Dr. Lincoln Campbell, M.D. was a major supporting character in Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.. Introduced during Season 2, he was an Inhuman who possessed the ability to manipulate electricity. Initially a member of Afterlife, he would turn against Jiaying and help S.H.I.E.L.D. put a stop to her war against humanity. He then became a regular cast member in Season 3, during which he entered a strained relationship with Daisy Johnson. He was portrayed by Luke Mitchell.
History[]
Early life[]
Lincoln Campbell grew up in Cincinnati with his sister Amanda and attended medical school; however, he had to leave school, which led to a downfall in his life and living roughly, even attempting suicide by jumping off a bridge until his friend John Donnelly was able to talk him down.
Like many other untransformed Inhumans, Lincoln always had a feeling where nothing felt quite right and just empty. Trying to fill the void, he delved into alcoholism, but he could not control his temper. His girlfriend at the time thought she could help him to become a better person, a subject which they fought about a great deal. One night, Lincoln and his girlfriend were arguing and he continued drinking the angrier he got. To get away from the situation, Campbell got into his car, but before he was able to drive away, his girlfriend got in the car with him to try and talk him down. Since Lincoln was unfit to drive a car at the time, he crashed into a telephone pole, nearly killing her. At that moment, the Inhuman Gordon showed up, offering to save Lincoln and his girlfriend. He then brought Lincoln to Afterlife where he was introduced to Jiaying. Here, Lincoln felt like the emptiness in him might be filled one day.
During his time at Afterlife, Lincoln met JT James, who was hoping to gain powers and made many comments about an ancient Inhuman known as Hive; however Jiaying caught him stealing from her archives and banished him from Afterlife. After a few years, Lincoln was selected to undergo Terrigenesis, where he gained the ability of electricity manipulation. He greatly suffered after his transformation, almost burning all of Afterlife down, but his mentor was able to teach him to control his powers.
Season 2[]
Lincoln would meet the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Skye after she was taken from her colleagues by Gordon. When she arrived in Afterlife, Lincoln was selected to help her with her transition. He spent a great deal of time telling Skye about the origins of Afterlife and his own experiences of learning to control his powers. However, after Skye discovered that Raina was also at Afterlife, she accused Lincoln of lying to her and fled, threatening to hurt him if he followed after her. The situation was eventually settled when Jiaying introduced herself to Skye before she could kill Raina.
Some time later, after Skye discovered that Jiaying and Calvin Zabo were her parents, she and Calvin went on a trip to Milwaukee. Though Calvin believed he was having a day out with his daughter, in truth Jiaying was banishing him from Afterlife and did not want him bringing harm to any Inhumans when he inevitably got angry over his circumstances. Lincoln shadowed Skye and Calvin in secret, but accidentally made his presence known to Calvin, who flew into a rage once he figured out what was going on. In the midst of their fight, however, Sunil Bakshi and a group of HYDRA agents arrived and Calvin told Lincoln to take Skye somewhere safe. When S.H.I.E.L.D. arrived on the scene, Lincoln fought against the cyborg Deathlok and was defeated, leading to his capture by HYDRA.
While in HYDRA's custody, Lincoln was subjected to inhumane experiments by Dr. List. When List began operating on him without anesthesia, Lincoln's heart stopped from the immense pain. However, Skye would arrive along with S.H.I.E.L.D. and she would manage to kickstart Lincoln's heart again, using her vibration abilities to trigger Lincoln's electrical powers, essentially making him defibrillate himself back to consciousness. Skye then took Lincoln and Deathlok from the HYDRA base before it was destroyed by Robert Gonzales and his team.
Lincoln was taken to the Playground where his injuries were treated, but after he recovered from his coma, he was horrified to learn that he was within S.H.I.E.L.D., believing that they would want to know all about Afterlife and feared that they posed a threat to all Inhumans. Despite Phil Coulson's reassurances, Lincoln believed that S.H.I.E.L.D.'s methods of cataloguing Inhumans made them no better than HYDRA.
After a failed attempt by S.H.I.E.L.D. to establish a peace agreement with Afterlife, Jiaying rallied the Inhumans to go to war against humanity. Lincoln sided with Jiaying while also blaming Skye for siding with S.H.I.E.L.D. when they attacked Afterlife, although Skye had no prior knowledge of the attack. Lincoln later joined Gordon and Alisha Whitley in attacking the aircraft carrier Iliad, taking control of the ship. When Jiaying killed several S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in cold blood using Terrigen crystals, Lincoln began to question if what they were doing was right, with Gordon assuring him that they were doing what was necessary for their survival.
Later, Lincoln was contacted once again by Skye, who revealed to him that Jiaying had staged the S.H.I.E.L.D. attack on Afterlife in order to mislead the Inhumans into following her into war and had murdered Raina after she had foreseen Jiaying's scheme. Lincoln then decided to help S.H.I.E.L.D. and Skye defeat Jiaying and put a stop to her plans.
Season 3[]
Following Jiaying's defeat, Lincoln wanted nothing more to do with Inhumans and moved to Cincinnati where he once again pursued a medical career. Six months after starting his job, he was approached by Skye - now going by her birthname Daisy Johnson - who wanted him to help Joey Gutierrez through his Inhuman transition. Lincoln refused, but Alfonso Mackenzie tried to force the situation. Just then, the lights in the hospital flickered and a monstrous Inhuman attacked them. Lincoln, Daisy and Mack fought against the creature, but it proved to be largely impervious to their attacks. After Daisy used her power to make a hole in the floor beneath the creature's feet, it fled. Unfortunately for Lincoln, his colleague Tina had seen him use his Inhuman powers and was frightened, calling the authorities and telling them what she had seen.
Lincoln was forced to go on the run, but Mack had planted a tracking device on him so that S.H.I.E.L.D. could follow his every move. Not only were S.H.I.E.L.D. watching him, but he was also actively being hunted by the Advanced Threat Containment Unit, a paramilitary group that had been assembled to deal with the outbreak of Inhumans that had been occurring since the fall of Afterlife. The media had gained coverage of his encounter with Lash at the hospital and were going as far as to make him out to be an armed and dangerous criminal. Lincoln decided to seek help and called upon an old friend of his, John Donnelly. John willingly allowed Lincoln to stay with him, no questions asked, but when he saw Lincoln on the news, his attitude turned to one of fear and he threatened Lincoln with a baseball bat. Lincoln zapped the bat out of John's hands, but John was so terrified by Lincoln's power that he suffered a heart attack. Lincoln attempted to revive John by zapping his heart, but John had already passed away.
S.H.I.E.L.D. would later arrive at John's apartment and Daisy spoke with Lincoln, who had fallen into a state of despair. He insisted that he was dangerous and that he didn't belong in the world, but Daisy tried to reassure him while also telling him that other Inhumans were out there and could benefit from his guidance. However, Mack soon arrived with several ATCU agents, explaining that Coulson had made a deal with Rosalind Price, but that the deal required Lincoln be brought into ATCU custody. Unwilling to allow himself to be taken, Lincoln made his escape and would remain on the run for some time.
Over time, Lincoln attempted to make contact with former members of Afterlife, but found that they had all been killed off by Lash. He theorized that Lash could only find Inhumans using a book that had once been in Jiaying's possession, a book that was currently in the hands of S.H.I.E.L.D., and so Lincoln believed that Lash was someone within S.H.I.E.L.D.. He contacted Daisy and Mack with this information and they went to Coulson, who realized that only Dr. Andrew Garner had access to Jiaying's ledger, meaning that he had to have been Lash. Garner was tracked to an abandoned administration building at Culver University where he was holding Melinda May. There, Coulson gave Garner the chance to explain his actions, but Lincoln was convinced that he had gone insane and attacked him. Garner transformed into Lash and a battle ensued, but it was brought to an end when May managed to calm Garner down, causing him to revert to human form. S.H.I.E.L.D. managed to contain Garner in a specially designed containment module and he was taken into custody. Following Lash's capture, Lincoln was offered the opportunity to join S.H.I.E.L.D.. Having nowhere else to go, Lincoln accepted.
During his time with S.H.I.E.L.D., Lincoln would enter into a romantic relationship with Daisy, which would become his primary motivation to remaining with the agency. He also joined the Secret Warriors program, an initiative to assemble a group of Inhumans to aid S.H.I.E.L.D. in their mission to protect the world from unusual threats. However, Lincoln would prove to be problematic at times, letting his temper get the better of him and jeopardising missions.
After Daisy fell under the sway of Hive, S.H.I.E.L.D. discovered that Hive infected his Inhuman minions with nanoscopic parasites that attacked the pleasure centres of the brain, making them willing to do anything to serve him. Leo Fitz and Jemma Simmons attempted to develop a vaccine against Hive's parasites and Lincoln offered himself up as a test subject. Fitz-Simmons weren't willing to let Lincoln try it as it would destroy his immune system in the process, but Lincoln went behind their backs and injected himself with the antitoxin, causing him to unleash an elecromagnetic burst that temporarily knocked out power to the lab. With the antitoxin compromising his immune system, Lincoln was quarantined inside a containment module. He would later find out that his efforts were in vain as the antitoxin proved to be ineffective.
While recovering in the containment module, Lincoln was contacted by Daisy, who had managed to hack the S.H.I.E.L.D. security protocols that she had written in order to talk to him via the monitor in the module. Not only was she trying to spy on her former friends, but wanted to persuade Lincoln into joining her with Hive. However, Lincoln's isolation would turn out to be the first step in an elaborate plan to kill Hive and save Daisy; May had been leaving notes for Lincoln while serving him his meals and they came up with a scheme to make it appear as though Lincoln was escaping and hijacking a Quinjet. However, Lincoln wasn't the one to take the Quinjet as he and May had released Lash from imprisonment. Aware that every Inhuman existed to fulfill a specific purpose, Lincoln was convinced that Lash's purpose was to kill Hive. This plan ultimately paid off as Lash flew to Hive's base and cleansed Daisy of Hive's nanoparasites, freeing her from his control and rendering her immune to reinfection. However, Lash was killed shortly after, but Daisy would return to S.H.I.E.L.D. aboard the Quinjet.
While Daisy recovered at the Playground, Lincoln took part in a mission to stop Hive from carrying out his plan to launch a missile loaded with a mutagenic virus into the Earth's atmosphere. He, Mack and Yo-Yo were able to lure Hive into a trap, drawing him towards a Theta Brainwave Frequency Machine which Lincoln then powered up. Hive was then overcome by the memories of all his previous hosts, crippling him and giving S.H.I.E.L.D. the opportunity to rescue his hostages. When Hive followed the agents outside of the missile complex, he was trapped within a suspension gel module.
Hive was brought back to the Playground, but would not be imprisoned for long. A cargo container had been rigged with corrupted Terrigen crystals that shattered when the crate was opened, releasing Terrigen Mist and turning several S.H.I.E.L.D. personnel into Primitives: deformed Inhumans under Hive's control. The Primitives freed Hive from his suspension gel cube before spreading out throughout the Playground to hunt down the remaining agents. Lincoln, Coulson, Mack, Yo-Yo and Fitz found themselves locked in a room with the captive Dr. Radcliffe, but were able to escape after Simmons raised the temperature inside the base, interfering with the Primitives' infrared vision.
The team went into Coulson's office and were able to get a Quinjet to fly up to Zephyr One, which was flying up to the stratosphere. On board, Lincoln was found by JT James. They engaged in a fight and Lincoln struck James into a wall. May knocked him out. Campbell then found Daisy and smiled at her, but she screamed out a warning. Campbell looked down and found that James tagged him with a grenade. Lincoln then found himself being dragged away, bleeding. Daisy apologized, but a weak Lincoln told her that he didn't blame her for anything. She asked if she ruined the relationship and he told her they needed to figure themselves out first. He then told her he knew why she went back to Hive. He knew what it is like to be addicted and do anything to get her back. Daisy told Lincoln that she guessed Coulson set new coordinates to space so that Hive's warhead could detonate without infecting anyone.
Lincoln then noticed Daisy's cross necklace, remembering what she had once said about her vision of the future, the person who died has the necklace. He told her not to think she had to atone for her sins as some sacrifice. Daisy told him she was accepting fate. Despite his pleas, she left regardless.
Daisy prepared the warhead for its path to outer space and was ambushed by Hive. Lincoln sneaked onto the Quinjet and fried the manual controls, knowing that Hive could easily turn the jet back around. He fulfilled Daisy's vision she received from Charles Hinton, ensuring Daisy would not fly herself, he knocked her out of the jet just before the hangar shut, trapping himself and Hive inside. As he piloted the Quinjet to space, Daisy contacted him via radio in a desperate attempt to convince him to turn around. Lincoln still refused, saying he snatched the necklace from her. For the first time, he told Daisy that he loved her. They then lost connection. The Quinjet immediately lost power once it left the atmosphere.
Lincoln turned around and told Hive that he could sway him, but it won't stop the inevitability of the situation. Hive accepted his own fate, telling Lincoln that they would experience the one thing that had alluded him all his years: death. Lincoln made his way towards Hive and the two looked out over Earth, realizing he got to see the world. Hive remarked at how beautiful it was and that he only wanted to make it better. He admired Lincoln for fighting for humanity, with all of its flaws. Lincoln responded saying they were only human. He then let go of the necklace, allowing it to float in front of him. He proceeded to close his eyes as the Quinjet exploded, killing them both.