Lemuria is the name of a small continent located in the Pacific Ocean, which sank beneath the sea approximately twenty thousand years ago. Off the Lemurian coast lay the Lemurian Isles, which were controlled by human beings as late as the time of King Kull of Valusia, about 20,500 years ago. However, the Lemurian continent itself was ruled by the Deviants, an evolutionary offshoot of humanity that was brought into being approximately one million years ago through genetic experimentation by the extraterrestrial Celestials. Lemuria became the center of the worldwide empire that the Deviants built over the centuries following Kull's time, using their advanced technology to conquer human civilizations. The Deviants treated the people they conquered as slaves, and forced many of them to serve in armies that the Deviants sent to attack other human nations. Finally, the only known human civilization that remained free was its greatest, the Atlantean Empire.

Atlantis was ruled by King Kamuu, who married Zartra, a warrior refugee from the Deviant-controlled Lemurian Isles. Finally, the Deviants sent a human army from the Lemurian Isles to attack Atlantis itself. To rout the invaders, Kamuu opened the magma pits which were his capital city's main source of heating. The Lemurian invaders were destroyed by the molten lava, but its release triggered seismological upheavals.

Meanwhile, the Deviants sighted the Celestials' second expedition to Earth over Lemuria itself. The Deviants launched an attack on the Celestials, who retailiated by using an immensely powerful nuclear weapon on Lemuria. The weapon's shock waves combined with the disturbances beneath Atlantis to create the Great Cataclysm that devastated much of the planet. Lemuria and Atlantis both sank, and most of the Deviant population was destroyed.

The Deviants who survived did so by escaping to the small number of underground cities they had previously established. They built more subterranean cities, but eventually abandoned them for their new subterranean capital city (from which the sea was shut out) on the southern half of the sunken Lemurian continent, the so-called "City of Toads."

The northern half of the sunken Lemurian continent was settled by a subspecies of the water-breathing humanoids known as homo mermanus. These water-breathers are called Lemurians, and possess the same physical characteristics as today's water-breathing Atlanteans except that their skin tends to be more greenish and scaled.

Lemurian scientists and mystics devised the final form of the Serpent Crown, a mystical power object linked with the eider demon Set. The Crown was used by the Lemurian monarch Naga to enforce his tyrannical rule over the Lemurian civilization. However, Naga was finally assassinated by the Lemurian known as Karthon the Quester, who succeeded him as ruler of the water-breathing Lemurians. Today the Lemurians are allies of the Atlanteans, and have a peaceful civilization under Karthon's wise and just rule.

Recently the Deviants' "City of Toads" was flooded and partially destroyed by one of the Celestials. However, most of its population survived, and the city has been rebuilt.

It is not known if there is any contact between the Deviants of southern Lemuria and the water-breathing Lemurians of northern Lemuria.

First Appearance: SUB-MARINER #9