Ok, not "anybody" as in a "normal guy" as you say, but the role wasn't initially written as Khan, and that's enough to know that it wasn't necessary for it to be Khan. Adding in a bunch of stuff like the Worf Effect was just superficial trimmings to fit Khan, not elements that were pivotal to the story. Were it someone else, the story would've accommodated them. This isn't that hard to see.
So basically instead of Khan, you want yet another Khan ripoff?
Nothing in what Cumberbatch does in STD reminds me of Khan, so I never get that argument. When was Khan ever able to beat a bunch of Klingons to a pulp, shrug off phaser blasts, resist Vulcan nerve pinches and have healing blood?
KhanPrime was never in the same room with the Klingons, so we wouldn't really know. Likewise, we never saw anyone try to shoot him with a phaser either (we did see him crush a phaser with his bare hands, of course).
Seriously, nobody would even THINK about shouting "Khan Ripoff!" if the guy was just called "John Harrison, enhanced secret agent".
Very true... at least, until Harrison started getting all weepy about his (for some reason cryogenically frozen) fellow supersoldiers, at which point most of us would pull a collective "Hey, wait a minute..."
Make Harrison a human-alien hybrid to explain his abilities and there's NOTHING left of Khan.
When has this ever NOT been true of Khan? Hell, even the connection in Wrath of Khan was pretty thin; you could have inserted any random Klingon warlord we've never heard of and have him blaming Kirk for some other equally random shit he derangedly thinks Kirk did to him (killed his brother on Organia? Humiliated him at Troyus? Whatever) and it would be basically the same movie.
Come to think of it... with some VERY minor tweaks, Khan and Kruge are almost interchangeable characters. You'd have to insert fifteen seconds of dialog to explain how Khan got his hands on a Romulan bird of prey (about as much as time as Harrison spent explaining how Marcus found his ship) and replace the word "Klingons" with "superior" and then you're basically good to go.
Let's be honest with ourselves: Khan wasn't special or memorable
as a character. Khan was special and memorable
because Ricardo Montalban was a phenomenal actor.
Right there he says that the story is about just that the individual is unique. It wasn't the genetic engineering that defined the character...
And strictly speaking, it never WAS. What defined Khan's character was two things:
1) A human being who is effectively super-human, who was CREATED to be super-human, whose belief in his superiority is indeed justified (which is scary enough) and thus becomes the justification for an unbroken string of atrocities.
2) An evil genius who cleverly manipulates others into giving him the advantage and then mercilessly slits their throats (and/or crushes their skulls) when that advantage manifests.
IOW, Khan is a murdering psychopath with allusions of grandeur. He was never really that much more than that, and never would have been in the hands of a less talented actor.
I think the main story that he talks about there is a good one and that he's right in that it did not need Khan. I think adding Khan in as a sort of canon window dressing just isn't that great and I'd prefer that they wrote a story that was tailored to fit him if they have to use him.
But that would involve quite a bit more character development than we have ever seen from Khan before. Apart from the Pimping of McGyvers, Khan actually had less character development in TOS than Kor, and FAR less of a reason to get his own movie (except that maybe "The Wrath of Kor" isn't quite as catchy a title).
Besides, with all the abilities hinted at but never seen in TOS, this movie did a lot more for Khan's characterization than Khan did for the STID.
