The Next Generation Almost Brought Khan Noonien Singh Back With a Twist

When he first appeared in the “Star Trek” episode “Space Seed” (February 16, 1967), Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán) was merely a villain-of-the-week. Khan was a remnant of the long-ago Eugenics Wars, a conflict that broke out on Earth in the late 1990s, and which contributed to the near-destruction of the planet several decades later. Khan, genetically enhanced, managed to escape Earth in cryogenic stasis, only to be found and revived by the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise nearly 200 years later. As one might predict, Khan, still thirsty for power, attempted to take over the Enterprise. 

It wouldn’t be until the release of Nicholas Meyer’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” in 1982 that the character would become mythic. Montalbán returned to play a Khan that was miffed after having been abandoned, and who goes on a mad quest to find and kill Admiral Kirk (William Shatner). In “Space Seed,” Khan and his genetically enhanced brethren were dropped off on an uninhabited planet, invited to build their own masterpiece society. A solar cataclysm, however, swiftly transformed the planet into a desert wasteland, and Khan was left high and dry. Enraged at Kirk for not checking in on him, Khan hijacks a ship and aims to ruin Kirk’s life. 

By the end of “Khan,” however, the villain’s scheme is foiled, and he is hoisted by his own petard. Khan was most certainly dead, following the activation of the planet-terraforming Genesis Wave. 

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The Genesis Wave, to remind readers, was a terraforming device that, when fired at an uninhabited planet, would completely re-work the molecules on its surface and transform it into a verdant, planet-wide biome almost instantly. At the end of “Star Trek II,” Khan fired