The best stuff to read from early Marvel

[Marvel Forever]

The very early Fantastic Four art and stories were good, but not exceptional. However, if you start with the Frightful Four, issue #36, and go to the end of the Surfer-Dr. Doom trilogy, #60, you will find almost every issue with superior art and stories. Nothing beats the 1960's Fantastic Four with Stan "the Man' Lee and Jack "King" Kirby!

[KingsLeadHat]

I've read virtually every Marvel super hero comic from 1961 thru 1969 at this point (I still have a few runs/stretches to read, but I'm close) and I can say without question that the crowing jewels of this era for Marvel are Lee/Kirby's FF, Lee/Kirby's Thor, Lee/Kirby's Cap, Lee/Ditko's Spider-Man and Lee/Ditko's Doctor Strange.

Things really took off in 1964, particularly the latter half of the year, for three main reasons: the Hulk returns as a co-feature with Giant-Man in Tales to Astonish, Cap gets his own strip and co-features with Iron Man in Tales of Suspense and the first true Fantastic Four masterpiece, FF Annual #2, which featured the origin of Doctor Doom.

[Electricmastro]

X-Men #14-16 (1965-1966)

Amazing Spider-Man #31-33 (aka If This Be My Destiny, 1965-1966)

Fantastic Four #48-50 (aka The Galactus Trilogy, 1966)

Amazing Spider-Man #39-40 (aka Green Goblin Unmasked, 1966)

Thor #136-139 (aka The Troll-Asgard War, 1967)

Amazing Spider-Man #50-52 (1967)

Avengers #57-58 (1968)

Daredevil #49-52 (1969)

Captain America #111-113 (1969)

X-Men #57-59 (1969)

Iron Man #17-19 (1969)

[K7P5V]

These are my Top 3 choices...