56 Years Later, Star Trek Canon Finally Addresses Its Trickiest Moral Question

People will never get over Khan. From his introduction in the 1967 episode “Space Seed,” to the famous Wrath of Khan, to the Benedict Cumberbatch version in 2013, and most recently, his distant descendent, La’an Noonien-Singh in Strange New Worlds, Star Trek’s most infamous genetically enhanced supervillain casts a long shadow. But, 56 years after Khan’s debut, the Trek canon is flipping the script on the nature of Khan’s villainy. For a long time, Star Trek has (mostly) posited that people like Khan were evil because they were genetically enhanced. But what Strange New Worlds presupposes is — maybe not?