Cartoon Nerdwork ran the first couple of episodes of BEN 10 the other day, I SKY+ed them, and watched them this afternoon (after watching Spurs cheat the Rovers off the pitch... BOO!). The short and sweet version is... yeah, the Dave "Cornelius" Johnson art direction is top notch. The storytelling, the scripts, the theme tune, are shit. Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit. The central concept is a spin on the old DIAL H FOR HERO gag, which is kinda offensively derivitive itself, but the dialogue, the characters, the pat moralizing at the end of each episode... it's all cheesy, sub-"JACKIE CHAN ADVENTURES" stuff. It's dumb shit, too: there's no real problem solving, either, just punch-kick-explodo! No wonder the U.S. is such a violent place - this is a friggin' kid's show, fer god's sake, you don't see Noddy or Bob The Builder solving problems with their fists! "Dammit, Wendy, hand me another stick of dynamite! I'll teach Farmer Pickles to build an extension onto his house without planning permission!"
Damnit, Dave! Come on home to drawing comic books! It's less money, but more soul, brother!