Atlanteans

Atlanteans
	; François de Nomé's The Fall of Atlantis'
Members	Kull, Ssil-Il, Shar-La, Valyon, Jon Juan, King Garol, Mollusk, etc.
First Appearance	Timaeus (c. 360 BC)
Created by	Plato

Origin[]

Atlanteans are citizens of Atlantis, an island mentioned in Plato's works Timaeus and Critias as part of an allegory on the hubris of nations. In the story, Atlantis is described as a naval empire that ruled all Western parts of the known world, making it the literary counter-image of the Achaemenid Empire. After an ill-fated attempt to conquer "Ancient Athens," Atlantis falls out of favor with the deities and submerges into the Atlantic Ocean. Since Plato describes Athens as resembling his ideal state in the Republic, the Atlantis story is meant to bear witness to the superiority of his concept of a state.

In Plato's tale, Poseidon fell in love with Cleito, the daughter of Evenor and Leucippe, who bore him five pairs of male twins. The eldest of these, Atlas, was made rightful king of the entire island and the ocean (called the Atlantic Ocean in his honor), and was given the mountain of his birth and the surrounding area as his fiefdom. Atlas's twin Gadeirus, or Eumelus in Greek, was given the extremity of the island toward the Pillars of Hercules. The other four pairs of twins, Ampheres and Evaemon, Mneseus and Autochthon, Elasippus and Mestor, and Azaes and Diaprepes, were also given "rule over many men, and a large territory."

Poseidon carved the mountain where his love dwelt into a palace and enclosed it with three circular moats of increasing width, varying from one to three stadia and separated by rings of land proportional in size. The Atlanteans then built bridges northward from the mountain, making a route to the rest of the island. They dug a great canal to the sea, and alongside the bridges carved tunnels into the rings of rock so that ships could pass into the city around the mountain; they carved docks from the rock walls of the moats. Every passage to the city was guarded by gates and towers, and a wall surrounded each ring of the city. The walls were constructed of red, white, and black rock, quarried from the moats, and were covered with brass, tin, and the precious metal orichalcum, respectively.

According to Critias, 9,000 years before his lifetime a war took place between those outside the Pillars of Hercules at the Strait of Gibraltar and those who dwelt within them. The Atlanteans had conquered the parts of Libya within the Pillars of Hercules, as far as Egypt, and the European continent as far as Tyrrhenia, and had subjected its people to slavery. The Athenians led an alliance of resistors against the Atlantean empire, and as the alliance disintegrated, prevailed alone against the empire, liberating the occupied lands.

But afterwards there occurred violent earthquakes and floods; and in a single day and night of misfortune all your warlike men in a body sank into the earth, and the island of Atlantis in like manner disappeared in the depths of the sea. For which reason the sea in those parts is impassable and impenetrable, because there is a shoal of mud in the way; and this was caused by the subsidence of the island.

Plato's vague indications of the time of the events (more than 9,000 years before his time) and the alleged location of Atlantis ("beyond the Pillars of Hercules") gave rise to much pseudoscientific speculation. As a consequence, Atlantis has become a byword for any and all supposed advanced prehistoric lost civilizations and continues to inspire contemporary fiction, from comic books to films.

Public Domain Appearances[]

All published appearances of Atlanteans from before January 1, 1930 are public domain in the US.

Public Domain Film Appearances[]

Undersea Kingdom (1936): Unga Khan was the tyrannical ruler of Atlantis. His will was enforced by his "Black Robe" Army, Volkite robots, and a variety of technologically advanced vehicles and super weapons. His plan was to eventually conquer the surface world.

Public Domain Literary Appearances[]

Timaeus (360 BC)
Critias (460–403 BC)
Christian Topography (550 AD)
New Atlantis (1626)
The New Atalantis (1709)
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World (1812)
Atlantis and other poems (1881)
The Secret Doctrine (1888)
Atlantis (1888)
The Story of the Amulet (1906): The titular amulet sends the five children back in time to Atlantis' fall and accidentally bring back with them an Atlantean queen who causes chaos in contemporary London.
The Scarlet Empire (1906)
The Fall of Atlantis (1912)
The Ancient of Atlantis (1915)
Tarzan and the Jewels of Opar (1916)
Atlantis (1917)
Tarzan and the Golden Lion (1922)
Mona, Queen of Lost Atlantis: An Idyllic Re-embodiment of Long Forgotten History (1925)
The Maracot Deep (1929): Professor Maracot was the leader of a team of explorers who discover a sunken city of Atlantis. The team comes face to face with a giant crustacean who cuts off their line and hurls them down into the trench. Down in the trench, the team is rescued by the Atlanteans who are the last survivors of the land that was Atlantis.
Skull-Face (1929)

Kull of Atlantis[]

"The Shadow Kingdom" (First published in Weird Tales, August 1929)
"The Mirrors of Tuzun Thune" (First published in Weird Tales, September 1929)
"Kings of the Night" (First published in Weird Tales, November 1930)

Public Domain Comic Appearances[]

Amazing Adventures #1: Bob Johnson, attache to the U.S. delegation at the United Nations, is contacted by Kan Dal. The Atlanteans were nearly destroyed by their atomic war with Mu, so they offer their secrets for harnessing atomic power for peaceful purposes to the world to head off another atomic conflict.

Space Adventures #11, 26:
- In issue #11, the United States Navy submarine R-93 dives into the ocean. Something goes wrong, and the dive continues down past a safe depth. The submarine begins to fail. Captain Small, Huey, and Robert Crane are rescued by Atlantean Fishmen. Ssil-Il is one of their rescuers, along with two other Fishmen by the names of Lor-Shim and Fen-Ac. They are taken to the domed city of Atlantis. Shar-La, Queen of the city of Atlantis, greets them.
- In issue #26, The Atlantean philosopher Lozan believes the people of the Moon are planning to attack Atlantis. His prognostication is confirmed when the first lunar missiles fall. One of the lunar missiles fails to explode, however, permitting the Atlanteans to study it and replicate it. They use their own missiles to bombard the moon, devastating its cities and leaving it a pock-marked, barren celestial body. Eventually, Atlantis succumbs to disaster as well.
Fantastic Comics #1, 8: Queen Lantida was the ruler of Atlantis, and leader of the frog-men in the year 10,000. She went with Sub Saunders to seek the aid of other nations against the enemies of Atlantis, including Naulus and his Octo-men of Ectroia.
Fight Comics #43: Senorita Rio is shown on the cover to be in a story titled The Fire-Brides of Lost Atlantis, but the interior story bears no resemblance to the cover image and title instead it is a crime story about an artist.
Gorgo #6: Atlanteans attempt to conquer the surface world with their armies, weapons, and giant crab monsters. However before they can reach the surface, they run into Gorgo and his mother who proceed to not only decimate them, but destroy the entire civilization of Atlantis in the process. Meanwhile up above on the surface, humanity was none the wiser of what Gorgo and his mother did miles beneath the sea.
Real Life Comics #57: Jerry, Jill and Mr. Noah travel back in time to see the sinking of Atlantis.
Dime Comics #1: In the story titled The Looting of Atlantis, Silver Streak fought the Green Dragon and met King Garol of Atlantis and King Garol's daughter.
Jon Juan #1: Jon Juan was a pleasure-loving native of Atlantis. Born thousands of years ago, he earned a reputation as a flirt and womanizer who left a trail of broken hearts everywhere he went. Eventually, his fellow Atlanteans got fed up with Jon's antics. As Jon fled his pursuers, he fell into the ice-cold sea and was frozen in a block of ice. His body remained preserved for centuries, long after Atlantis fell, until it eventually washed up on a tropical island, where the iceberg melted and Jon regained consciousness.
Cat-Man Comics #28: Mollusk was the ruler of Atlantis who came into conflict with Waterman and "Comics" McCormick. His wife was Mrs. Mollusk.
Blue Circle Comics #1-5: Maureen was the daughter of a fishing boat captain from Gloucester, Massachusetts. After being told she wasn't old enough to sail with her father, she had stowed away aboard his ship. It was sunk by a Nazi U-boat attack and Maureen drowned. After her death, Neptune revived her and made her Queen of Atlantis.
Superworld Comics #3: Buzz Allen and his friend Will Lawrence visited a colony of the descendants of the survivors of Atlantis.

The Magnificent Epod[]

KO Comics #1
Triple Threat Comics #1
Atomic Bomb Comics #1
Top Spot #1

Notes[]

Namor was not an Atlantean in his first appearance in Motion Picture Funnies Weekly #1, nor was he from the kingdom of Atlantis! His people were known as "sub-mariners" and the kingdom went nameless. The Atlantis connection was made by Marvel decades later.