Originally Posted by
grahamgg
Agreed! You have to stick with Stan Lee for a few issues before you get used to his hokey SA style of writing. But there's lots and lots of great stuff in there. The running subplot of MJ meeting Pete (and her face always being obscured to the viewer), the master planner saga as you've mentioned, the intro of the Green Goblin, Pete's first days at college, lots and lots of great material.
Earlier you guys were talking about different eras of the FF. I've read a large chunk of FF issues over the years and here's my list of favorites:
Byrne at #1, and by far. Yes, it starts very slowly in the issues where he's only doing the artwork but by the time he takes over the writing chores, the book just takes off. Good, good stuff. My favorite arc is the intro of Nova and the trial of Galactus with the "naked She-Hulk pics" issue as a close 2nd. Hilarious! I put together a near complete run of single issues of this run ~15 years ago, sold those on eBay when the visionaries TPs came out years back, then finally upgraded those to the 2 Omnis. This is one of my all time favorite runs in comics. 1980s JB is absolute gold whether you're talking about FF, UXM, WCA or Superman.
For #2, I'll go with the Lee/Kirby run. It falls just short of Byrne IMO. You're basically reading the history of the MU page-by-page as Stan makes everything up! The drawbacks are hokey dialogue, minimization of Sue as a character, and repetitiveness ... seems like they're fighting Namor or Doc Doom every 2nd issue.
For #3, and this is mainly nostalgia driven as to the era I first started picking up comics is the Englehart/Frenz/Sinnott run from just after Byrne's departure until around 1988-1989 or so. I remember picking those books up monthly featuring the Thing during his "pineapple mutated" days, the Crystal/Johnny/Alicia love triangle, and all sorts of cosmic silliness. Glad to see the early part of this run has already made it into Epic format since I sold all my single issues years ago.
For #4 I'm going with Hickman. Tried to read part of this monthly, and then in PHC format but it just wasn't doing it for me. Nothing seemed to happen for months on end. However, reading in Omni form, it flows MUCH MUCH better. The only drawbacks IMO are the plodding, methodical, macro-view style of writing that Hickman uses. Sometimes I found myself just thinking "GET TO THE POINT ALREADY!". It's extremely decompressed. Also the climax of the entire run happens about 2/3 of the way thru the 2nd Omni then kind of meanders along to the finish.
At #5 I'm going with DeFalco/Frenz in the early 1990s. Nostalgic from my early comic buying days at play again here. The artwork by Ryan is kind of pedestrian and lacking in spots and you can tell they were doing their darnedest to make the FF relevant and "1990s KEWL!" Still there were lots of good ideas at play. The "death" of Reed really launched Sue into the leadership role full time, and can be read as an extension of what Byrne was doing to her character. The celestials arc around #400 was pretty good as well. Drawbacks include: Typical 1990s Marvel comics populated with lots of scowls, action poses, open mouth screaming and "deaths" of major characters. Fantastic Force was also a dud and I never liked the teenage version of Franklin or the idea of Nathanial Richards as some mysterious time traveler (although what Hickman did with those 2 concepts is pretty cool).
#6 (tie) Waid/Ringo and JMS. Not much of a fan of either of these. My opinion on Waid/Ringo is that they were just trying too hard. The FF break into Heaven (REALLY!? Shouldn't we all be so lucky to just STAY there Lord willing we make it?!) to revive Ben and God is really Jack Kirby ... yawn. Silliness like that and making Doom a supernatural foe aside, the art by Ringo is top notch. JMS didn't really do anything significant I can remember. In fact the only notable thing I remember about his run was the reintroduction of Thor around the time of Civil War, but didn't that turn out to be a clone or something? Yeah. Like I said, just kind of boring.
#7 Millar/Hitch. Wasted potential. Period. Could have been amazing and instead was nothing special at all.