The Cat People are a race of demons in the form of humanoid cats who inhabit another dimensions netherworld. The Cat People originated roughly a thousand years ago when a human sorcerer on Earth named Ebrok magically transformed two house cats into sentient humanoid cats. Edrok, a kindly man, instructed these first two Cat People, Flavius and Helene, in the mystic arts. The number of Cat People grew, but Ebrok's fellow sorcerers, who belonged to the Sorcerers' Guild, opposed his work with the Cat People. The other sorcerers, including the man now known as the demonic sorcrer Belasco, magically banished the Cat People to the other dimensional netherworld that the Cat People themselves call the Land Within. This other dimension realm is part of the interconnected series of netherworld pocket dimensions known collectively as Hades, after the most infamous of these realms, that ruled by Maphisto. (This Hades is not to be confused with the Olympian underworld of the same name, which is ruled by the god Pluto.

According to the spell of the sorcerers who banished the Cat People, one of the Cat People must answer the summons of any Earth-born sorcerer who calls upon them. The member of the Cat People chosen by them to respond to such calls is given the title of the Balkatar. The current Balkatar is named Grigar.

In time the demonic environment of the Land Within caused the Cat People living there to become demons themselves.

However, unknown to the mystics who banished the Cat People, Flavius and Helene had learned of their plan against them in sufficient time to use their own mystic skills to avoid the banishment. Flavius and Helene secretly remained with Ebrok, assisting him in his work. One night, however, another sorcerer discovered Flavius and Helene with Ebrok and killed Ebrok. Enraged, Flavius hurled a container holding the results of their current experiment at the killer, thereby releasing the germ that caused the Black Plague, that then swept over Europe, killing untold numbers of people.

Flavius and Helene fled to the mountains where they worked to find a cure for the plague, but they were again persecuted by the Sorcerers' Guild. Flavius and Helene summoned the Balkatar to protect them, but he could not, since he had to obey the Sorcerers' Guild. The Guild also mystically prevented Flavius and Helene from successfully using the spell to transform cats into Cat People. Flavius and Helene instead decided to transform human beings into Cat People, and transformed a human woman into a catlike warrior named Tigra. This original Tigra destroyed the enemies of Flavius and Helene.

Finally, when Flavius and Helene were quite old, they discovered the cure for the Black Plague. Since the Sorcerers' Guild no longer existed, Flavius and Helene were able to get the Balkatar to do their bidding, which was to mate with the original Tigra. Thus the Balkatar of the time and the original Tigra became the parents of a second race of Cat People.

A descendent of the second race of Cat People, Dr. Joanne Marie Tumulo, who posed as a normal human being and lived among other human beings, created a means to give human beings the powers of the Cat People through artifical means. She designed a costume which heightened the agility of its wearer to a feline level and gave it to Greer Nelson, who wore it in her secret identity of the Cat. After Nelson was hit by alpha radiation while battling members of the subversive organization HYDRA, Tumulo saved her life by using scientific, mystical, and psionic means to transform her into a modern day version of Tigra.

Tumulo sacrificed her own life to stop the rampage of Tabur, a humanoid cat created by the High Evolutionary. The rest of the second race of Cat People were wipe out. The now-demonic Cat People of the Land Within still exist and have fallen under the domination of Belasco. Greer Nelson, the new Tigra, was a member of the Weat Coast Avengers.

First Appearance: (Dr. Joanne Tumulo) THE CAT #1 (Cat People as a race) GIANT-SIZE CREATURES #1