Captain Clark Terrell may have sacrificed himself to save Captain Kirk from Khan’s wrath, but that didn’t stop the creators of the new IDW comic series Star Trek: Boldly Go from bringing him back from the dead.
In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Captain Terrell (Paul Winfield) of the USS Reliant and his first officer, Pavel Chekov, are captured by Khan and his followers, who’d been banished to the planet Ceti Alpha V. Poor Captain Terrell gets a slimy, mind-controlling space eel wedged into his brain and, after being controlled by Khan throughout the film, finally ends up turning his own phaser on himself in an act of sheer willpower. He chooses to sacrifice his own life rather than kill a fellow officer, the then-Admiral Kirk.
Captain Terrell is a hero for the Star Trek books, and, obviously, the minds behind Star Trek: Boldy Go Mike Johnson and Tony Shasteen — agree. They’ve brought him back as captain of the USS Concord with his first officer, Hikaru Sulu.
Hopefully there’s a far less tragic ending this time for Terrell. The Kelvin timeline created by J.J. Abrams’s reboot has given a second chance (and different stories) to many of Star Trek’s well-known and beloved characters. Bringing back characters who didn’t get much of a chance to be explored in original films and Trek television is a smart move on Johnson and Shasteen’s parts.
What’s especially interesting, though, is the choice to make Terrell’s first officer Sulu rather than Chekov. Since the Boldly Go series falls into the Kelvin timeline right after the events of this summer’s Star Trek Beyond, it seems Sulu bid the Enterprise farewell after its run-in with Krall.
Spoilers ahead for Star Trek: Boldy Go #1*
At the end of the first issue, we find out that the Concord has been destroyed by an enemy unknown to Kirk and his team aboard the USS Endeavour, but one that is all too familiar to Trek fans. The Borg, a conquering race of cyborgs introduced to us in The Next Generation, have attacked and destroyed the Concord with few survivors to be accounted for, and they have taken Captain Terrell hostage.
We won’t find out if Terrell has been absorbed into the Borg’s hive mind when the second issue of Star Trek: Boldly Go arrives November 16 from IDW.
