Kirby's Atlas monsters

As Moore taught us in the pages of Supreme, the 1950s were a bad time for superheroes as horror, war, romance and sci-fi comics took over. One company, Atlas Comics, found some success in publishing stories about sci-fi monsters. As described by Wikipedia:

The company, run by editor Stan Lee, would later become Marvel Comics. Lee had the smarts to offer Jack Kirby plenty of work when Kirby angrily quit DC in the late '50s, though Kirby described it differently:

I came in [to the Marvel offices] and they were moving out the furniture, they were taking desks out — and I needed the work! ... Stan Lee is sitting on a chair crying. He didn't know what to do, he's sitting on a chair crying — he was still just out of his adolescence [Note: Lee, born Dec. 28, 1922, would actually have been about 36.] I told him to stop crying. I says, 'Go in to Martin and tell him to stop moving the furniture out, and I'll see that the books make money'.

The interviewer, The Comics Journal publisher Gary Groth, later wrote of this interview in general, "Some of Kirby's more extreme statements ... should be taken with a grain of salt...." Lee, specifically asked about the office-closing anecdote, said,

I never remember being there when people were moving out the furniture. If they ever moved the furniture, they did it during the weekend when everybody was home. Jack tended toward hyperbole, just like the time he was quoted as saying that he came in and I was crying and I said, 'Please save the company!' I'm not a crier and I would never have said that. I was very happy that Jack was there and I loved working with him, but I never cried to him. (laughs)

Kirby helped elevate simple science fiction and giant-monster stories with what comics historian Charles Hatfield called "a vital jab in the ribs by [his] outlandish artistry." Soon his dynamic work began gracing countless covers and lead stories in the extant Strange Tales and the newly launched Amazing Adventures, Strange Worlds, Tales of Suspense, Tales to Astonish and World of Fantasy.

"Offsetting the formulaic nature of the stories was a dash of invigorating absurdity," wrote Hatfield. "The tales had Kirby's energy and, courtesy of Lee, confessional, first-person titles typical of sensation-mongering tabloids and comics, such as, 'I Created Sporr, the Thing That Could Not Die!'"

A Kirby science fiction/monster story, usually inked by Christopher Rule initially, then by Dick Ayers following Rule's retirement, would generally open each book. This was followed by one or two twist-ending thrillers or sci-fi tales drawn by Don Heck, Paul Reinman, or Joe Sinnott, all capped by an often-surreal, sometimes self-reflexive Lee-Ditko short. Lee in 2009 described these "short, five-page filler strips that Steve and I did together", originally "placed in any of our comics that had a few extra pages to fill", as "odd fantasy tales that I'd dream up with O. Henry-type endings."

Lee developed the "Marvel Method" of writer-artist collaboration with Kirby and Ditko. Lee explained, "All I had to do was give Steve a one-line description of the plot and he'd be off and running. He'd take those skeleton outlines I had given him and turn them into classic little works of art that ended up being far cooler than I had any right to expect.^"

Moore, a fan of comics history, suggested Skroce use Kirby's Atlas monsters as a guide for designing Atomo:

For your viewing pleasure, here are some of Kirby's monsters, as compiled by comicsalliance.com.