Swampfire - Other Characters - Verdona Tennyson

Verdona Tennyson

Voiced by:

• Barbara Bain - Ben 10: Alien Force (Elderly Human form)
• Juliet Landau - Ben 10: Alien Force and Ben 10: Ultimate Alien (Anodite form and teenager form in "Moonstruck" flashback)

Verdona Tennyson is Max Tennyson's wife, mother of Carl and Frank Tennyson, paternal grandmother of Ben and Gwen, and also could see that she is great-grandmother of Big Chill's proliferation. She is an Anodite alien from the distant planet Anodyne, who Gwen inherited the powers and abilities of control and manipulate mana, the substance of magic and life itself. Like all Anodites, Verdona is a free-spirited being. Though sometimes acting more mature and grown-up, she mostly acts like a playful child. There is also another side of Verdona which is somewhat amoral and uncaring, for example when she almost destroyed Ben and Kevin when they first confronted her, were it not for the intervention of Gwen and learning who they really were and when she was willing to destroy her granddaughter's physical human body to release the Anodite lying hidden deep within her.

They had meet in the beginning of the 1960s, in 1962, during President John F. Kennedy's presidency. Verdona left Anodyne in an unspecified time and was brought to Earth by a robot alien called Synthroid who had captured her and want to use her to power his world. They crashed and landed in St. Louis where she met and fell deeply in love with Max after he saved her; and then they courted each other and married, during this time she hid her Anodite heritage very well and blended in with society. During their time together, Verdona always had to deal with Max's occupation as a Plumber which she knew very well yet kept the knowledge from him, prompting Max to always lie to her every time he left and eventually after a long, happy and yet somewhat distant relationship, they parted.

They had two sons together, Carl and Frank. However neither of them showed any signs of inheriting her powers and abilities. When they were grown up and out of the house, she returned to Anodyne; after so many years on Earth, Verdona wanted to get back in touch with her background. She once came back to Earth to see if any of her grandchildren had inherited any Anodite abilities and powers from her, but saw that none did. Only several years later, she found out that Gwen, her granddaughter had developed powers and abilities of her own. It should be noted that Big Chill is in fact Ben, which makes Big Chill's offspring Verdona's great-grandchildren but it is unknown if they even could inherit her powers and abilities or if the energy from the Omnitrix will prevent them from having "the spark."

She apparently favors Gwen over Ben, due to the fact that he did not inherit any powers and abilities from her so she just put him aside, which was shown when she magically conjured tape on his mouth so that he could not speak, that was until after their final fight against each other did she see just how much Ben cares about Gwen, the two reconcile on good terms afterward. She also has an uncanny sense of humor that was passed on to Ben, although Ben inherited his grandmother Verdona's spirit, sense of humor, and overconfidence, he also inherited his grandfather's determination, adventurous and self-sacrificing attitude. Also, she was shown to be a strict disciplinarian and shown to be serious when she needs to be, when Sunny went way out of line.

In Ben 10: Race Against Time, Max told Ben that his paternal grandmother had passed away, although this might be a lie. As Ben was likely not ready for the truth about his grandmother being an alien yet as he was ten at the time.

She appears first time in "What Are Little Girls Made of?" when she explained everything to Gwen about her alien inherited, and offered Gwen to come back with her to Anodyne to reach the full potential of her powers and abilities (which would require seventy-five years), but Gwen had refused the offer. Verdona then shed her human body, revealing her true Anodite form, and thought that Gwen was too young to make her own decisions and decided to destroy her human body to free the dormant Anodite inside, but the two boys' stepped to defend Gwen. After a brief battle Gwen explained to her that she would rather stay on Earth with her friends and family, Verdona then tells Gwen that Max should have been an energy being like them, expressing her deep longing for him and that her desire to take Gwen with her could be just a front to fill the void in her heart. Verdona then claimed to return every so often to see how Gwen is doing.

Verdona returned in "Girl Trouble", where she was able to overpower Sunny (who was attacking Gwen) and she took Sunny and her boyfriend Antonio back to their home planets and allows their parents to deal with them.