(Tales of Suspense I#43 (fb)) - Some of the Atlanteans managed to seal off part of their city in an unbreakable dome, outfitted with technology to provide an artificial environment. This civilization called Netheria (or the Netherworld) survived its submerging, even as over the centuries that followed, it came to rest further and further below the sea, until it reached Subterranea.

(Marvel Spotlight I#17) - The Son of Satan was able to defeat Kometes in the past with the aid of Zhered-Na, and witnessed the destruction of Atlantis from afar.

(Conan the Adventurer#5/2) - Atlantis, Lemuria, and portions of the Thurian continent sunk.

(Incredible Hercules#123 (fb) ) - Atlantean sorcerers used their remaining magic to transform the Atlanteans into a water-breathing race.
  The Omphalos was hidden after the Great Cataclysm.

(Savage Sword of Conan#8/4) - The Great Cataclysm also killed the inhabitants of the Pictish Isles.

(Namor I#62 (fb)) - Some parts of Atlantis, such as Ruta and Avalon, survived its sinking, staying above the sea as islands.

(Cable #96 (fb)) - The Neanderthals Cole, Gort and One-Eye, who had been experimented upon by the Deviants in Lemuria, were shaken from their cells during the Great Cataclysm. Cole, Gort and One-Eye survived, but Cole broke away from them, and journeyed along, trying to find his family. It took him 15 years to find his way back home, and by then, his family was gone. He never recovered from losing them, and never remarried or had another child.

(Eternals I#2 (fb)/Captain America Annual#11 (fb)) - A man named Utnapishtim had built an ark for his family and some wildlife, and they took to the sea. Ikaris, one of the Eternals, descended from Olympia and directed Utnapishtim and his family to a mountain top. Utnapishtim and his family mistook Ikaris for a bird.

(Official Handbook of the Conan Universe#1: Atlantis and the Pre-Cataclysmic Age) - Several remnants of Atlantis' population survived. Some fled to Antillia, a chain of seven large islands far out on the Western Ocean, while others preserved the tribe's stock in a colony on the mainland. These latter Atlanteans became ancestors to the Cimmerians of the Hyborian Age (who in turn were the ancestors of the Gaels of Ireland and Scotland).

(Ka-Zar the Savage#8, The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe Deluxe Edition#19: Savage Land Races) - After the Cataclysm, people in the Savage Land fled the centers of civilization for the surrounding forests and countryside, and Pangean society crumbled. 
    The Cataclysm caused the Savage Land and Pangea to sink below sea level, but the mountains prevented them from being submerged by water. Seventy-five per cent of the human population of the Savage Land and Pangea died in the upheaval; the rest sank into barbarism. After a while, only 10% of the human population before the Cataclysm was left. Peace eventually returned, and these Atlantean-descended folk formed tribes such as the Fall People. A man named Dherk placed himself into suspended animation at the time of the Cataclysm, and was not revived until recent times.

(Avengers Annual#20/2) - Although the Deviants were able to salvage part of Lemuria, they were fated to never reclaim the glory they had known before the Cataclysm. Many of the Deviants retreated to Subterranea.

(Fantastic Four I#316 (fb)) - The Beyonders contacted the Fortisquians and directed them to save their animal preserve on Earth (the Savage Land, which had actually been created by the Nuwali for the Beyonders). The Fortisquian colonizers from Arcturus traveled to Earth.

(Adventure into Fear#21 (fb)/Fantastic Four I#316 (fb)) - The Fortisquian colonizers piloted their Comet ship to Earth. The Comet starship crashed on the planet Earth under unknown circumstances, and only three of the ship's personnel survived (actually, a fourth passenger survived, although his memory was somewhat damaged, and he went on to become Daemond). The Caretakers explored the Savage Land and found a teleportation warp that returned them to Arcturus, which was in ruins (how long their flight was is unrevealed). They found the return warp to Earth and set up a laboratory in the Savage Land.

(Savage Sword of Conan#8/2) - <17, 500 BC> - The Lesser Cataclysm occurred, further shifting the continents.

(Savage Sword of Conan#8/4, Conan the Adventurer#5/2) <17,000-15,000 BC> - Many Picts and Atlanteans escaped to the devastated mainland of the Thurian continent. (a great colony of Picts, settled along the mountains of Valusia's southern frontier, and were virtually untouched by the Great Cataclysm).
    In the western part of the Thurian continent, thick jungles covered the plains, wild mountains were heaved up, and lakes covered the ruins of old cities in fertile valleys.
    Fleeing Lemurians, reaching the eastern coast of the Thurian continent, were brutally enslaved by the people already dwelling there.
    The Atlanteans had become virtual ape-men, existing without even fire while the Picts had returned to a cave-dwelling state. In the East, the Lemurians rose and massacred their cruel masters. Thus were the seeds of majestic Khitai (ancestors of the Chinese) planted (the Hyrkanians and Lemurians are also descended from the human Lemurians). The displaced survivors moved westward, overthrew a nation of Serpent Men, and established Stygia.
    In the far south of the continent untouched by the Cataclysm, a remnant of a non-Valusian civilized nation dwelt among the low mountains of the southeast. They were the Zhemri.
    In the far north, another people slowly came into existence. A band of barely human savages had fled thither to escape destruction. They found the icy countries inhabited only by a species of snow-apes, whom they fought and drove beyond the arctic circle to perish, as the savages thought. The primitive humans then adapted themselves to their hardy new environment and survived.
    For centuries, the sons of Atlantis and the Picts clashed in a series of bloody wars which destroyed whatever civilization they once possessed. In time, a lesser cataclysm created a great inland sea to separate east and west.
    The attendant earthquakes, floods, and volcanoes completed the ruin of the Picts and Atlanteans, causing them to regress further.

(Sub-Mariner#64/2-66/2) - The sunken city of Atlantis was eventually (6000 B.C.) colonized by members of the sub-species Homo Mermanus, and a young man named Kamuu was visited by the first Kamuu and Zartra's spirits to be given a glimpse of Atlantis' destiny, resulting in him becoming the new ruler of the Atlanteans.

Comments: First depicted by Stan Lee, Robert Bernstein, Jack Kirby and Don Heck, with significant additions by Steve Gerber, Peter Sanderson, Howard Chaykin, Jim Mooney, Mark Bagley and more.

    The Pictish Shaman from SSOC#104/2 continues his recounting with some dubious info best dismissed as inaccuracies of oral history: "Eastward fled the nameless tribe driving before them the lesser ape-men of the forest to the south...and when the great ice fields came down from the arctics, the tribe fled before them...a thousand years of wandering. Down into the southern continent they fled, ever driving the beast men before them...while the Lemurians, the second race, came into the Northern land."

    As can be seen from the above history, Atlantis has a complicated history at Marvel, with Namor, Conan, Eternals, Ka-Zar, Man-Thing, Cable and other series all adding details to the story. Namor is, of course, most closely associated with Atlantis, but ironically enough, originally Namor had no connection to Atlantis. During the 1940's and 1950's, the name Atlantis was generally avoided, but it was used as the name of the legendary land from which the sub-mariners originated in Sub-Mariner Comics#31 (April 1949).

    In the Silver Age, Atlantis was first mentioned in a modern Marvel comic in a Sub-Mariner pin-up in Fantastic Four I#11 (February 1963). It was not used as the name of Namor's undersea kingdom until Fantastic Four Annual#1 (1963).

    In 1971, the first issue of Conan the Barbarian came out. That issue featured a brief flashback to the sinking of Atlantis, and further, featured a one-panel cameo by Kull, the Atlantean-born warrior who usurped the throne of a neighboring country called Valusia in the days before Atlantis sank. Kull soon received his own series, and in Kull the Conqueror#2 (September, 1971), a map of the world in Kull's time appeared in the letters page, with circa 18,000 BC given as the time period for Kull's adventures. Since Conan and Kull were licensed characters, it was not immediately clear if their adventures counted as part of the Marvel Universe, until in 1973 the Sligguth story in Doctor Strange's Marvel Premiere serial and Adventures Into Fear#15 (which referenced Valka, a god from the Kull stories) established that they existed in the Marvel Universe.

    Savage Sword of Conan#7-8 (September to October 1975) established that the sinking of Atlantis took place circa 18,000 BC and adapted Howard's essay on the Hyborian Age.

    Apparently some Lemurian islands survived the Great Cataclysm, as the sorcerer Thulandru Thuu from Savage Sword of Conan was described as Lemurian.

    In Savage Sword of Conan#37, some Hyrkanians believed that they were descended from the people of Zarfhaana, and so revived the worship of the White Wolf (a god of Zarfhaana), but most sources credit the Lemurians as ancestors of the Hyrkanians.

    Long before the Bible was written, Sumerian myth told of the story of Utnapishtim and his ark. After the Deluge, Utnapishtim became immortal, a boon from the Anunaki (the Mesopotamian Gods, a group of gods descended from Anu). Jack Kirby probably intended the man in the ark to be Noah, but Captain America Annual#11 shows that it was Utnapishtim who was in the ark.

    Thor I#404/2-406/2 features an odd story:

    Thor and the Warriors Three undertake a mission for Odin to recruit a sorcerer named Ulagg for a special mission. Thor says "We journey to a desolate ravaged world...which was once ruled by a race of evil mortals. So terrible were their crimes, so monumental their arrogance, that the heavens were forced to devastate the entire planet."
    Ulagg says "Behold! Yonder planet is completely covered with water! No trace of dry land can be seen. For untold centuries the storm clouds raged above this cursed world...and the heavens wept! Now that it has been purified of its evil race and cleansed of their terrible sins, Odin the merciful has bid us to renew its cycle of life". Using a mystical twig of Yggdrasil, Ulagg works a spell.
    Fandral says "Tis most obvious that yon world holds a special place in thy noble sire's [Odin's] heart!". To which Thor says "Aye, and methinks it sings to me as well...would that I knew why!". In the last panel of the story, we see the Asgardians flying away in their ship, and we see a planet that resembles Earth...Earth in its modern continent configuration, that is.

Several things odd about this story:

1. Thor's comments above sure strike one as a reference to the Celestials' attack on Deviant-ruled Lemuria per Eternals I#2. So this would have to take place after the Great Cataclysm.
2. On the other hand, Ulagg's comments must be taken with a grain of salt. As seen elsewhere, the Great Cataclysm did not submerge all of the land on Earth under the ocean. Lemuria and Atlantis sank, but much of the Earth remained above water. This must be hyperbole.
3. I would not recommend that this story occurred just after the cataclysm that ended the Hyborian Age (@ 9500 B.C.), since nothing sank during that Cataclysm. The continents of the world were reconfigured, but that is about it. Flashbacks to early Aryan history (such as the origins of the Maha Yogi, Bloodstone, and the story "Valley of the Worm" in Supernatural Thrillers#3) indicate that migrations took place, but no great deluge happened.
4. The last panel of Thor I#406 must be an artist's error, since the Earth did not have its modern continental configurations until after the Hyborian Age ended, which was about ten thousand years after the Great Cataclysm.
5. Thor and Fandral's comments indicate that they had never seen Earth before, and did not recognize it. Does anyone know of any flashbacks to Thor's youth which indicate whether or not he knew about Earth as a child?
6. I'm not aware of anything to exclude this story as having occurred after a Biblical Flood, @ 2940 BC, assuming one actually occurred in the Marvel Universe.
   --Snood

I actually have no problem with the idea of the Asgardians being around just after the Great Cataclysm, since in Conan of the Isles, a character called Sigurd of Vanaheim refers to Thor, and references to Wodun occur in Conan the Savage#3 and #10, as well as elsewhere.
    As recently confirmed in the final arc of the Thor series, the Asgardians have cycled every 2000 years for an unknown period of time. It's also possible that it was just some time-traveling, or just magical non-linear time.
--Snood

Per Degaton has a different opinion about Thor I#404/2-406/2:

While I respect the enthusiasm with which you've been pursuing this topic, I really feel that you've overlooked something important, namely the writer's intent. Do you really think that Tom DeFalco wrote the "Ulagg" three-parter with the intention of changing the entire history of the Marvel Universe? Or is it possible that the final panel was just meant to provide a twist ending for this little story, a gimmick that would surprise the readers but which was not meant to be taken seriously?

You've probably guessed what my opinion is but let me dredge up some facts to support it. To begin with, what exactly do we KNOW about this drowned planet?

1. In THOR I#405/2, Thor describes it as "a desolate, ravaged world...where nothing lives."
2. In THOR I#406/2, Thor elaborates, stating that the "desolate ravaged world...was once ruled by a race of evil mortals! So terrible were their crimes, so monumental their arrogance, that the heavens were forced to devastate the entire planet!"
3. And to the Asgardians near their destination, Ulagg (?) states: "Behold--! Yonder planet is completely covered with water! No trace of dry land can be seen!" The fact that the accompanying image is of a planet totally covered by water supports this claim. However, I think that it's significant that four smaller spherical objects are shown to be nearby since they make it look like the planet has four moons orbiting it.
4. Ulagg then states: "For untold centuries the storm clouds raged above this cursed world...and the heavens wept! Now that it has been purified of its evil race and cleansed of their terrible sins, Odin the Ever-Merciful has bid us to -- renew its cycle of life!"... which he then does.
5. As the Asgardians leave the restored world, the accompanying image depicts a planet with the same continental configurations as modern-day Earth. However, this "Earth" is depicted with three spherical objects nearby. Is this another indication that this planet has multiple moons?

Now, with all these facts in mind, is what we know about this "Earth" consistent with the known history of Earth-616? I say it isn't. While there are certain similarities to parts of Earth-616's history, there are also very significant differences (as Enda80 has pointed out).

Personally, the biggest problem that I have with the idea that that planet was Earth-616 comes from Thor's statement that nothing lived on the desolate and drowned planet. As far as I know, Earth-616 has supported life WITHOUT INTERRUPTION for hundreds of millions of years. I can only see two possible explanations for this discrepancy:

1. At some point after the Cataclysm of 10,000 years ago which ended the Hyborian Age, Earth was subjected to a centuries-long downpour which drowned all land-dwelling animals (and also killed all life in the oceans). Then Odin sent Thor and Ulagg to renew Earth's cycle of life and whatever they did *somehow* recreated all the species (including mankind) which had been forced into extinction when Earth was drowned...and life (including human civilization) went on as though nothing had happened (except that the evil race of mortals was left extinct).

   I don't know about you but I just can't see this as being what Tom DeFalco had in mind when he wrote the story.

2. At some point in the past two thousand years, an ALIEN PLANET which *somehow* looked like post-Hyborian Age Earth (but which had three or more moons and was ruled by a race of evil mortals) was subjected to a centuries-long downpour which drowned all land-dwelling animals as well as killing all life in the seas. Then Odin sent Thor and Ulagg to renew that planet's cycle of life and they used a twig from Yggdrasil to do just that. As a result, the seas receded and plant life had begun to turn the planet green by the time the Asgardians left.

   I like this idea a LOT better. If the planet in question is NOT really Earth, then we don't have to worry about how to "fit" the PLANETARY EXTINCTION OF ALL LIFE into the history of Earth-616. The only temporal constraint is that the events in this story must take place sometime after Thor became worthy of wielding Mjolnir.

   The only problem with this theory is that it requires the existence of a duplicate of Earth somewhere out in space. However, in the Marvel Universe, that isn't an insurmountable problem. After all, the High Evolutionary created "Counter-Earth," right? Who's to say that he was the FIRST to do so? Maybe some Eternal scientist had the same idea as the Evolutionary...but millennia earlier. Or maybe some god (like Odin?) wanted his own Earth populated only by his worshipers but ended up wiping them out when they turned away from him (i.e. became evil)?

A final observation. This story reminds me somewhat of an Original Star Trek episode entitled "Miri." That episode began with the Enterprise crew following an "Earth-style distress signal" hundreds of light-years beyond where humans had explored and finding that it led them to a planet which was an apparent duplicate of Earth. As it turned out, the whole idea of there being "another Earth" was just a hook to get viewers to watch and the question of HOW such a duplicate Earth could have come into being was never addressed. Similarly, the whole idea of the planet in THOR I#406/2 turning out to have the same continental configuration as Earth seems to me to be nothing more than a "surprise ending" for that back-up storyline. It was just a gimmick and wasn't meant to be taken seriously.

    An article in Conan Saga#95 reveals some intended Atlantis themed stories that were planned then canceled once Savage Sword of Conan stopped publishing in 1995. I thought I'd reproduce the relevant information, along with a list of comics depicting the sinking of Atlantis.

"When Atlantis sank, priests of Xotli fled to Ptahuacan [an island west of Atlantis] in flying ships powered by "vril"....In Mayapan to the west,

Atlantean and Antillian renegades founded Mayapan, Zothique, and Poseidonis...as related by the Atlantean priest Klarkash-Ton". This paragraph from Conan Saga#95 reveals that Thomas intended to do a series of stories for Savage Sword of Conan incorporating the fantasy writer Clark Ashton Smith's stories for Savage Sword. However, he only ended up doing one such story in Conan the Savage#10, which introduced Zothique (and was possibly the chronologically latest Conan story).

As for surviving outposts of Atlantis, we find:

• Negari (Solomon Kane story "Moon of Skulls", Savage Sword of Conan #219-220)
• Antillia (Conan of the Isles)
• Zothique (Conan the Savage#10)
• Netherians (Tales of Suspense I#43)
• Savage Land settlers (Ka-Zar the Savage#8)
• Ruta (Namor I#62)
• Opar (Tarzan#3; La the priestess invoked Valka) Man-Thing#7-8 (Evenor storyline, City of the Golden Gate)

Images taken from:
Eternals I#2, page 10, panel 4 (Lemurian Deviants during Great Cataclysm)
Sub-Mariner#63/2, page 6, panel 3 (domed capital city of Atlantis, destroyed by lava)
Eternals I#2, page 11, panel 1(Ikaris narrating story of Utnapishtim's ark in flashback)

First Posted: 03/22/2005
Last updated: 01/05/2022

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.