KARL LINDERS KARL LINDERS
Real Name: Damian Linders
Identity/Class: Alternate
Reality (Earth-73479) human
Occupation: Unrevealed
Group Membership: None (beyond the citizens of an unidentified city)
Affiliations: Christine
Enemies: Damian
Linders, unidentified official and guards, unidentified duel
opponent, Wets
Known Relatives: Damian
Linders (tube brother), unidentified father
Aliases: None
Base of Operations: Unrevealed;
apparently died in the swamplands outside of an
unspecified city;
formerly an unspecified city
First Appearance: Savage Tales I#2 (October, 1973)
Powers/Abilities: Damian is experienced and skilled experience with a sword.
He could also pilot an airship.
Unable to survive in the fetid air of
the swamplands, Karl was forced to wear an atmospheric helmet.
History:
(Savage Tales I#2 (fb) - BTS) - After a plague
ravaged Earth's plants, walled cities with hydroponic gardens survived,
but overpopulation led the Guardian to create a lottery system whereby
humans were surgically adapted for life in the fetid swamps outside the
city.
These beings, known as "Wets," lived in
the swamplands and were to service the machines that ran the cities.
Additionally, an "honor system" was
established where anyone who challenged another was forced into a duel
with that person, with the survivor being transformed into a Wet and
exiled from the city. The society was designed to kill off as many of
its eight billion inhabitants as possible. 
At some point, the Wets rebelled to
some degree, forming a tribune whereby any city-man found in the
swamplands was tried for the crimes of creating the plague and the Wets
(and presumably routinely executed).
(Savage Tales I#2 (fb) - BTS) - Karl and Damian Linders were tube-brothers. Damian and apparently his father became Wets.
(Savage Tales I#2 (fb)- BTS) - Karl
selected Christine to be his chosen chamber-mate.
(Savage Tales I#2 (fb)- BTS) - Jostled and subsequently challenged by a man on the transit strip, Karl Linders reluctantly rose to the challenge was forced to duel that man.
(Savage Tales I#2) - As an
unidentified official reviewed the rules of the life or death struggle,
Christine watched in horror, duty-bound to wait for her chamber-mate...or
his killer.
A male spectator put his money on Karl, noting the
power in his limbs, while a female spectator argued that Linders was a bad
one. Considering how slowly Linders had risen to the challenge, she stated
that there was not a bone of honor in Linders' frame.
Dodging the initial thrust of his opponent, Linders
parried, struck, and counter-struck, pacing his moves like a practiced
dancer. As the strain grew great, Karl began to wonder what purpose the
battle served, until he finally delivered the killing strike.
Victorious, Karl refused to become a
wet and instead fought his way free with his chosen chamber-mate,
Christine, stealing a ship that subsequently crashed in the swamp.
The two were recovered by Wets who gave
them atmospheric helmets but took them to the tribune for trial.
(Savage Tales I#2) - Damian later reluctantly attended a tribune -- as was his duty as the son of the chieftain -- where he found his brother, Karl, and his chosen chamber-mate on trial for the city people's crimes. Karl asked Damian for help, and when Damian's request for guidance from Prometheus was met with , "You must do...what you must do,"
Damian resolved to save his brother's life. Apologizing to the other Wets who were his friends, Damian fought them back with his sword, stabbing some of them, and directed Karl and Christine to flee.
After days of flight into the swamps, Damian allowed Karl and Christine to rest, but as he tried to encourage Karl that at least they were alive, Karl told Damian to take his "filthy Wet hands" off of him and Karl clarified that he had fled to avoid becoming a Wet.
After Karl denounced Damian as a
"nothing but a half-human...a foul-smelling mutant...inhuman scum,"
Damian told Karl to put up his sword.
Although Karl tried to plead with him
as his brother, Damian slew Karl, telling him they were brothers no
more. 
Frustrated with Karl's repeated solution to run away, Christine told Damian that she had never been alone before.
Damian put his arm around her, although
he was unsure of what to say to bridge the gulf of their
identifies/natures.
Comments: Created by Gerry Conway and Gray Morrow.
Earth-73479 - "Dark Tomorrow." A plague ravaged the plants on Earth; soon a famine engulfed the planet and three million people died in a month. Walled cities with hydroponic gardens were able to survive, but too many people flocked to them making overpopulation a problem. Society fell apart. A new leader, the Guardian, created the honor system: if someone was challenged to a duel they must fight to the death, and the survivor was exiled to the outdoor swamps. Chosen by lottery, people were turned into “the Wets,” mutates (and possibly cyborgs) adapted to live outside in the poisoned air and run the machinery of the cities. Savage Tales #2 (1973)
This reality presumably takes place in an alternate future, but it could well be something like 50 years after the 1973 story, which would be the present or recent past in the real world.
It is a vague but interesting story...Karl took a thin
sword strike through his abdomen. It is completely possible that the blade
neither severed a major blood vessel nor penetrated the bowel. Perhaps
passing out from the pain and/or shock, it could be that he did not go
septic from the fetid atmosphere...maybe he was even mutated to become
more than just a Wet...maybe he became this reality's Man-Thing?
Hey, the story is over 50 years old, and follow-up
seems unlikely, so why not speculate?
Some comments from John Kaminski, who wrote Damian Linders' profile:
It was never established in what year this story took place -- Prometheus mentioned that the plague took place when he was nineteen, and judging from his aged appearance, I'd say this story story occurs perhaps fifty years later.
A little back-history: According to the editorial by Roy Thomas in Savage Tales I#2, this story -- "Dark Tomorrow" -- was originally done in 1970, and was planned to be published in Savage Tales I#2 at that time; however, Savage Tales went on a two-and-a-half year hiatus after the first issue, so this story didn't appear until publication of the magazine resumed in 1973 ("Back by Popular Demand!").
But after reading this story -- with its dangling, unresolved "conclusion" -- I was left with the impression that maybe this was originally intended to be a continuing feature in the magazine. Did Damian and Christine go off to start a family together? Did Damian go on to overthrow the status quo established by "The Guardian"? Who knows if Conway and Morrow were planning to go anywhere with this?
This eleven-page story began featuring Karl and Christine, and it seemed as if they would be the central characters -- Damian wasn't even introduced until the fifth page.
This profile was
completed 04/07/2024, but its publication was delayed as it was intended
for the Appendix 25th anniversary 's celebratory event.
Profile by Snood.
CLARIFICATIONS:
Damian and Karl Linders have no known connections to:
Appearances:
Savage Tales I#2/2: Dark Tomorrow (October, 1973) -
Gerry Conway (writer), Gray Morrow (artist), Marv Wolfman (associate
editor), Roy Thomas (editor)
First posted: 09/27/2026
Last updated: 04/07/2024
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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