For me, I like the Lee-Ditko years because they were FIRST. First peter Parker... First Doc Ock… First Lizard.. All those iconic stories where we first met the villains and saw their origins and first encounters. Nothing really beats that. Any modern retcon or reboot or reimagining or modernizing doesn't really have that same creativity as the First appearances.

That said.. Romita was a much better Artist and Spider-man really shone under him. I honestly never cared for EITHER Ditko or Kirby's artwork. It just seemed so flat or remedial. I'm sure it was awesome at the time... but going back to those silver and golden age books, just look ugly to me. GREAT designs... but bad artwork. I've always been amazed when I see people criticize artwork in the 90's as being as anatomically wrong or misproportioned… then praise Kirby or Ditko who have arms and legs splayed all over the place. I've always chalked it up to artists getting paid by the page and being under a deadline to get as many pages done as they could as quickly as they could... but I still can't praise their art.