James T. Kirk

Kirk commands the USS Enterprise on a five-year mission to explore new worlds. Spock, the half-Vulcan first officer, brings the logic; McCoy, the doctor, brings the heart; Kirk makes the call. The crew also includes Scotty in engineering, Uhura on communications, Sulu at the helm and, later, Chekov.

Over the series he faces Klingons and Romulans, fights a Gorn in an arena, meets his cruel double in a mirror universe and revives Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically engineered tyrant who ends up exiled with his followers on the planet Ceti Alpha V. In "The City on the Edge of Forever," he lands in 1930s New York, falls for Edith Keeler and has to let her die to save history.

Years later, Kirk is an admiral stuck behind a desk. When V'Ger, an entity hidden inside a giant cloud, heads for Earth, he takes back command of the refitted Enterprise, to the annoyance of its new captain, Decker.

In The Wrath of Khan it's his birthday, McCoy gives him reading glasses, and Kirk feels old. Khan resurfaces: Ceti Alpha V has become a desert, his wife is dead, and he blames Kirk. He steals the ship Reliant and goes after the Genesis project, a device that turns dead planets into living worlds, built by Dr. Carol Marcus, Kirk's old flame, and David, the son Kirk barely knows. Kirk beats Khan in the Mutara Nebula, but Khan sets off Genesis. To get the ship out, Spock walks into the irradiated engine room and dies in front of Kirk.

Kirk learns that Spock passed his katra, his Vulcan essence, to McCoy before dying, and that his body may still be on the Genesis planet. Against orders, he steals the Enterprise with the old crew. On the planet, the Klingon Kruge kills David. Kirk destroys his own Enterprise to get rid of the Klingons, takes their ship and brings Spock, reborn on the planet, to Vulcan.

A mysterious probe threatens Earth by calling out to humpback whales, extinct for centuries. Kirk takes the crew to 1986 San Francisco in the Klingon ship, finds the whales George and Gracie with help from scientist Gillian Taylor, and brings them to the future. The probe leaves. Kirk is demoted to captain and gets the new Enterprise-A.

After a trip with Sybok, who hijacks the Enterprise to look for God at the center of the galaxy, the crew is nearing retirement. The explosion of the Klingon moon Praxis forces the Klingon Empire to seek peace. Spock volunteers the Enterprise to escort Chancellor Gorkon, and Kirk, who never forgave the Klingons for David's death, goes reluctantly.

Gorkon is assassinated by men in Starfleet suits. Kirk and McCoy are convicted and sent to the frozen prison of Rura Penthe. Spock investigates, uncovers a conspiracy of Federation, Klingon and Romulan officials, and the crew rescues them. At the Khitomer conference they stop an assassination. Kirk lets go of his hatred and takes the Enterprise out one last time.

In 2293, now retired, Kirk attends the maiden voyage of the Enterprise-B. An energy ribbon traps two refugee ships, Kirk goes to a control room to help, and the hull is torn open. Everyone thinks he's dead.

In fact, he's ended up in the Nexus, a place outside time where everyone lives out what they wish for. In 2371, Jean-Luc Picard, captain of the Enterprise-D, enters it chasing the scientist Soran and convinces Kirk to come back. On the planet Veridian III, the two stop Soran from destroying a star. Kirk is hurt in a fall, dies there and is buried by Picard.

Gene Roddenberry created Kirk and rejected names like Hannibal and Timber before landing on the final one. William Shatner played the captain from 1966 to 1994, drawing on Horatio Hornblower and Alexander the Great. In the Kelvin timeline, the alternate reality of the 2009–2016 movies, Kirk is played by Chris Pine. In Strange New Worlds, young Kirk is Paul Wesley.