A New Fandom?

[herewiss13]

So I've found this new cartoon on Cartoon Network. It's called "Ben Ten". Fairly entertaining.

Premise: Young boy stumbles across a piece of alien technology. It's a bracelet that allows him to transform, for a limited time, into 10 different aliens, each with their own set of powers (strength, flight, speed, fire, intangibility, etc.). He's on a summer road-trip with his slightly older female cousin and their grandfather. She really ought to be a sister, given the sibling rivalry and squabling involved and serves keeps him grounded, somewhat. She passes for the brains of the outfit. The Grandfather is pretty much a platonic ideal of grandfatherliness. Easy-going, permissive without being indulgent and generally written along the lines of Uncle Ben from Spiderman. They're travelling across America in an RV. Together they fight crime stumble across monsters.

Now as it stands, it's an ok show, clever in parts, but nothing really "meaty" for a fandom. I can't help thinking, though, the bracelet is not removable (so far). What will things be like in 10 years time?

Ben is a typical energetic, self-absorbed pre-teen. But he does like to help people, especially if it involve him turning into a superhero. Ten years of weirdness and he'll have gotten the trick down flat, selecting the perfect alien for a particular job. Or maybe he'll decide to challenge himself and try to figure out how to use any particular skill set in any particular situation. His "cousin" will be grown up, so will he. Their grandfather will, probably, be out of the picture.

I want to read stories about this! I want to know what a mature Ben will do with his life. It's bizzare. I've seen six episodes, tops, and I have a desperate desire to put the fast-forward button on "hyperspeed" and see what happens. It's like watching Buffy S1 and wishing they'd all graduated from college already.

Comments

[oilsdragon.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the show or heard of it, but maybe that's a sign that the premise is good but the writing not so much?

[herewiss13.livejournal.com]

That and it _is_ an animated cartoon geared to the saturday morning crowd. The only reason I know of it is A) I happened to be up at 10am on a Saturday with nothing to do and B) I wanted to see how the gimmick would be handled. As it happens, it was handled pretty well. The 10 are fairly unique.