Lien-Da

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caption=Kommissar Lien-Da in issue #184
character_name=Lien-Da
real_name=Lien-Da
publisher=Archie Comics
debut="Knuckles the Echidna #22
creators=
alliances=The Dark Legion
aliases=Kommissar
powers= Cybernetic enhancement, leadership skills, weapon expert.

Lien-Da (a.k.a. Kommissar) is a fictional character in the comic book universe of "Sonic the Hedgehog" and "Knuckles the Echidna" (now out of print). Lien-Da is either 33 or 34 years old and is the current leader of the Dark Legion, having inherited the title after Dimitri's incapacitation. Lien-Da is sometimes called Kommissar (which is German for "commissioner", which probably refers to her rank in the Legion).

She is a red-furred, female, anthropomorphic, humanoid echidna and an enemy of Knuckles the Echidna, Lien-Da's weapon of choice is a bullwhip. Her design has changed several times over the years, however she is almost always depicted as having red hair, blue eyes, and wearing a black suit. Like all Echidnas she has dreadlocks, and one of them is metallic-possibly cybernetic-to mark her as a member of the Legion. Lien-Da has always decorated these dreadlocks, originally with bands of white or grey metal but more recently with black straps.

Lien-Da's wardrobe originally consisted of a black leather jacket and matching pants, but it later changed to become tighter pants with frayed cuffs and a black belly shirt. The sleeves of the shirt have a silver snake design on them, and she has a belt and boots marked with a red heart. Lien-Da also wears a collar around her neck in this design. Her recent design [ Chip and Walter.com. [http://chipandwalter.cartoonsdammit.com/jongraywb/sonic139.html Information about Lien-Da's recent design] .] is supposed to make her look like an "evil, sexy diva." The outfit, however, is rather reminiscent of that stereotypically worn by a dominatrix.

Life

Past Events

Lien-Da is the daughter of Luger (the leader of the Dark Legion) and his wife, Merin-Da, and was born with her twin brother, Kragok. When Merin-Da died from an illness, Luger remarried to Mari-Su and had another daughter, Julie-Su. Feeling that Julie-Su was trespassing on her life, Lien-Da scorned Julie-Su and treated her poorly. Sometime later, Mari-Su died in an accident (it is suggested that Lien-Da and Kragok may have had a role to play, [Sonic HQ.com. [http://archive.sonic-hq.net/newsite/general/profiles/index.php/letter.Lien-Da/top.Lien-Da/series. Information about Lien-Da.] ] but this is not known for certain) and from then on, Lien-Da began ignoring Julie-Su entirely. When Luger mysteriously disappeared, Lien-Da and Kragok leapt at their chance to take control of the Dark Legion and set Kragok up as the new leader, for both had been impatient with their father's peaceful rule. Not wanting their step-sister involved with their rule, Lien-Da and her brother had Julie-Su's memory wiped, and then again so as to remove her from her adoptive family, fearing they might eventually reveal her relation to them.

Modern Day

After the presumed death of Kragok, Dimitri (the ancient father of the Dark Legion's founder, Menniker) assumed control, with Lien-Da taking more and more control as Dimitri's ancient body began to fail, despite the cybernetics he had grafted to himself.

Shortly after Dimitri gained control of the Legion, he attempted to put an end to the long standing war between the Legion and the rest of Echidna society. Lien-Da secretly attempted to use the meeting between Dimitri and the Mitre (the political leader of Echidnaopolis) to her own advantage, and arranged an assassination. The intended target of this assassination, however, was never stated (although some evidence suggests it was Dimitri). Regardless, the assassination was foiled by Lara-Su, Knuckles' daughter from an alternative future.

Following this event, Lien-Da continued in her role as Dimitri's assistant, and although she at times disagreed with his orders (particularly his orders to try and make peace with Knuckles and his allies), she apparently tried to serve him well. When Dimitri's health took a turn for the worse, Lien-Da assisted him in a plan to convince Knuckles (who at the time was essentially a living Chaos Emerald) to use his powers to give Dimitri new life. He furthermore made Lien-Da promise to continue his policies, in case of his death. The plan to use Knuckles' power to save Dimitri failed due to interference from Mammoth Mogul, who tried to steal Knuckles' powers for himself.

During the year that Sonic the Hedgehog was lost in space, Lien-Da inherited control over the Dark Legion with the aid of the recent newcomer, Dr. Finitevus, as Dimitri had vanished - Lien-Da simply claimed he was no longer with them, implying his death. However, during that time, Dr. Eggman sent the Dingoes to capture Angel Island as well as Knuckles' father, Locke, who had entrusted the care of the Master Emerald in Lien-Da's hands, as all echidnas on the island were now threatened by the Dingo Regime. She then enlisted the help of Knuckles and Sonic to free Angel Island and rescue Locke, which they successfully did. Not long after, the Legion split into rival factions; one lead by Lien-Da, the other by a brainwashed Remington who was revealed to be Kragok's son and thus next in line. Eventually they called a truce when Finitevus revealed that he planned to unite the Legion under a reborn Enerjak, and promised them both power from the Master Emerald so as to take revenge on Dr. Eggman. In truth, he had been responsible for Dimitri going missing, having wanted to learn of the original Enerjak. He then planned to use one of Dimitri's decedents to recreate Enerjak, so Lien-Da and Remington (whom he rescued, half-dead, from the Egg Grapes) were candidates. However, he later decided that Knuckles, with his strong connection to the Chaos Force, would be more suitable, especially as he found Lien-Da to be hard to control. Feeling betrayed and cheated from power, Lien-Da and Remington formed a truce in order to stop Finitevus and the new Enerjak. They were easily overwhelmed, and after Enerjak restored Remington's true memories and body, he transformed all of the Legionnaires back to their "natural" forms, removing all their cybernetics. Those who seemed "thankful" of Enerjak's actions were sent to Albion. Many, however, including Lien-Da, were shocked and horrified at losing what they saw as enhancements. Calling him a monster, she protested that wanting to better one's self wasn't unnatural.

With most of her followers unable to cope with the loss of their cyborg parts, and their own resources decimated from all the recent fighting, Lien-Da went to the one person with the technical know-how to restore their cybernetics: Dr. Robotnik. She offered him the Legion to replace his ground forces lost to Enerjak, saying that she would command them while he would be free to command her. They shook on it, and while Lien-Da was initially pleased at becoming Grandmaster of the Legion, her happiness was short-lived, as it was revealed that someone who outranked her had already formed an alliance with Robotnik: Dimitri.

With their cybernetics restored, the Dark Egg Legion became the active ground forces in Eggman's city, defending it from attacks by the Freedom Fighters and Chaotix, though failing to stop their progress into the city and the destruction of a communications tower. Seeing as the Legion is still made up of echidnas, Knuckles tries to reason with Lien-Da, but she refuses to listen to him, even when it turns out that Snively and Eggman are poorly supporting the Legion in their battle. When later questioned about his lacking support of his ground troops, Eggman reveals to Dimitri that the Legion's new cybernetics are all implanted with remote-activated bombs, and that he'll use these echidnas as a resource down to the last one. Dimitri finds and scans Lien-Da, finding a bomb and being forced to admit that Eggman wasn't bluffing. When he explains the situation to Lien-Da, she angrily tries to blame the situation on anyone but herself, despite that it was she who sold her people out to Eggman. She remains trapped commanding the Legion under Eggman, while Dimitri tries to think of a way out of the situation, neither willing to turn to Knuckles for aid.

Possible Future

In the "Sonic the Hedgehog" story of "", a future version of Lien-Da was shown with a son named Rutan, whom she caught sneaking out at night to see his girlfriend Salma, Espio's daughter, in the park. She was angry, but her grandfather convinced her not to punish him. To top that off, Rutan also revealed that he had seen Knuckles speaking to Rotor. This led Lien-Da to discerning the nature of Rotor's work with Cobar in repairing damage to the time space continuum. In this alternate/possible future, Lien-Da isn't seeking revenge against Julie-Su, but still harbors negative feelings. Despite this, she takes her grandfather's advice and tries being friendly, and seems rather fond of her niece Lara-Su. Unfortunately, this later proves to be an illusion, as Lara-Su's arrest in the alternate "Mobius: 25 Years Later" finds Lien-Da celebrating the apparent end of the line of Edmund.

In the alternate future Lien-Da retains her memories of the original future via a device that she had Cobar design and is working for King Shadow the Hedgehog along with members of the Dark Legion. Dimitri, reduced in this time to a cybernetic head in a glass orb, strongly disapproves of this alliance, seeing them on a level with his own association with Dr. Finitevus. Because of her elevated status in this altered timeline, she has no interest in the future being restored to its proper order. Like Shadow, she was apparently fooled into thinking that Knuckles was completely on the same side as her, which likely led to her being arrested when Shadow was defeated by Lara-Su and Sonic regained his position as king with Sally Acorn as his queen.

Personality

Lien-Da is a ruthless, femme fatale-style character, and seems very selfish in her desire for power. Despite this, she actually cares deeply for the echidna people, believing them to be superior to others. However, she finds even more superiority in using technology to physically improve the body.

Although she is clever, she knows when she is in need of assistance. One example is when Knuckles' father, Locke, entrusted the Master Emerald into her care before being captured by dingos, she enlisted Knuckles' help to rescue him. While she claims loyalty to the Legion, this is nothing compared to her loyalty to herself - she is quick to form and break alliances, regardless of those involved, when it suits her goals. She has little regard for life and is willing to kill if it's in her interest. She is easily angered, indignant, and cruel. She is not one to admit her mistakes or take blame.

Lien-Da enjoys power - it was implied that she arranged an assassination attempt to eliminate Dimitri, in order to usurp his leadership. This, however, would seem to be in conflict with her relationship with him as it was depicted later, with her assisting in plans to extend his life (and thus his time as leader) further. Additionally, in the "25 Years Later" storyline, she apparently respected Dimitri's counsel. After her brother had died and Dimitri had disappeared, she was eager to assume the position of Grandmaster, though this didn't last long as the warped Remington soon appeared to challenge her rule and divide the Legion. She was manipulated by Finitevus when promised the power of the Master Emerald and grew enraged when denied. She was willing to ally with Eggman in desperation, but it was clear that she also desired to re-establish herself as Grandmaster - and was quite disappointed to find Dimitri there to outrank her.

Her hatred of her half-sister Julie-Su seems to stem from the fact that she felt their father loved Julie-Su more. She also felt slighted when her father remarried without her opinion on the matter. This resentment lead to her erasing her step-sister's memory and then removing her from her loving, adoptive family. This jealousy shows in her behavior towards Julie-Su for the entire main story arc, but they seem to be on speaking terms in the "25 Years Later" issues.

Romance

In the present of the comics, Lien-Da has no apparent romantic interests. She is known to flirt with Knuckles, but has had no more success with him than has Rouge the Bat.

:"Many fans also believe Lien-Da to be involved at some point with Dr. Finitevus, and think that he may be Rutan's father due to the white tips of Rutan's dreadlocks. If this proves incorrect, it is unknown who her partner is in "", as he never made an appearance or was mentioned."

ee also

*Dark Legion
*Knuckles the Echidna
*Julie-Su

Notes and references