marvel runs hayday

i have only bein reading the marvel run now as they have been re-released on trade by idw and i have heard alot of people say how good the marvel run was in its hayday. So i was wondering at what stage of the run you guys thought this was ?

I can tell you when it was NOT in it's hey day - when Ninja Force came along (and when the title of the comic featured Snake Eyes).

I think it depends on who is saying it and when they grew up, not to mention which characters and titles they read.

In general, I'd say it's the late 60s - mid 70s or so.
Spider-man had really hit it's stride, and all of the major Lee/Kirby characters were established to the point that there was a true Marvel Universe of characters to interact.

But this ignores the X-Men, whose international team is the most
often remembered and imitated. Wolverine, Nightcrawler and the gang had their "classic" stories in the late 70s - mid eighties I believe.

I'm no expert though, just a nerd.

Originally Posted by ChaplainAsst

I can tell you when it was NOT in it's hey day - when Ninja Force came along (and when the title of the comic featured Snake Eyes).

You are complaining about Ninja Force and not Battle Force 2000?

I would take Ninja Force over that garbage any day. That goes the same for those Eco Warriors as well.

Ninjas rule, Neon drools!

Ahhh, but Battle Force were all killed off which added to the "realism" of the comic. So, they were horrible but didn't last long. Ninja Force sneaked back into the DDP run, and stayed to the end!

Hey man, the marvel run is excellent! Yeah, it got a little crazy with too much ninja force and brainwave scanner (and I liked the ninja force and brainwave scanner!), mostly the firefly/transforming castle was the low point. All else was outstanding!

Personally, I love the storyline going on from after the first attack on the Pit through the birth of Serpentor (20ish to 50ish).

Some of the ones I liked best were the silent issues: 21 and yearbook 3, and the one where zartan and the red ninjas attack storm shadow at his martial arts school. Great stuff. I really liked 152 with joe colton. In terms of serpentor, riding around with the baroness tied to the "hood" of a hiss tank, gotta love it. Even the few not written by hama were pretty good, the one where roadblock finds himself on a cobra plane-enjoyed it! It's way easier to pick the very few that were sub par than to list all the great ones...

The first 20 issues are "setup". Good issues, establish the universe and characters, but clearly they were finding their legs.

21-30 really introduce a new big wave of '84 characters and set the stage for the best run. The silent issue and origin of SE are awesome.

31-57 + YB3 are what I consider the golden age of the Marvel run. It's some of my favorite comics of all time, Joe or otherwise. Mostly penciled by Rod Whigham, these stories stand the test of time and are a blast to reread.

58-78 are very good. The whole gulag saga and the cobra civil war are great, but you can feel the less popular elements creeping in, such as BF2000.

79-99 was a somewhat stagnant era, sort of a holding pattern as the comic tries to decide what direction to head. More ninjas and sci-fi elements creeping in. Overall, some good stuff, but not what I consider the best.

100-118 the comic gets a second wind, and there is some pretty neat stuff in there. The whole middle eastern war and the deaths of many long time popular Joes really crank the action knob to '11'.

119-154 are a very mixed bag. There are some neat stories scattered amongst some real crap. Ninja Force, Eco Warriors, Transformers Generation 2, and other goofy elements really hit home that the toy line was throwing ideas at the wall to see what would stick (not much did), and the comic was forced to follow along. :(

155 - Who wouldn't love this issue. Great stuff.

Yeah...I gave an answer regarding marvel comics in general. How stupid of me.
I think Joe comics' quality is related to how ridiculous the toys were that had to be forced into the issues that year, so 83-86 is probably it, with all the most memorable characters introduced.