CREATED BY: Herman Melville
FIRST APPEARANCE: Moby Dick (1851)
AREAS OF INFLUENCE: Maimed in an encounter with a giant white whale years earlier, the captain of the New England whaler Pequod has become obsessed with settling an old score with the pale leviathan called Moby Dick. Forever associated with the kind of blind, self-destructive monomania that kills the mood of any party, Ahab has been re-imagined in at least two characters from the movies: Quint, the salty shark hunter from Jaws, and, of course, the titular villain from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. As played so memorably by Ricardo Montalban, the genetically engineered super-being was at least cognizant of his unhealthy obsession (the death of James Kirk) — as he lays dying, Khan echoes Ahab’s final words: “to the last I grapple with thee; from hell’s heart I stab at thee; for hate’s sake I spit my last breath at thee.”
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