Mole people (fiction)

In fiction, mole people are stock characters who spend their lives underground, often posing a real or potential threat to those who live on the surface.^[1]

Mole men from the 1951 film Superman and the Mole Men

Subterranean societies

Morlocks in the poster for the 1960 film The Time Machine

A famous example of "mole people" who live under the ground are the Morlocks, who appear in H.G. Wells's 1895 novel The Time Machine.

Other socially isolated, often oppressed and sometimes forgotten subterranean societies, exist in science fiction. Examples include Demolition Man, Futurama (in the form of "Sewer Mutants"), C.H.U.D., The IT Crowd, Us, Deus Ex, The Matrix and Death Line.

In Marvel comics, the Morlocks are a society of mutant outcasts, named after the subterranean race from The Time Machine, that live in the abandoned tunnels and sewers beneath New York City.

Humanoid moles

Literal races of humanoid moles in fiction include Superman and the Mole Men, The Mole People (1956), Underdog, Tarzan, Lord of the Jungle, ThunderCats, Johnny Test, and Saul of the Mole Men.

In Marvel Comics, the Moloids or Mole People are inhabitants of Subterranea, a fictional cavernous realm far beneath the Earth's surface where various species of subterranean humanoids exist. Moloids usually serve as soldiers for the Mole Man, a human from the surface world who discovered Subterranea and subsequently became ruler of the Moloids. Mole Man is frequently an antagonist of the Fantastic Four.

References

1. Grazier, Kevin R. (30 August 2011). Fringe Science: Parallel Universes, White Tulips, and Mad Scientists. BenBella Books, Inc. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-935618-91-1.