me get this straight; In the Classic Series, Kevin had no backstory, intended it to be vague and possibly explored in the future. All the merchandise labelled him a human except one card that labelled him as a human mutant. Then UAF gave Kevin a backstory of being a member of the alien species, Osmosian. Which the Classic development team approved it. Then the development team behind Omniverse hated UAF so much that they wanted it to be more like Classic so they used the Ben 10 fan-wiki which may include some false information and they found the card that labelled Kevin as a human mutant therefore they believed the Classic development team wanted Kevin to be a human mutant so they retconned it in the series. Without knowing that's false information.
Yeah basically I don't think the Ben 10 Wiki had Kevin labeled as a mutant at that point and time though, I could be mistaken but I don't remember that when I was on the Wiki in 2013-2014 So it likely did just come from Derrick remembering that single card and just various chatter about it, and misrembering the narrative that it was always intended for Kevin to be a mutant The Ben 10 Wiki had (and still has to a certain extent) a lot of misinformation and lore details that were canonized either through an OV writer not knowing, not caring, or just thinking it was a good idea
Hey bud misinformation there. Classic team didn't approve of a lot of the UAF changes. And his backstory wasn't vague or anything it was pretty damn obvious that mutants existed on Earth with other characters later on. Don't shit on OV while being hypocritical about UAF
I consider the Kevin's UA story canon and I think Servantis put false memories to make them think that the original memories were fake. It means Max Tennyson did had a partner named Devin Levin but Servantis made him think that he never had a partner named Devin. This way, both will make sense.
This is the consequence of procrastinating a show. I'm here watching a ben 10 video and suddenly I get a spoiler from breaking bad. That came OUT OF NOWHERE.
Just three facts that fans should keep in mind: The original creators just whanted a nemesis for Ben with his same powers, but decided that instead of giving him his own Omnitrix (idea that they reuse in the reboot) he was going to absorve the power with a touch, and for the origin of his powers they pulled a Stan Lee and said that he was born with them, him being a mutant was just implied at most, so they where super vague with the origin of his power just like they where witch Gwen powers or the plumbers or the omnitrix, etc. UAF definitively retcons OS Kevin backstory (and Gwen's, the plumber's, the omnitrix, etc) and it does creates plot holes, the only reason that is less of a mess in comparison with the Rooters arc is that there is less to retcon after all Kevin only shows up in 4 episodes and his backstory consist in two or trhee lines of dialoge, compared with several episodes triying to explain Osmosians an Kevin past in UAF, so when omniverse change the origin of Osmosians from aliens to mutants it creates much more of a mess. The crew from Omniverse didn't have some nefarious agenda to get rid of what UAF did or where forced by Cartoon Network to retcon the characters, the truth is that just like Alien force before them they have their own ideas of where the show should go, so they keep the tings they like and change the ones they didn't, Derrick was very vocal about wich parts of the lore he enjoy and which ones he don't, but even with all his influence he was just a member of an entire crew.
@@enter-clever-name Disliking the changes that were made or how they did it is fine, but some fans act like if Derrick himself was changing stuff around all willy nilly, not realising that even if he propose the changes there where a staff of writers, story editors, show runners, producers, network people, censors, etc, that have to give it the OK before the episode could be made, or that the same applied to Alien Force when Dwayne was in charge, even a easter egg that some board artist put in a scene have to be agreed by the people in charge (or atleas pass unoticed by everybody).
As far as retcons go, the UAF one was very minor to the point that it barely counts as one. There was just so little of Kevin’s backstory and of what was revealed, wasn’t too difficult to complement and what ‘inconsistency’ there was, they eventually fixed in Ultimate Alien The Omniverse retcon simply went way too far and lacked any course correction or consistency, regardless of behind the scenes intentions, all of this ends up chucking aside all the UAF work (regardless of behind the scenes intentions).
@@901Sherman it only really counts as a retcon because if Max knew about Kevin and his dad, he should've recognized him. He also wouldn't be ok with sending his friend's son, who was living in the streets, to the null void or at least he would be troubled by it.
As someone who is big into comics and the storytelling that comes with that, Kevin really reads like a classic case of all the writers for Ben 10 having very different interpretations of the franchise and how things should be written. I will freely admit that at first I wasn't really on board with making Kevin an alien, but it grew on me over time. Getting those flashback episodes really helped. Retcons aren't necessarily a bad thing if you can tell a good story. Even the Rooters isn't a terrible retcon in a vacuum. What is frustrating is the consistency of the retcons and the retconning of other retcons.
UA is guilty of this too with the forever knights getting retconned from AF as well certain family members of the tennysons and Kevin's parents. It's all strange.
14:39 I can see the intent in that response. The classic series had a blend of supernatural and extraterrestrial themes to it. Between stuff like the Omnitrix, magic being real, and just plain old super human and supernatural abilities. Alien Force and UAF leaned very heavily into "everything is extraterrestrial in origin." so Omniverse reining things in to be closer in theming to the original series is honestly a solid reasoning. It's basically saying "We don't want everything to be the result of aliens." and if they had of lead with that as an explanation, then I think people would have been more accepting of it.
I mean, there's a reason why they were so quick to change Gwen's powers back to being magic-based literally one season after "revealing" that they're actually alien-based... Gwen & Kevin both got screwed by UAF's obsessive insistence that "literally everything is aliens, even when it doesn't make sense and/or contradicts what came before."
Thanks, man. I always couldn't understand this topic, and didn't have any motivation to study because I knew that there were so much details. But after your analysis, my understanding became stronger.
I always felt like the rooters arc and all the retcons were a result of Ben Re-creating the universe with Alien X. He obviously got a lot of things wrong when doing it, whether it was by Ben or the two other personalities, but from that point forward I think the origin was changed.
Given how much the original show featured mutants, and earthbound wonders, like magic and Santa's village, and energy vampire clowns, and geniuses who can build amazing technology, I think the assessment that making Kevin a mutant is more "classic" is a very valid one. And then when you consider how UAF retconned Gwen into being an alien, and Plumbers into being aliens, you start to notice a pattern. Now, I personally think Omniverse kinda fails at what it's set out to do, cause while it brings back a lot of classic concepts, it still relies mostly on aliens. There is no "Earth is a wonderful place full of aliens, conspiracies, mutants, underground societies, ancient gods and so on". It's all about space now. Edit: And acting like Duncan Roulou sees the UAF origin as an "evolution", not a retcon is disingenious, cause he'd probably say the same about the OV origin.
@@GreaterGrievobeast55 Yeah, Secret Saturdays is just like classic in that regard, they never go to space, all the cool, weird stuff is on Earth, even if it includes aliens. Finding an alien crash landed on Earth is cooler than a space alien society in some regards.
I really wish we had gotten the planned arc of Omniverse about Aggregor and his connection to the Rooters which could've explained a lot of things. Then again the only reason I heard about that was the Ben 10 Wiki so that information may be tenuous at best.
There was no such thing as "Omniverse arc about Aggregor", he was simply supposed to show up at the beginning of Rooters arc, to reveal that he was just an unstable clone of Kevin this whole time and then die, which honestly I am glad didn't happen
Yeah, to considers how much notable and important was Aggregor like a villain, they at least should included him in the Rooter arc and gives him an important role in this arc, than simply cut him by time constraints, leaving only a vague information about him in the wiki, implying that he was a defective clone of Kevin and that he will dies by some unstable genetic. To be honest, the Rooter arc would be good, if the producers won't be rushed to make it, as this ended leaving several plotholes and doubts in the continuity.
@@josecuestas7246 Well it could've been better if they would either spend some more time on establishing worldbuilding and showing how this revelation affected Kevin or if they just ditched the mutant retcon alltogether. Unfortunatelly they went with the worst possible option
Never watched the Rooters arc so maybe there’s something there that disproves this but I like to think that, after Aggregor’s whole “trying to absorb a god baby”, the Celestialsapiens just… erased the concept of Osmosians from existence and made them humans.
What bothers me about the retcon in Omniverse is the episode with Ragnarok. Basically, how does he know about Kevin's dad if the man didn't exist? How did Kevin actually have the key to the ship if his father wasn't a plumber? Why give Max the "false" memory of Devin and how did it reconcile with Kevin's original meeting? In the original there is that issue but you could say Max didn't think about Kevin at first or whatever. Max was always keeping secrets from the kids so that tracks. But the "false" memories don't track if Max was supposed to keep an eye on Kevin. Why bother with putting in a potential point of failure should he dig too deep?
There was always this one detail with Kevin’s backstory in AF that always bugged me, which is that Max was once partners with Kevin’s dad, which doesn’t make much sense if you consider Max’s personality and his (supposed) friendship with Devin, surely Max would have recognized Kevin was an osmosian to begin with in Kevin’s debut episode and would have likely recognized him as his former partner’s son
Oh simple really. Max knows another Devin who is a humonoid alien. He was the one who dies. Kevin who was under Servantis “care” didn’t have a backstory so Servantis lies to Kevin that Devin the alien osmosian was his dad. Later in his life, Kevin knew the truth that he has no father named Devin but he is ok with it knowing he had just avenge some kid’s life by murdering the guy who killed his dad.
@@KhanhNguyen-mh5ec that was never shown AT ALL not even implied. So you can't just say "well if you look here" no just admit that the UAF writers did just as bad of a job
@@purpleclaws202 just as you should say Derrick is as much of a hack writer on a show he’s an art director for. Face the music buddy, Derrick is a person and a person can make mistake
If going by UAF lore, Max could have not known that Devin have a son and just thought of Kevin as a random Osmosian. Grandpa Max knowing Kevin is an Osmosian have no impact on the original series since Ben already know what Kevin can do. It is in character that grandpa Max keeps things secret until it is necessary for them to be told.
The worst part about all of this is the fact that there are parts of the “implanted memories” aspect of the Rooters arc that make MORE sense in conjunction with the UAF backstory. Like, for example, Max not knowing who Kevin is at all during the classic series, but come Alien Force, apparently Kevin’s father was Max’s old partner all along. That, I WOULD say is a retcon, but rather than the retcon being “undone” by OV’s decision, it was expanded upon and actually became sensible rather than being swept under the rug entirely - even if the latter was the intention and not the former. What if the fabrication wasn’t Kevin’s father’s existence, but Max’s involvement? That would be a simple change that wouldn’t change much about the story, but would clean up so much around it.
Making it so that Max knew Kevin's father was objectively a mistake & makes Max look like *WAY* too much of a traitorous asshole than the writers likely intended, not to mention how much it completely contradicts everything related to Max & Kevin in the OS, so anything that undoes that nonsense is ultimately for the best in my book.
I have another idea Why don't think like this Kevin is a Mutant who have the power to absorb small energy, but at some point in early classic before meeting Ben, Kevin accidently absorbed a Osmosian from earth and gained his powers of absorbing more materials and minerals thus making him a Hybrid Alien/Mutant what Reboot did with him now is similar to this Mutant Alien/Hybrid, This way Kevin was accidently believed by others as Osmosian like Aggregor. After all we're humans mistakes can happen.
its sounds really funny that creators of the show relied on show's fan wiki as facts. imagine you type for accident something, and next day you watch episode and its canon
UAF even acknowledged the very little backstory we get of Kevin in the classic series during the Ultimate Kevin arc. In classic Kevin says he wasn’t with his family because they weren’t thrilled about having a ‘freak’ for a son. In UA when his stepdad confronts him, Kevin blames him for him being on the streets, saying that he convinced his mum to kick him out. His stepdad then tells Kevin that neither of them actually kicked him out but that he destroyed their house (which presumably prompted Kevin to leave). So UAF does actually follow classic canon by acknowledging what is said specifically in the show, whilst also developing story to it. Kevin was living on the streets at 11, like stated in classic, but it’s developed so that instead of actually being kicked out because of his powers he left himself because of something that his powers caused and he believed that his mum and step father resented him for.
The problem for me is that you can have the rooters story exactly the same with Kevin still being an alien. He doesn’t specifically need to be a mutant for the story to work
As always, wonderful video! I think there are some pros and cons to the Rooter arc. It would explain why Max was fine with Kevin being in the Null Void since Devin wasn't real.
As far as I got, the origin of Kevin's powers doesn't really affect anything about the rooters so they really changed it just for the sake of it. And it's not even a statement or an episode they are contradicting but half of UAF, this is insane
Here's a theory , after the aggregor arc , the celestosapians ( or just one of them ) were pissed and removed even the idea of osmosisians from existence.
Okay but the funniest thing is if you look at that card and say “if I had to describe an osmosian without saying osmosian what would I do?” I think that would be a good example. Like they didn’t have an example but they derived a fun aliens species from that description anyways. One with unstable genetic material and absorbs other things to form new identities and forms is a pretty dead on description. So even including that card, everything points to him being an osmosian. Just the fact some guy really interpreted that as “Hmm hes a mutant maybe? Why would there be aliens human hybrids” determined the whole lore of the guy. I love it.
I'm kinda surprise that you would touch on this subject. Thought you would do this during the Rooters' Arc on Omniverse Episodes. And I'll be honest. I prefer the UAF Kevin's background than just mutant and retcons. It gives us the reason why Kevin want to redeemed and deserve the second chance to become a hero, following his father's footstep, as well as moving away from the dark path he was supposed to take. There were many characters served as foils to heroes like Venom, Shadow the Hedgehog, Drift/Deadlock, Lor Zod, Megatron (No joke. IDW 2005 & Earthspark has the proof of it) and so on were supposed to be villains, but can become antiheroes or ally to heroes. And of course, we get to see that there were humans or humanoids from different planets like Kryptons, Saiyans, Time Lords (Doctor Who Franchise), Chronians and so on. To be frank, I've always doubt, skeptical and ignore any media (like comics and merchandise) connecting to TV Series or Movie because not one single of them ever mentioned or related to any media. Nothing is written in stone as they say.
Personally I prefer to call Kevin a Osmosian, making him an Alien, but he’s a mutant among Osmosians, which is why he has matter powers and is so much stronger then Aggregor and Ragnarok(that guy was an a osmosian right?)
I still subscribe to Mutant OS Kevin, because it's like Gwen's magic. Ben - alien, Kevin - mutant, Gwen - magic. All facets of their wider world of extraordinary things. UAF flattened this world out, making things that were not alien, now alien. Gwen doesn't do magic, she's just part alien and has energy powers despite the existence of Charmcaster and Hex. Though rather than recon that in Omniverse, UAF itself later came around and added magic back to her character. With Kevin, it doubled down on its interpretation of his powers and origin as alien and elaborated on it in ways the Servantis retcon "back" to mutation cannot truly roll back. Though I prefer mutant Kevin, they shouldn't have waited so long after such unretractable story beats to change their minds. Given how much the different series contradict each other, I consider them separate even if some are intended to be sequels to the other. In OS, it's undecided with a vague intention of mutation and it sways little else. No UAF concrete info to consider during the making OS, and given the remarks he makes about his family (them seemingly to suddenly see that he has powers and kicking him out, like an... unexpected mutation) so this is also why I still believe OS Kevin to be a mutant.
I didn't really like Servantis as a villain. His motivations didn't really make sense to me. And his plan was deeply flawed from the foundation. Having Kevin's powers create the Plumbers' kids made some sense, but there's really no reason to retcon his origin since whether he was mutant or Osmosian his powers remained the same.
Why can't we just call him both? His mother is human, he father was said to be alien, that makes him a hybrid and given his genetic abilities by definition a mutant!
Kevin said that his parents weren’t very thrilled about having a freak for a son. If he was an alien this wouldn’t really make any sense, since his dad would also be considered a freak to. Plus the word freak is usually used to describe mutants in the marvel universe. I’m not saying that the rooters retcon made any sense but I just want to add my two cents.
It’s admittedly been a long while since I watched Ben 10 (sometime in the early Omniverse days, as I HATED how regressed Ben’s character was, and not too fond of the art style at the time) so apologies if I’m missing anything. Kevin in the original Ben 10 series was a teen acting out. Ran away from home, issues with the law, a “devil may care” attitude, so classic teenage rebellion. With his real dad being gone since he was young, he probably had issues processing everything. His mom probably tried to help, but had trouble figuring out the best way. Along the way she meets someone and marries him, resulting in a still unstable Kevin sharing a house with a step-father he probably doesn’t want to know since he misses his real dad. I can imagine over the years, the family had a lot of conflicts which would cause Kevin’s powers to be unstable. His mom probably didn’t tell the new husband about Devin’s lineage, so when the guy assumed Kevin was a mutant, she either didn’t correct him or didn’t see it as being much of a difference terminology wise. Kevin’s behavior and powers probably caused issues and arguments, words were said in the heat of the moment, and that’s how “freak” was thrown at him, most likely by the step-dad, and thus it just made things worse. His mother either couldn’t get through to Kevin at the time, wasn’t around when the term was first said, or had gotten so frustrated herself that a small part of her agreed with the step-dad. With all this going on, Kevin runs away and internalizes the “freak” term and doesn’t think much beyond that. That’s my head-cannon at least. In UA and UAF, he does talk about his mom and seems to care about her, so I’m assuming after the Void stuff he reconnecting and calmed down a bit.
I've debated about how important canon is several times and this is one of those sticky situations. The rule I could generally get people to agree upon is after a certain point (in BEN 10 I'd say a season) only things that's make it into a summary are "Canon." However I do also mention that if the story is good people will be more accepting of retcons. Because when you watch a show you suspend your disbelief but when you retcon something you are asking the audience to suspend your disbelief again, and every time they suspend disbelief they are also suspending tension. Do it too much and the audience will drift away because there are no stakes anymore (after all things will just be retconned again) or things will change until they aren't what/why they started watching. Gwen and magic is a good example of how to do it, while they bounce back and forth between alien power and magic it largely doesn't contradict major plot points. Whether her powers come from magic or her alien DNA largely doesn't matter, it's the power and how she uses them that's the important parts. If not for the Greg/Andromeda story arc this wouldn't be an issue but it is a thing and definitely would've made it into a summary. If things have a good reason retcons can be fine but even after watching your episode it really seems like they didn't have a good reason aside from "Some one wanted to" which isn't a good reason in my opinion. It did annoy me but it was not enough to make me stop watching. Still enough straw can break a camel's back and this was a lot of straw.
As someone who grew up with ben 10 classic but liked ben 10 omniverse because i haven't seen this cartoon in ages and now hes an adult? Is what my 11 year old self say I'm now 16 and i still love omniverse and classic a lot Alien force too because ben returning and his mysterious watch reboot and change shape? Thats the coolest shit ever
Hmm I different video from the breakdowns I kinda like this I like to see kuro explore more stories and share he's opinions on something other than the breakdowns love you keep it up
I prefer the recon, as it has more of a pull for me, with AF and UA, Kevin being an alien didn't really feel right, him being a mutant feels more fitting with the character, And the whole "My father was a Plumber, but not just any Plumber, Max's Plumber partner", it was way to convenient and felt like the writers just needed to find a way to make someone explained the backstory so they just chose to make Max tell it. I don't care what everyone says, I think that OV did Kevin's story justice, with him learning that he's a sleeper agent, making him question if any of his choices were him or just programmed, joining the good guys, becoming Ben's friend and falling for Gwen, it makes for great moral conflict, especially this far into the series, for all of us who watched Kevin's journey to this point. Everyone can hate the recon all they want, but to me, this is a perfect closing point to Kevin's story.
in my head canon, its both. when Ben recreated the universe after it being destroyed, he got somethings wrong. couldn't it be argued that Ben just messed up his friends back-story sub-consiously? So originally, he was an Osmosian, and the planet existed. And when the universe was recreated, he became a mutant. any thoughts?
Ink: Can you say UAF Retconned Kevin to being a Mutant? Me: Yes, becuz they already Retconned Gwen to being a Alien and how her Magic worked. Hell, they Retconned HOW magic worked. Even making Gwen a Alien w 0 DNA so Ben couldn't change into a Anodite So yeah, Kevin was a Mutant, wrote as a Mutant but when they wanted to try and make everything connected to "It's all Aliens" they made him a Alien. I mean, they even Ben 10,000 EP already Retconning Kevin's History.
Not to mention classic is all against the idea of aliens looking exactly like humans. And even if you agree with kuro that Kevin's species wasn't retconed, his chatacter was. From evil because of his choices and he didn't want to be helped to car guy who can't be held accountable for his actions because the energy made him crazy.
@@erikpng Legit Loved Classic Kevin and having him be a Mutant works so much Better for the World of Ben10 as a Whole. Same with Gwen being a Witch and not a Alien. They literally made a World similar to Comic Books, filled with Mutants , Aliens and Magic and to just boil that all down too "Aliens Man" Was such a Dumb Move
@@9-bitfox not that I don't enjoy Kevin's character as a good guy but you can't deny his change was drastic. Yet Omniverse is the one that gets all the crap for trying to bridge the gap between the two characterizations. I like the Rooters arc. Kevin is the main focus of the story but Ben isn't sidelined. The villain is great, honestly. I love Servantis.
@@erikpng Omniverse and The reboot honestly sold me on the brother relationship between Ben and Kevin. Dine right it's really good. Still so damn jarring though, watching the first episode of UAF after Original and going "Aren't you supposed to be in the Null Void AND A BADGUY!?!
@@9-bitfox yeah, after finishing rewatching this video I agree with Kuro. Kinda tired of this discussion. I enjoy the Rooters arc and I don't mind the retcon, but I think it was a bit unnecessary because the story could still work around the alien origin, even tho I prefer it less. And we can all agree the plumber helpers were given a better origin. And again, Servantis is great.
privately, I think that Rooters Arc was heavily forced. Servantis appears out of nowhere and announces everything on the go without any introduction. His whole plan makes no sense. He creates these amalgams to get rid of Ben but abandons everything after the first failure (by the way, he's quite a genius for sending children to such work) he erases their memories and lets Ben go free even though he claims that he is dangerous and suddenly decides to renew after years plans. His later ones also don't make sense, he claims that he altered Kevin's memories to get closer to Ben but let him go into the Void himself, he wants to recruit the old unit even though they died when he was 10 years old, why would they now win against mines if he is definitely more powerful. Where did he get Jetray Woman and Furnace Man from anyway if he needed Kevin to create them. I also don't like that the plumber's helpers are just cannon fodder and the statement that humans and aliens can't interbreed when we have ester. The importance of their role in this story is best reflected in the scene where everyone gets hit by brainwashing lightning kevin is taken for negotiations. I also have to mention that Servantis as an amalgam doesn't make sense either. If it was supposed to be a secret project, how was he going to hide it by being part of it himself. I will add that since the Brainstorm species has the power to mip with the mind, neither Ben nor the Psychobos have demonstrated such a mip. It's as if they couldn't use the Amphibian race.
@@kermitgotthesickkicks4265 agree on some things, picking plot holes makes no sense, for example, where grandpa max has a projector of emptiness in a motorhome. but creating a whole complicated plot to retcon the character's genesis irritates me a lot. I would have handled this case differently, and probably the whole Omniverse, if those retconns had been better woven into the narrative. For example, if this arc had delved more into the way plumbers work and Serventis had a well laid out argument for his actions, I'd surely find it much better. PS what do you think I think Serventis will be Hybrid with Amphibian?
the thing is while i find the alien origin to be too generic, sort of a handwave and a brief "it was aliens" type of explanation where we don't get to actually see Osmos 5 or any of their history, i never liked the Rooters either explanation as it just comes from nowhere (also OV didn't focus on Kevin for most of its run so it feels especially random here). I like the idea of Kevin being a mutant as it sort of explains why ben never turned into an "osmosian" (because they're not a real species) and i like the idea of humans developing their own abilities. UAF had already made gwen into an alien so making kevin also an alien felt uninteresting.
So I just looked it up. Both Head writers Dwayne (Alien Force) and Derrick (Omniverse) died at 49. Bit spooky tbh. Like 9th symphony kinda of coincidence. Rest in peace for both of course, but still weird it happened twice.
Thank you for doing this video. Its one of those things that really divided the fan base and turned a lot away from Omniverse (that and the art style shift) so it's good to see it so well addressed in a video.
My theory about the "retcon" is that the guy known for lying and altering memories for his own personal gain, lied and altered memories for his own personal gain (controlling Kevin). No explanation for UAF's species retcon, tho. Y'know, changing Gwen's species, which kind of waters down her acomplishment of learning magic, as it turned it from learning something that only like, 0.0001% of her species could learn, and turned it into something every member of her species knew.
I didn't like that they made Kevin an alien, just felt like they were doing the same with magic, but after all they did with it in ua/af I wouldn't have tried to retcon it either. Seriously Kevin's dad could have also been a mutant and agregor could of been his uncle or something they didn't need to make a change for the story.
I wish they did one or two episodes where Kevin absorbed a alien of Ben 10 and worked together to fight the enemies, it would have been sick to see them working together
I think the one change I'd make to the Rooters arc is keep Kevin's alien origins and make it so Servantis was just gaslighting Kevin the whole time. The Helpers I can live with their origin, but I think if they showed that Osmos 5 did or didn't exist I'd have an easier time with the retcon. But thats just my thoughts, Servantis is stilla great villain and Charlie Adler nails his character, easily the best Omniverse villain besides Malware
Personally, I loved the concept of Kevin being half-alien and the possibility of meeting others of his kind that weren’t evil like Aggregor. Like what would a species that could absorb matter and energy, but looked similar to humanity have been like in Ben 10 is something I think would have been cool to explore.
Idk, maybe a compromise could have been Osmosians could always absorb materials and Kevin and a few others were rare mutants that could absorb anything, even energy.
When Kwarrel was a introduced, it can still be cannon in both Ultimate Alien and Omniverse. They never said he knew the species that Kevin was. Just helped him control his power and find an alternative. Plus when Kevin escapes the prison that was when the Rooters came. What never felt right to me was when they first introduced Alan in alien force. Before the retcon, his father was supposedly a pyronite. Which are plasma based lifeforms. I always wondered how his dad and mom were able to have a child, but chalked it all off to cartoon logic. Never established that they have a shapeshifting ability like the lenopan(sludgepuppie), who married Ben and Gwen‘s first cousin.
personally, I strongly prefer the osmosian explanation to the mutant/rooters explanation. My thought is that the Rooters existed, and did experiment with mutation, but not on children - on themselves, as a sort of super soldier squad. In this headcanon, Servantis's explanation of Kevin's origin is just gaslighting enhanced by his mutated abilities to convince Kevin to side with him.
I prefer kevin being a mutant. The rooters arc was done very well in my opinion, but it does leave a lot of loose ends open when it comes to connecting with UAF which sucks for continuity I guess
Even in the original series in the Ben 10K episodes refers to Kevin as a mutant instead of an Alien hybrid because if he and his son were Alien hybrids then they would have mentioned which Alien race/species he comes from like with Tetrax and Azmuth, so clearly it was in fact UAF that retconed Kevin into being an Alien hybrid just like how UAF retconed Gwen into being an Alien hybrid instead of a Magic user like Charm-caster and Hex.
Being a fan of the original series and less of a fan of the UAF, I'm biased in favor of the changes they did in Omniverse. That said, a retcon is a retcon. Gwen and Kevin being aliens were adequate backstories even if you (like me) thought they were stupid.
Members of The Ink Tank and The Ben 10 Community I have a theory that explains Kevin's history in Alien Force and the retcon from Omniverse, Osmosians and Osmos V actually exist and That Kevin Levin, Aggregor and Devin Levin Are all Osmosians. Agricor is a pure-blooded osmosian where Kevin and his father Devin are not; they are most likely half. My only explanation for this is because Aggregor has the full horns on his head where Kevin and Devin don't. That's really all I got To support this. I'm going to say that Servantis most likely doesn't know about Devin's existence since he was a low ranking plumber member at the time of his demise at the hands of Ragnarok and Aggregor is most likely not in Plummer records. I also believe that Servantis tried to erase Max’s memory of Devin So no one would start to piece together the pieces of the puzzle that would reveal his illegal genetic experiments.
I like the UAF background but I can’t deny a canon retcon and story arc. I still love the rooters tho. But it could’ve been so easy to just do the rooters. And not retcon Kevin. The arc wouldn’t have changed almost at all. And I didn’t even notice the retcon at first tbh.
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Valentines day is already over bruh💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
TTHE answer: a celestialsapien did it
@@avch1209 Ain't no way bruh💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀💀
bo can u explain why ben 10 reboot alien x was soo weak
How would you do Kevin’s story
Fans: "Why does Kevin's story have a bunch of inconsistencies?"
Kuro: *gives a 20+ minute explanation about the writings of the various shows to explain things.*
Chadzmuth: "Celestial sapiens change the universe all the time..."
And that's why I can't see Omniverse as cannon...
@@Adventist1997 Great way to allow the infinite impossibility of things to happen. As nothing is concrete and can *warp* from its original trajectory leading the Celestial sapiens meaning to the explanation of causality the order to chaos.
@@Adventist1997 lololol look
@@Adventist1997 cry about it (?
@@Adventist1997 Ben 10: Omniverse is 100% canon & there is no Ben 10 without Omniverse.
Despite the retcons, Kevin is my favourite character in AF, UA and Omniverse.
“Treat a car, like you treat a woman”
"...go on"
@@danielzakgaim2764 “No, I sense I made a mistake some kind”
@@danielzakgaim2764 “with love, honor, respect and kindness”
XXD
“no, I sense I made a mistake of some kind”
“I am an expert on jerks”
I love despite the recons and getting his backstory changed, Kevin remains the most consistent character with realistic growth throughout all series.
True
Tho, I find it weird that he becomes a goth in omniverse.
@@lightborn9071 he was gothic/punk in the first place. Just look at the lock necklace
@@kanemccarthy1979 I tought of him in the original show as that typical street kid with a darker taste. In UAF he looks way more 'clean' if you understand, even with nicely made hair and clothes. I think his longer hair fits in Omniverse, but why is he wearing eyeliner?!
@@lightborn9071 I mean he was poor in the og. I figured it was a style he was into tbh
Even if Kevin's backstory changes so much... its still nothing compared to how often Rob's hairstyle changes from video to video.
enough with this joke, please!!
@@itsmenobody3837 sure
As long as kuro's hair stop evolving we'll stop
It’s like the seasons it changes
Truth really feels like has changed 100 times over
Every haitstyle change is a CelestialSapiens reset XD
I think the most annoying part about the retcon is that it serves no purpose to the actual story. They never do anything with the fact that Kevin is a mutant, and the rooter storyline would've worked justas well with Kevin's alien origins. All this retcon does is undo some of the work that the uaf crew did for this franchise and introduce several plot holes
I know right?? Kevin staying as an Osmosian would have been fine. everything would still work out. In fact, Devin being a plumber osmosian should have been the reason why Servantis even got a hold of Kevin, because he had information on him.
Like the UAF crew did with Eon in Ben 10,000 Returns?
Oh yeah, i forgot the UAF crew could do anything without being criticized. Silly little me trying to treat all shows equally...
That is the weird part honestly. The retcon doesn't actually serve any purpose other than to be a retcon.
To be fair, it does gloss over how some of these hybrids came to be. I don’t care if an alien love a human, how does a Pyronite create a child with a human?! They are literal open flames!
@@parry3439 whoa whoa let's not get hypocritical here and act as if UAF was so original and faithful to the original series. UAF RETCONNED KEVIN FIRST. Let's not forget that
My biggest issue with Omniverse is how much it goes out of its way to be a Ben 10,000 prequel rather than having its own identity. Retconing things that happened so that they can line up more with those two Ben 10,000 episodes despite how little sense it makes. They even say that our Kevin ends up as Kevin 11,000 which just muddies up Kevin and Gwen’s relationship hard, also forcing Ben to get together with Kai
I see your point but the problem is that UAF strayed too far from the classic series and fell flat a lot of the time. UAF isn't better my guy
@@purpleclaws202 OS might be a great series but that doesn't mean that all of its lore was great, it's world building was very inconsistent.
UAF not being great is subjective.
Hey a Ben 10k show would've been great.
@@purpleclaws202 The comment has no actual components of an argue. It's just an assertion of a bunch of subjective information. You don't have to like UAF but just coming in and saying "I don't like UAF" doesn't add anything to the conversation.
@@purpleclaws202 You can change your username btw don't need to keep looking like a hypocrite OV shill.
as someone who frequently submitted questions to him back in the day, derrick was responsible for pretty much all the omniverse retcons. always bugged me
Dwayne McDuffie was too. He isn't off the hook. He was responsible for all the changed and retcons in UAF
@@purpleclaws202 What were all of UAF's retcons? Like Kuro said, just because something was originally intended, doesn't make it canon if a different development happens. Like Kevin being an alien wasn't a retcon, it was a further development of his mostly non-existent history.
@@ravio5868 Gwen being an alien, the plumbers being of galactic origin and Eon being an alternate Ben are all retcons made by UAF as they directly contradict what was shown in the original series
@@red20753 The other two I’ll grant you, but Gwen being an alien isn’t a retcon, it’s directly addressed within the show. Nothing is removed from her backstory without explanation. If anything, the unaddressed reinstatement of magic as the status quo in season 3 is more of a retcon than Gwen being an alien. That’s the same “evolution” aspect as Kevin’s story in UAF, not a retcon.
@@purpleclaws202 OV shill smh
The biggest problem is that there was no need to make Kevin a mutant in OV. Literally nothing changes if Kevin is half-osmosian and Servantis decides to use him because of his alien DNA.
Nothing in the lore of Ben 10 would change if he used the exact Alien powers Gwen uses according to your line of reasoning.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr What even is this comment?
@@anotherpawn , Ben and Gwen are both part Anodite in the retcon of UAF, so according to you line of reasoning supporting the UAF retcon for Kevin being an Alien Hybrid then you can easily use your same line of reasoning to justify that nothing would change in the lore of Ben 10 if he used the exact same powers as his cousin Gwen because they share almost the identical DNA traits of one another.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr Grammarly, my friend. Grammarly.
The lore literally says that you have to have "the spark" to use your powers. Gwen's father isn't an antodite despite also having that DNA.
@@anotherpawn I do remember Ultimate Ben 10 000(no longer part of the main timeline) using magic(he said future Gwen taught him). Plus their grandma also didn't notice Gwen's spark(she checked all her grandchildren when they were born). So maybe Ben's spark was so miniscule that it didn't develop(or even noticeable) until his 30s. This detail wouldn't affect anything since 99% of the story is about young Ben not 30s Ben
I think the only retcon that was made in UAF regarding Kevin was his father working with Max and Max, even promising to help Devin's son, didn't help and still trapped him in the Null Void without any kind of remorse. Even so, his father could still be a false memory without Kevin ceasing to be Osmosian.
I like Kevin’s UAF origin better, the only problem I have with it is that it makes no sense to why Max never tried to talk to Kevin in any of his appearances from the classic series (minus the time where he was unconscious at the beginning of Grudge Match) or tell Ben to reason with him more since he was suppose to be Devin’s son, even though I know his backstory was suppose to be ambiguous in the classic series.
Max really didn't give one shit about Kevin so much so he sent him to knull void at age 11
Yeah that Is a legit criticism - though in my opinion hardly worth retconning the entire thing. Personally my best guess is that Max didn't recognize him back then, since technically he was without his parents and his family name never was mentioned. But I acknowledge this is far-stretched at best.
@@Theokal3 Not to mention that it's pretty common to find completely unrelated people with the same last name.
@@horse14tI respectfully disagree. Persay my good friend asked me to be their kid's godparent, I'd be honored and dutiful. Max is a chivalrous man so he'd definitely do it, but I genuinely believe nobody thought of the idea of Max having a friendship with Kevin's father because both were plumbers (note: I say the idea, as in by 2005
See that works but it LITERALLY means Kevin killed a dude in AF’s Vendetta who didn’t kill his dad lol
Fun fact: in some countries the rooters were called "the plungers", what made them look like a type of evil plumbers
I like that name a lot more than Rooters.
For some reason it fits really well and it sounds like while the plumbers fix leaks in society, the plungers get all up in that business
brilliant
@@TheInkTank the plungers of all evil episode name would of made me burst out in laughter
@@Aragon737Ultra that is way better hilarious
While I certainly enjoyed the Servantis story in Omniverse, I would have preferred if they had kept Kevin's backstory from UAF intact. While it was a little convenient that Kevin's father was partners with Max I still felt like he was pretty much Kevin's Uncle Ben in a way. I also prefer the concept of Osmosians as aliens.
I liked the Servantis story in Omniverse, but it's hard for me to get that Osmosians don't exist when in UA, it was mentioned and treated like it was a real thing.
The weirdest thing is you could remove all the stuff that retcons Kevin as a mutant and you could keep the arc mostly the same. It's nearly entirely removable as far as i can recall.
@@shinysamurott613 lol literally it is
Would have been a cool plot line without the retcon
@@phantom-X2086 iirc there was supposed to be a scene with aggregor coming to kevin and explaining that those were false memories implanted in him, but in that case i really want to know what planet he intended to travel to when he set a course for osmos
@@ralphthejedimaster Just seems so weird to have an entire arc only to explain that Osmosians didn't exist
Some extra info:
The OV crew (and Derrick J.) also wanted to change Kevin's powers because they found it boring how UAF tied everything tied back to aliens instead of keeping powers unique. They also rarely intentionally ignored pop-up trivia; DJW actually tried to get a list of all those facts, but since many of those are lost media (like the Bazel statement), they had to rely mostly on memory, peoples' word, or like Rob said- the wiki.
They were plans to address Aggregor in "The Rooters of All Evil". Originally, he would have been the one trying to track down Kevin, and would have revealed their true origins. He was going to be an attempt by Servantis to re-create Kevin's powers through cloning, and he was seeking Kevin's help as his genetics were breaking down, possibly dying and melting into "ooze" at the end of the episode. He was scrapped from the plot, as the Ben 10 team weren't keen on another big Aggregor story so soon after the first.
DJW had also tried to explain some weirdness through writer's statements, although these answers might just be last-minute fixes. The OV crew considered Ragnarak for the Rooters and "definitely" a part of their conspiracy, but they had no solid plans for him. Kevin's Father was "some abusive bum", and is part of the reason Kevin ran away from home as a kid. He grew up poor and mistreated, and his and his Mom's memories of Devln Levin were implanted by Servantis. Unfortunately, how Paradox, Azmuth, Kwarrel, or others knew of Osmos V or its people when neither actually exist was never explained.
Hmm.
Mhm... these are actually interesting facts, particularly regarding the pop-up trivia.
Kinda glad they didn't go for that for Aggregor, though, because I friggin' hate this explanation. I don't know why, but the idea that this scary near-unstoppable villain who almost became a god was just a failed experiment from the Rooters all along feel.... I don't know, it's kinda like the Xenomorphs being made a creation of David in Covenant, it ruins the mystic.
@@Theokal3 Maybe it could have been better if it was like that by design for Aggregor to be like that, like he had accelerated aging and thus would have a really short life, explaining too why he wanted to be a celestialsapien so bad to live longer
Using the pop-up trivia as concrete canon isn't much better than using a wiki. If what the pop-up trivia says isn't backed up in the show itself, there's no more reason to treat it as canon than there is to treat internal writer headcanons that are never revealed to the public as canon.
I think it's kind of interesting how fan edits to the wiki became canon, like Dr Animo's middle name or Anur Vladius. Kinda makes me wish they did fan votes to create characters, like transformers did with Windblade
Imagine some little kid gaslighting an official show's production team into thinking they wrote something they didn't years after the fan edit was made.
definitely that would've been awesome.
It really caused me an emotional damage as a kid that Kevin's father story was just a mind manipulation... but they would kept this with servantis.....but it also causes a question that how the hell servantis know that Ragnarok killed Devin levin?
As I recall, the the question of Ragnarok was asked to Derrick J. Wyatt. The response being that Ragnarok was actually part of the Rooter conspiracy.
Also technically Ragnarok didn't kill Devin Levin, because as part of the retcon, Devin didn't exist.
The final question should be more like, how Ragnarok even knew about Devin Levin in first place? As he was only a fake memory implanted in Grandpa Max, Kevin and possibly his mother.
Though that as Ender mentioned, this could implies that Ragnarok was involved with the Roots. Yet, Servantis never mentioned nor talks about Ragnarok, leaving the aspects, objectives and reasons of Ragnarok as part of this conspiration like a mystery.
@@josecuestas7246 He worked for Servantis
@@Master-Works Perhaps. Yet, we can't be completely sure about the exact role of Ragnarok in the Roots, as Servantis don't even mentioned him.
I mean, Ragnarok was a lieutenant of Servantis that knew several details about the plans of the organization, or he was another brainwashed amalgam kid, like the Plumbet helpers, that though that was a criminal and the murderer of Devin Levin?
Making that the Rooter arc ended leaving several doubts and plotholes, regarding some aspects of the continuity and some characters, like Ragnarok.
@@josecuestas7246 Yes. I always dislike it was so short duo to constraints. I hope they make sequal and reintroduce Ragnarok
In another life Kuro could've been a detective, cuz this level of research is extensive!
They definitely could’ve told parts of the rooters story and kept Kevin as a hybrid alien. His osmosian powers could’ve just been what got used.
There is also something with "cyclical sourcing". Where someone makes something up, writes it on a Wikia, and then someone else quotes it on a blog. That blog then gets added to the sources of the wikia and then gets cited again and again, making it impossible to figure out where the information originally came from.
It always bothered me that Max always knew Kevin’s dad but didn’t say anything about it in the original series. That’s definitely a retcon
yeah and the fact that Grandpa Max sent that 11 year old kid into the null void without any sympathy.
Ben 10 was never my favorite animated series. I watched it when there was nothing better to watch
@@Master-Works Then why are you here? Genuinely asking
@@cillianstewart9441 Well, I feel nostalgic and I like Ben 10
@@Master-Works Okay, sorry for assuming you didn't like it, but why are you saying this in the first place? Your original reply doesn't seem particularly relevant?
I prefer Kevin being a alien, it gives a sense of consistency, something that the OG series was severily lacking
@Caitlyn Carvalho
Kitchen Si- what now?
@Caitlyn Carvalho So what you're saying is you support eating babies.
@Caitlyn Carvalho so that what it's called
When l tried to rewatch TMNT 03 it kinda was the same type of every episode has some random supernatural or technobabble shit happening judt because
For me ben 10 is a world who aliens, high tech and magic can happen. Anything besides that is kinda bullshit to me, like multiverse or mutants
When in doubt blame the Celestialsapiens
They canonically changed the art style and Azmuth's voice so why not Kevin's backstory
A lazy retcon.
They should have just combined the Mutant and Alien aspects of Osmosians into one by saying Osmosians are both genetically modified/ mutated humans experimented on by Servantis and clones who were just dumped on a random planet. I know this sounds too goofy but meh Ben 10 has gotten away with goofy stuff before
Yeah it's crazy that everyone tripped so much that they mistakenly believe an entire species existed while it wasn't. It's much better to have them been experiments too, asmuth has already done this a few times
@@M.W.2 Hell, it was even done in Omniverse with Galvan B and the Galvanic Mechamorphs.
My Headcanon is that some Rooters where able to escape back in time and created the Osmosians Aliens
It is interesting.
So they're kind of like Ben 10's version of Marvel's Inhumans or Eternals; mutants created through alien experimentation that created their own civilizations.
I have to agree with what you said about the Rooters arc, in that I do really enjoy a lot of concepts from it. Like the Plumbers having a Black Ops team, Servantis's motives that bring up an interesting discussion regarding Ben and the watch, and even letting the Plumber Kids have another chance to shine, and interact with Kevin. The problem comes when writing a story for your audience, the story should feel like a natural progression in this world we watch, to not make it feel like there's a bunch of writers in the background obviously puppeting the characters. When you break the illusion of the world you're watching and use it as a means to state "Look at this, my idea is better" then your story falls flat and can take people out of the experience. There's a lot this story arc had to offer, and it's a shame it went down the path it did.
I would say both. Born half alien half human = mutant. If we’re looking at cartoon/comic logic(X-men being the main view point.) him being born with powers make him a mutant with a alien/human heritage. But that’s how I look at it.
I wish it was just explained that way. Sadly no. X-Men made it make sense
Honestly the origin of Kevin powers is the same as the way Stan Lee come up with the X-Men, they just born with powers since they didn't want to come up with a more complicated origin
yeah it'd be better explained that way ngl. At least x men made it make sense.
X-Men doesn't even work like that. You have to be born with a specific gene to be considered a mutant. If you're half-human half-alien you're just considered a hybrid. Or colloquially referred to as a human depending on their own personal views.
I thought mutant ment monster form Kevin, when I was a kid
Personally I wouldn't have scratched off the classic series completely. You can pretty solidly conclude from his family not wanting a freak for a son strongly leads towards a mutant origin with normal human parents. If he were half alien his parents or at least one of them wouldn't have been freaked out.
Tbf with how the energy absorption was shown later to affect Kevin’s mind it’s clearly shown he’s an unreliable source.
Lets keep in mind that, the people behind Omniverse took any and ALL cannon from the original series very fucking seriously. That is why Ben and Kai become a thing in Omniverse, cause one little info thingy popped up on screen for 5 seconds saying they were a couple in the future. That is one of the reasons Jullie got fucked over, so badly.
They could've had the best of both worlds. Osmosians could've been human mutants that left Earth a long, long, long, long time ago in space stations built by a technology based Osmosian. Devin could have been someone who left, maybe became a bounty hunter, and was killed by Ragnarok and Max could've still had his memory rewritten to make him think that Devin was a Plumber and his partner. It's still not a perfect retcon but it would've been neat.
Or to put it simply. There were two Devin’s and Servantis just grab the plumber Devin data and give it to Kevin when he controlled him
Why wasn't this mentioned in classic then? Grandpa never hinted that he knew Kevin until AF.
@@purpleclaws202 Um was that directed at me or user-nl1oz8tx80?
@@purpleclaws202Kevin being an Osmosian is something that was explained in Classic. He had no origin in Classic, unfortunately some details do make certain events weird in retrospect, like Kevin's father being one of Max's old partners and Ragnarok and Aggregor's entire existence. Derrick J. Wyatt and the Omniverse writers realized this and tried to course correct but went too far by entirely erasing everything about Osmosians making the entire first half of Ultimate Alien obsolete.
So let me get this straight;
In the Classic Series, Kevin had no backstory, intended it to be vague and possibly explored in the future. All the merchandise labelled him a human except one card that labelled him as a human mutant.
Then UAF gave Kevin a backstory of being a member of the alien species, Osmosian. Which the Classic development team approved it.
Then the development team behind Omniverse hated UAF so much that they wanted it to be more like Classic so they used the Ben 10 fan-wiki which may include some false information and they found the card that labelled Kevin as a human mutant therefore they believed the Classic development team wanted Kevin to be a human mutant so they retconned it in the series. Without knowing that's false information.
Yes
Yeah basically
I don't think the Ben 10 Wiki had Kevin labeled as a mutant at that point and time though, I could be mistaken but I don't remember that when I was on the Wiki in 2013-2014
So it likely did just come from Derrick remembering that single card and just various chatter about it, and misrembering the narrative that it was always intended for Kevin to be a mutant
The Ben 10 Wiki had (and still has to a certain extent) a lot of misinformation and lore details that were canonized either through an OV writer not knowing, not caring, or just thinking it was a good idea
Hey bud misinformation there. Classic team didn't approve of a lot of the UAF changes. And his backstory wasn't vague or anything it was pretty damn obvious that mutants existed on Earth with other characters later on. Don't shit on OV while being hypocritical about UAF
Imagine being the (probably) little kid that wrote that edit and realizing the domino effect it caused.
@@purpleclaws202
I would trust the Ink Tank more than you.
I've always assumed the Rooters retcon was just a result of Alien X rebooting the universe
This retcon to this day doesn't explain who is Aggregor xd
At this point. I like to accept the idea that Bens recreation of the Universe accidentally changed Kevins backstory, among other things.
I consider the Kevin's UA story canon and I think Servantis put false memories to make them think that the original memories were fake.
It means Max Tennyson did had a partner named Devin Levin but Servantis made him think that he never had a partner named Devin.
This way, both will make sense.
I heard rumors that Kevin plays Raid Shadow Legends in his free time.
This is the consequence of procrastinating a show. I'm here watching a ben 10 video and suddenly I get a spoiler from breaking bad. That came OUT OF NOWHERE.
Just three facts that fans should keep in mind:
The original creators just whanted a nemesis for Ben with his same powers, but decided that instead of giving him his own Omnitrix (idea that they reuse in the reboot) he was going to absorve the power with a touch, and for the origin of his powers they pulled a Stan Lee and said that he was born with them, him being a mutant was just implied at most, so they where super vague with the origin of his power just like they where witch Gwen powers or the plumbers or the omnitrix, etc.
UAF definitively retcons OS Kevin backstory (and Gwen's, the plumber's, the omnitrix, etc) and it does creates plot holes, the only reason that is less of a mess in comparison with the Rooters arc is that there is less to retcon after all Kevin only shows up in 4 episodes and his backstory consist in two or trhee lines of dialoge, compared with several episodes triying to explain Osmosians an Kevin past in UAF, so when omniverse change the origin of Osmosians from aliens to mutants it creates much more of a mess.
The crew from Omniverse didn't have some nefarious agenda to get rid of what UAF did or where forced by Cartoon Network to retcon the characters, the truth is that just like Alien force before them they have their own ideas of where the show should go, so they keep the tings they like and change the ones they didn't, Derrick was very vocal about wich parts of the lore he enjoy and which ones he don't, but even with all his influence he was just a member of an entire crew.
I feel like fans can act like Omniverse and it’s crew were far more malicious than is reasonable
@@enter-clever-name Disliking the changes that were made or how they did it is fine, but some fans act like if Derrick himself was changing stuff around all willy nilly, not realising that even if he propose the changes there where a staff of writers, story editors, show runners, producers, network people, censors, etc, that have to give it the OK before the episode could be made, or that the same applied to Alien Force when Dwayne was in charge, even a easter egg that some board artist put in a scene have to be agreed by the people in charge (or atleas pass unoticed by everybody).
As far as retcons go, the UAF one was very minor to the point that it barely counts as one. There was just so little of Kevin’s backstory and of what was revealed, wasn’t too difficult to complement and what ‘inconsistency’ there was, they eventually fixed in Ultimate Alien
The Omniverse retcon simply went way too far and lacked any course correction or consistency, regardless of behind the scenes intentions, all of this ends up chucking aside all the UAF work (regardless of behind the scenes intentions).
@@901Sherman it only really counts as a retcon because if Max knew about Kevin and his dad, he should've recognized him. He also wouldn't be ok with sending his friend's son, who was living in the streets, to the null void or at least he would be troubled by it.
@@901Sherman If Max never new Devin, then it would've never been a retcon at all
As someone who is big into comics and the storytelling that comes with that, Kevin really reads like a classic case of all the writers for Ben 10 having very different interpretations of the franchise and how things should be written.
I will freely admit that at first I wasn't really on board with making Kevin an alien, but it grew on me over time. Getting those flashback episodes really helped. Retcons aren't necessarily a bad thing if you can tell a good story. Even the Rooters isn't a terrible retcon in a vacuum. What is frustrating is the consistency of the retcons and the retconning of other retcons.
UA is guilty of this too with the forever knights getting retconned from AF as well certain family members of the tennysons and Kevin's parents. It's all strange.
yep.
14:39
I can see the intent in that response.
The classic series had a blend of supernatural and extraterrestrial themes to it. Between stuff like the Omnitrix, magic being real, and just plain old super human and supernatural abilities.
Alien Force and UAF leaned very heavily into "everything is extraterrestrial in origin." so Omniverse reining things in to be closer in theming to the original series is honestly a solid reasoning.
It's basically saying "We don't want everything to be the result of aliens." and if they had of lead with that as an explanation, then I think people would have been more accepting of it.
I mean, there's a reason why they were so quick to change Gwen's powers back to being magic-based literally one season after "revealing" that they're actually alien-based...
Gwen & Kevin both got screwed by UAF's obsessive insistence that "literally everything is aliens, even when it doesn't make sense and/or contradicts what came before."
Regardless how inconsistent his backstory is, Kevin is a great character with nice dynamic with the main trio. 😉
Thanks, man. I always couldn't understand this topic, and didn't have any motivation to study because I knew that there were so much details. But after your analysis, my understanding became stronger.
I always felt like the rooters arc and all the retcons were a result of Ben Re-creating the universe with Alien X. He obviously got a lot of things wrong when doing it, whether it was by Ben or the two other personalities, but from that point forward I think the origin was changed.
Given how much the original show featured mutants, and earthbound wonders, like magic and Santa's village, and energy vampire clowns, and geniuses who can build amazing technology, I think the assessment that making Kevin a mutant is more "classic" is a very valid one.
And then when you consider how UAF retconned Gwen into being an alien, and Plumbers into being aliens, you start to notice a pattern.
Now, I personally think Omniverse kinda fails at what it's set out to do, cause while it brings back a lot of classic concepts, it still relies mostly on aliens. There is no "Earth is a wonderful place full of aliens, conspiracies, mutants, underground societies, ancient gods and so on".
It's all about space now.
Edit: And acting like Duncan Roulou sees the UAF origin as an "evolution", not a retcon is disingenious, cause he'd probably say the same about the OV origin.
Least they put more emphasis on the secret saturdays and all the cryptids. Shame Maxy boy wasn't around to get egg on his face for that one.
@@GreaterGrievobeast55 Yeah, Secret Saturdays is just like classic in that regard, they never go to space, all the cool, weird stuff is on Earth, even if it includes aliens.
Finding an alien crash landed on Earth is cooler than a space alien society in some regards.
@@HiperPivociarz But the good thing about rooters arc was that it gave kevin his best charcter development!
@@yashbjoshi12 Only for the part that he actually controls his mutant self.
@@neeljavia2965 Not only that ,he feels responsible for what he had done in past .
I really wish we had gotten the planned arc of Omniverse about Aggregor and his connection to the Rooters which could've explained a lot of things.
Then again the only reason I heard about that was the Ben 10 Wiki so that information may be tenuous at best.
Yeah a full story. would've been great.
There was no such thing as "Omniverse arc about Aggregor", he was simply supposed to show up at the beginning of Rooters arc, to reveal that he was just an unstable clone of Kevin this whole time and then die, which honestly I am glad didn't happen
Yeah, to considers how much notable and important was Aggregor like a villain, they at least should included him in the Rooter arc and gives him an important role in this arc, than simply cut him by time constraints, leaving only a vague information about him in the wiki, implying that he was a defective clone of Kevin and that he will dies by some unstable genetic.
To be honest, the Rooter arc would be good, if the producers won't be rushed to make it, as this ended leaving several plotholes and doubts in the continuity.
@@josecuestas7246 agreed
@@josecuestas7246 Well it could've been better if they would either spend some more time on establishing worldbuilding and showing how this revelation affected Kevin or if they just ditched the mutant retcon alltogether. Unfortunatelly they went with the worst possible option
Never watched the Rooters arc so maybe there’s something there that disproves this but I like to think that, after Aggregor’s whole “trying to absorb a god baby”, the Celestialsapiens just… erased the concept of Osmosians from existence and made them humans.
Honestly, I'd buy that
I think the best way to hand wave this away is just "Celestialsapiens doing Celestialsapien things."
Clearly Kevin's only consistent origin is that he loves his ride
The guy who made Animo's muffle name James must have been so happy when it was canonized
What bothers me about the retcon in Omniverse is the episode with Ragnarok. Basically, how does he know about Kevin's dad if the man didn't exist? How did Kevin actually have the key to the ship if his father wasn't a plumber? Why give Max the "false" memory of Devin and how did it reconcile with Kevin's original meeting? In the original there is that issue but you could say Max didn't think about Kevin at first or whatever. Max was always keeping secrets from the kids so that tracks. But the "false" memories don't track if Max was supposed to keep an eye on Kevin. Why bother with putting in a potential point of failure should he dig too deep?
There was always this one detail with Kevin’s backstory in AF that always bugged me, which is that Max was once partners with Kevin’s dad, which doesn’t make much sense if you consider Max’s personality and his (supposed) friendship with Devin, surely Max would have recognized Kevin was an osmosian to begin with in Kevin’s debut episode and would have likely recognized him as his former partner’s son
that's why i don't like his story in alien force it's not as smooth when considering the classic series
Oh simple really. Max knows another Devin who is a humonoid alien. He was the one who dies. Kevin who was under Servantis “care” didn’t have a backstory so Servantis lies to Kevin that Devin the alien osmosian was his dad. Later in his life, Kevin knew the truth that he has no father named Devin but he is ok with it knowing he had just avenge some kid’s life by murdering the guy who killed his dad.
@@KhanhNguyen-mh5ec that was never shown AT ALL not even implied. So you can't just say "well if you look here" no just admit that the UAF writers did just as bad of a job
@@purpleclaws202 just as you should say Derrick is as much of a hack writer on a show he’s an art director for. Face the music buddy, Derrick is a person and a person can make mistake
If going by UAF lore, Max could have not known that Devin have a son and just thought of Kevin as a random Osmosian.
Grandpa Max knowing Kevin is an Osmosian have no impact on the original series since Ben already know what Kevin can do.
It is in character that grandpa Max keeps things secret until it is necessary for them to be told.
The worst part about all of this is the fact that there are parts of the “implanted memories” aspect of the Rooters arc that make MORE sense in conjunction with the UAF backstory.
Like, for example, Max not knowing who Kevin is at all during the classic series, but come Alien Force, apparently Kevin’s father was Max’s old partner all along. That, I WOULD say is a retcon, but rather than the retcon being “undone” by OV’s decision, it was expanded upon and actually became sensible rather than being swept under the rug entirely - even if the latter was the intention and not the former. What if the fabrication wasn’t Kevin’s father’s existence, but Max’s involvement? That would be a simple change that wouldn’t change much about the story, but would clean up so much around it.
Making it so that Max knew Kevin's father was objectively a mistake & makes Max look like *WAY* too much of a traitorous asshole than the writers likely intended, not to mention how much it completely contradicts everything related to Max & Kevin in the OS, so anything that undoes that nonsense is ultimately for the best in my book.
I have another idea
Why don't think like this
Kevin is a Mutant who have the power to absorb small energy, but at some point in early classic before meeting Ben, Kevin accidently absorbed a Osmosian from earth and gained his powers of absorbing more materials and minerals thus making him a Hybrid Alien/Mutant what Reboot did with him now is similar to this Mutant Alien/Hybrid,
This way Kevin was accidently believed by others as Osmosian like Aggregor.
After all we're humans mistakes can happen.
its sounds really funny that creators of the show relied on show's fan wiki as facts.
imagine you type for accident something, and next day you watch episode and its canon
same it's hilarious.
UAF even acknowledged the very little backstory we get of Kevin in the classic series during the Ultimate Kevin arc. In classic Kevin says he wasn’t with his family because they weren’t thrilled about having a ‘freak’ for a son. In UA when his stepdad confronts him, Kevin blames him for him being on the streets, saying that he convinced his mum to kick him out. His stepdad then tells Kevin that neither of them actually kicked him out but that he destroyed their house (which presumably prompted Kevin to leave). So UAF does actually follow classic canon by acknowledging what is said specifically in the show, whilst also developing story to it. Kevin was living on the streets at 11, like stated in classic, but it’s developed so that instead of actually being kicked out because of his powers he left himself because of something that his powers caused and he believed that his mum and step father resented him for.
The problem for me is that you can have the rooters story exactly the same with Kevin still being an alien. He doesn’t specifically need to be a mutant for the story to work
As always, wonderful video!
I think there are some pros and cons to the Rooter arc. It would explain why Max was fine with Kevin being in the Null Void since Devin wasn't real.
As far as I got, the origin of Kevin's powers doesn't really affect anything about the rooters so they really changed it just for the sake of it. And it's not even a statement or an episode they are contradicting but half of UAF, this is insane
Here's a theory , after the aggregor arc , the celestosapians ( or just one of them ) were pissed and removed even the idea of osmosisians from existence.
Good morning
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Okay but the funniest thing is if you look at that card and say “if I had to describe an osmosian without saying osmosian what would I do?” I think that would be a good example.
Like they didn’t have an example but they derived a fun aliens species from that description anyways. One with unstable genetic material and absorbs other things to form new identities and forms is a pretty dead on description.
So even including that card, everything points to him being an osmosian. Just the fact some guy really interpreted that as “Hmm hes a mutant maybe? Why would there be aliens human hybrids” determined the whole lore of the guy.
I love it.
I'm kinda surprise that you would touch on this subject. Thought you would do this during the Rooters' Arc on Omniverse Episodes.
And I'll be honest. I prefer the UAF Kevin's background than just mutant and retcons. It gives us the reason why Kevin want to redeemed and deserve the second chance to become a hero, following his father's footstep, as well as moving away from the dark path he was supposed to take. There were many characters served as foils to heroes like Venom, Shadow the Hedgehog, Drift/Deadlock, Lor Zod, Megatron (No joke. IDW 2005 & Earthspark has the proof of it) and so on were supposed to be villains, but can become antiheroes or ally to heroes. And of course, we get to see that there were humans or humanoids from different planets like Kryptons, Saiyans, Time Lords (Doctor Who Franchise), Chronians and so on.
To be frank, I've always doubt, skeptical and ignore any media (like comics and merchandise) connecting to TV Series or Movie because not one single of them ever mentioned or related to any media. Nothing is written in stone as they say.
So according to this video the retcon of Kevin's origin was due one (1) dude who didn't like Alien Force
Personally I prefer to call Kevin a Osmosian, making him an Alien, but he’s a mutant among Osmosians, which is why he has matter powers and is so much stronger then Aggregor and Ragnarok(that guy was an a osmosian right?)
Maybe it's both. It's possible that Kevin is a mutated osmosian.
I always thought it was explained in omniverse that osmosions could be any race, and they were a extremely rare genetic mutation
I still subscribe to Mutant OS Kevin, because it's like Gwen's magic. Ben - alien, Kevin - mutant, Gwen - magic. All facets of their wider world of extraordinary things.
UAF flattened this world out, making things that were not alien, now alien. Gwen doesn't do magic, she's just part alien and has energy powers despite the existence of Charmcaster and Hex. Though rather than recon that in Omniverse, UAF itself later came around and added magic back to her character.
With Kevin, it doubled down on its interpretation of his powers and origin as alien and elaborated on it in ways the Servantis retcon "back" to mutation cannot truly roll back. Though I prefer mutant Kevin, they shouldn't have waited so long after such unretractable story beats to change their minds.
Given how much the different series contradict each other, I consider them separate even if some are intended to be sequels to the other. In OS, it's undecided with a vague intention of mutation and it sways little else. No UAF concrete info to consider during the making OS, and given the remarks he makes about his family (them seemingly to suddenly see that he has powers and kicking him out, like an... unexpected mutation) so this is also why I still believe OS Kevin to be a mutant.
Just Because You Believe Doesn’t Mean He Is.
I defintley agree the UAF kevin backstory is a non contrdicatry expanision to a vauge backstory.
I didn't really like Servantis as a villain. His motivations didn't really make sense to me. And his plan was deeply flawed from the foundation.
Having Kevin's powers create the Plumbers' kids made some sense, but there's really no reason to retcon his origin since whether he was mutant or Osmosian his powers remained the same.
Why can't we just call him both? His mother is human, he father was said to be alien, that makes him a hybrid and given his genetic abilities by definition a mutant!
Y si
A fine explanation. Any rejection.
definitely.
Kevin said that his parents weren’t very thrilled about having a freak for a son. If he was an alien this wouldn’t really make any sense, since his dad would also be considered a freak to. Plus the word freak is usually used to describe mutants in the marvel universe. I’m not saying that the rooters retcon made any sense but I just want to add my two cents.
Maybe Kevin thinks he was a freak and was projecting that on to his parents
@@mjcsandboxgames4021 Thats an interesting theory.
It’s admittedly been a long while since I watched Ben 10 (sometime in the early Omniverse days, as I HATED how regressed Ben’s character was, and not too fond of the art style at the time) so apologies if I’m missing anything.
Kevin in the original Ben 10 series was a teen acting out. Ran away from home, issues with the law, a “devil may care” attitude, so classic teenage rebellion. With his real dad being gone since he was young, he probably had issues processing everything. His mom probably tried to help, but had trouble figuring out the best way. Along the way she meets someone and marries him, resulting in a still unstable Kevin sharing a house with a step-father he probably doesn’t want to know since he misses his real dad.
I can imagine over the years, the family had a lot of conflicts which would cause Kevin’s powers to be unstable. His mom probably didn’t tell the new husband about Devin’s lineage, so when the guy assumed Kevin was a mutant, she either didn’t correct him or didn’t see it as being much of a difference terminology wise.
Kevin’s behavior and powers probably caused issues and arguments, words were said in the heat of the moment, and that’s how “freak” was thrown at him, most likely by the step-dad, and thus it just made things worse. His mother either couldn’t get through to Kevin at the time, wasn’t around when the term was first said, or had gotten so frustrated herself that a small part of her agreed with the step-dad.
With all this going on, Kevin runs away and internalizes the “freak” term and doesn’t think much beyond that.
That’s my head-cannon at least. In UA and UAF, he does talk about his mom and seems to care about her, so I’m assuming after the Void stuff he reconnecting and calmed down a bit.
Does 5YL go with UAF or Omniverse origins for Kevin? And is there a chance for an “And Beyond” episode for Osmos V and Greg?
personally, i think servantis was just lying on the spot when he went along with other people saying their was no osmosians or osmos V or devin
The level of research and attention to detail in this video, along with its' fantastic and easy to follow to structure, is just great.
I've debated about how important canon is several times and this is one of those sticky situations. The rule I could generally get people to agree upon is after a certain point (in BEN 10 I'd say a season) only things that's make it into a summary are "Canon." However I do also mention that if the story is good people will be more accepting of retcons. Because when you watch a show you suspend your disbelief but when you retcon something you are asking the audience to suspend your disbelief again, and every time they suspend disbelief they are also suspending tension. Do it too much and the audience will drift away because there are no stakes anymore (after all things will just be retconned again) or things will change until they aren't what/why they started watching.
Gwen and magic is a good example of how to do it, while they bounce back and forth between alien power and magic it largely doesn't contradict major plot points. Whether her powers come from magic or her alien DNA largely doesn't matter, it's the power and how she uses them that's the important parts.
If not for the Greg/Andromeda story arc this wouldn't be an issue but it is a thing and definitely would've made it into a summary. If things have a good reason retcons can be fine but even after watching your episode it really seems like they didn't have a good reason aside from "Some one wanted to" which isn't a good reason in my opinion. It did annoy me but it was not enough to make me stop watching. Still enough straw can break a camel's back and this was a lot of straw.
I wonder if a reason for the Rooter retcon was to explain how a pyronite could mate with a human without killing her
I mean, that was pretty sus to begin with, so...
@@1992holycrapwhat about gatorboy and porcupine?
As someone who grew up with ben 10 classic but liked ben 10 omniverse because i haven't seen this cartoon in ages and now hes an adult? Is what my 11 year old self say
I'm now 16 and i still love omniverse and classic a lot
Alien force too because ben returning and his mysterious watch reboot and change shape? Thats the coolest shit ever
Hmm I different video from the breakdowns I kinda like this I like to see kuro explore more stories and share he's opinions on something other than the breakdowns love you keep it up
“Our sponsor: RAID Sha-“
Me: *NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!*
I prefer the recon, as it has more of a pull for me, with AF and UA, Kevin being an alien didn't really feel right, him being a mutant feels more fitting with the character,
And the whole "My father was a Plumber, but not just any Plumber, Max's Plumber partner", it was way to convenient and felt like the writers just needed to find a way to make someone explained the backstory so they just chose to make Max tell it.
I don't care what everyone says, I think that OV did Kevin's story justice, with him learning that he's a sleeper agent, making him question if any of his choices were him or just programmed, joining the good guys, becoming Ben's friend and falling for Gwen, it makes for great moral conflict, especially this far into the series, for all of us who watched Kevin's journey to this point.
Everyone can hate the recon all they want, but to me, this is a perfect closing point to Kevin's story.
The big problem is that Kevin really friend of Ben or really loves Gwen.
@@mayotango1317 How is that a problem?
@@red20753 Yeah, this should be traumatic for someone
in my head canon, its both. when Ben recreated the universe after it being destroyed, he got somethings wrong. couldn't it be argued that Ben just messed up his friends back-story sub-consiously? So originally, he was an Osmosian, and the planet existed. And when the universe was recreated, he became a mutant. any thoughts?
I absolutely hate Kevin's retconned origin, his original backstory was great, and they ruined the character by changing it.
Ink: Can you say UAF Retconned Kevin to being a Mutant?
Me: Yes, becuz they already Retconned Gwen to being a Alien and how her Magic worked. Hell, they Retconned HOW magic worked. Even making Gwen a Alien w 0 DNA so Ben couldn't change into a Anodite
So yeah, Kevin was a Mutant, wrote as a Mutant but when they wanted to try and make everything connected to "It's all Aliens" they made him a Alien.
I mean, they even
Ben 10,000 EP already Retconning Kevin's History.
Not to mention classic is all against the idea of aliens looking exactly like humans. And even if you agree with kuro that Kevin's species wasn't retconed, his chatacter was. From evil because of his choices and he didn't want to be helped to car guy who can't be held accountable for his actions because the energy made him crazy.
@@erikpng Legit Loved Classic Kevin and having him be a Mutant works so much Better for the World of Ben10 as a Whole. Same with Gwen being a Witch and not a Alien.
They literally made a World similar to Comic Books, filled with Mutants
, Aliens and Magic and to just boil that all down too
"Aliens Man"
Was such a Dumb Move
@@9-bitfox not that I don't enjoy Kevin's character as a good guy but you can't deny his change was drastic. Yet Omniverse is the one that gets all the crap for trying to bridge the gap between the two characterizations. I like the Rooters arc. Kevin is the main focus of the story but Ben isn't sidelined. The villain is great, honestly. I love Servantis.
@@erikpng Omniverse and The reboot honestly sold me on the brother relationship between Ben and Kevin. Dine right it's really good.
Still so damn jarring though, watching the first episode of UAF after Original and going "Aren't you supposed to be in the Null Void AND A BADGUY!?!
@@9-bitfox yeah, after finishing rewatching this video I agree with Kuro. Kinda tired of this discussion. I enjoy the Rooters arc and I don't mind the retcon, but I think it was a bit unnecessary because the story could still work around the alien origin, even tho I prefer it less. And we can all agree the plumber helpers were given a better origin. And again, Servantis is great.
privately, I think that Rooters Arc was heavily forced. Servantis appears out of nowhere and announces everything on the go without any introduction. His whole plan makes no sense. He creates these amalgams to get rid of Ben but abandons everything after the first failure (by the way, he's quite a genius for sending children to such work) he erases their memories and lets Ben go free even though he claims that he is dangerous and suddenly decides to renew after years plans. His later ones also don't make sense, he claims that he altered Kevin's memories to get closer to Ben but let him go into the Void himself, he wants to recruit the old unit even though they died when he was 10 years old, why would they now win against mines if he is definitely more powerful. Where did he get Jetray Woman and Furnace Man from anyway if he needed Kevin to create them.
I also don't like that the plumber's helpers are just cannon fodder and the statement that humans and aliens can't interbreed when we have ester. The importance of their role in this story is best reflected in the scene where everyone gets hit by brainwashing lightning kevin is taken for negotiations.
I also have to mention that Servantis as an amalgam doesn't make sense either. If it was supposed to be a secret project, how was he going to hide it by being part of it himself. I will add that since the Brainstorm species has the power to mip with the mind, neither Ben nor the Psychobos have demonstrated such a mip. It's as if they couldn't use the Amphibian race.
dude think about it dude just say celestial sapiens and go on with your day.
@@kermitgotthesickkicks4265 honestly, the Celestialpanies thing always sounds like a poor translation of plot holes to me.
@@PiotrekDuncan7885 Yeah but for the most part ben 10 in general has poor plot holes. I just kinda stop caring about them at some points.
@@kermitgotthesickkicks4265 agree on some things, picking plot holes makes no sense, for example, where grandpa max has a projector of emptiness in a motorhome. but creating a whole complicated plot to retcon the character's genesis irritates me a lot. I would have handled this case differently, and probably the whole Omniverse, if those retconns had been better woven into the narrative. For example, if this arc had delved more into the way plumbers work and Serventis had a well laid out argument for his actions, I'd surely find it much better.
PS what do you think I think Serventis will be Hybrid with Amphibian?
@@PiotrekDuncan7885 Servantis would be cooler as a amphibian hybrid. I also think He used a id mask to hide his appearance.
Man, tf are those celestialsapiens doing with that kid's lore
the thing is while i find the alien origin to be too generic, sort of a handwave and a brief "it was aliens" type of explanation where we don't get to actually see Osmos 5 or any of their history, i never liked the Rooters either explanation as it just comes from nowhere (also OV didn't focus on Kevin for most of its run so it feels especially random here).
I like the idea of Kevin being a mutant as it sort of explains why ben never turned into an "osmosian" (because they're not a real species) and i like the idea of humans developing their own abilities. UAF had already made gwen into an alien so making kevin also an alien felt uninteresting.
So I just looked it up. Both Head writers Dwayne (Alien Force) and Derrick (Omniverse) died at 49. Bit spooky tbh. Like 9th symphony kinda of coincidence.
Rest in peace for both of course, but still weird it happened twice.
Thank you for doing this video. Its one of those things that really divided the fan base and turned a lot away from Omniverse (that and the art style shift) so it's good to see it so well addressed in a video.
My theory about the "retcon" is that the guy known for lying and altering memories for his own personal gain, lied and altered memories for his own personal gain (controlling Kevin).
No explanation for UAF's species retcon, tho. Y'know, changing Gwen's species, which kind of waters down her acomplishment of learning magic, as it turned it from learning something that only like, 0.0001% of her species could learn, and turned it into something every member of her species knew.
I didn't like that they made Kevin an alien, just felt like they were doing the same with magic, but after all they did with it in ua/af I wouldn't have tried to retcon it either.
Seriously Kevin's dad could have also been a mutant and agregor could of been his uncle or something they didn't need to make a change for the story.
@Caitlyn Carvalho well they brought back magic anyway
I wish they did one or two episodes where Kevin absorbed a alien of Ben 10 and worked together to fight the enemies, it would have been sick to see them working together
I think the one change I'd make to the Rooters arc is keep Kevin's alien origins and make it so Servantis was just gaslighting Kevin the whole time. The Helpers I can live with their origin, but I think if they showed that Osmos 5 did or didn't exist I'd have an easier time with the retcon. But thats just my thoughts, Servantis is stilla great villain and Charlie Adler nails his character, easily the best Omniverse villain besides Malware
No. Just no
Personally, I loved the concept of Kevin being half-alien and the possibility of meeting others of his kind that weren’t evil like Aggregor. Like what would a species that could absorb matter and energy, but looked similar to humanity have been like in Ben 10 is something I think would have been cool to explore.
Idk, maybe a compromise could have been Osmosians could always absorb materials and Kevin and a few others were rare mutants that could absorb anything, even energy.
When Kwarrel was a introduced, it can still be cannon in both Ultimate Alien and Omniverse. They never said he knew the species that Kevin was. Just helped him control his power and find an alternative. Plus when Kevin escapes the prison that was when the Rooters came. What never felt right to me was when they first introduced Alan in alien force. Before the retcon, his father was supposedly a pyronite. Which are plasma based lifeforms. I always wondered how his dad and mom were able to have a child, but chalked it all off to cartoon logic. Never established that they have a shapeshifting ability like the lenopan(sludgepuppie), who married Ben and Gwen‘s first cousin.
personally, I strongly prefer the osmosian explanation to the mutant/rooters explanation. My thought is that the Rooters existed, and did experiment with mutation, but not on children - on themselves, as a sort of super soldier squad. In this headcanon, Servantis's explanation of Kevin's origin is just gaslighting enhanced by his mutated abilities to convince Kevin to side with him.
I prefer kevin being a mutant. The rooters arc was done very well in my opinion, but it does leave a lot of loose ends open when it comes to connecting with UAF which sucks for continuity I guess
Even in the original series in the Ben 10K episodes refers to Kevin as a mutant instead of an Alien hybrid because if he and his son were Alien hybrids then they would have mentioned which Alien race/species he comes from like with Tetrax and Azmuth, so clearly it was in fact UAF that retconed Kevin into being an Alien hybrid just like how UAF retconed Gwen into being an Alien hybrid instead of a Magic user like Charm-caster and Hex.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr Ben 10K Episode is uncannon do to TIME SHENANIGANS. Considering In Ben 10K's timeline Vilgax was supposed to be dead.
@@RoronoaZoro-ur6hr Source?
Being a fan of the original series and less of a fan of the UAF, I'm biased in favor of the changes they did in Omniverse. That said, a retcon is a retcon. Gwen and Kevin being aliens were adequate backstories even if you (like me) thought they were stupid.
So now you don't care about Death of the Author. I see.
Members of The Ink Tank and The Ben 10 Community
I have a theory that explains Kevin's history in Alien Force and the retcon from Omniverse, Osmosians and Osmos V actually exist and That Kevin Levin, Aggregor and Devin Levin Are all Osmosians. Agricor is a pure-blooded osmosian where Kevin and his father Devin are not; they are most likely half. My only explanation for this is because Aggregor has the full horns on his head where Kevin and Devin don't. That's really all I got To support this. I'm going to say that Servantis most likely doesn't know about Devin's existence since he was a low ranking plumber member at the time of his demise at the hands of Ragnarok and Aggregor is most likely not in Plummer records. I also believe that Servantis tried to erase Max’s memory of Devin So no one would start to piece together the pieces of the puzzle that would reveal his illegal genetic experiments.
Best bet stick to the original story so that you won’t get confused anyways it’s about paying respect to the original creators
I like the UAF background but I can’t deny a canon retcon and story arc. I still love the rooters tho. But it could’ve been so easy to just do the rooters. And not retcon Kevin. The arc wouldn’t have changed almost at all. And I didn’t even notice the retcon at first tbh.