I find my favorites are the Stan, Jack, Ditko stories from the 60's and nearly everything else to be either too dry or too interconnected.

Ok, let's think through this...

'40s: I'm really poorly read in the non superhero stuff, but there's more cool ideas and stylistic variety in the early 40s than any of the later decades - Basil Wolverton! Fletcher Hanks! And the Bill Everett Sub-Mariner stuff was as good as anything Marvel ever did. I haven't read much post-War superhero stuff, but the quality seems to have nosedived around 1947. I probably don't know enough to judge.

'50s: Everett and Maneely! A huge variety of genres and an amazing core of artists... And then Marvel collapsed, fired everyone, and only ran inventory stories for a while. I don't think I can pick the '50s.

'60s: I like even the stuff that everybody hates like Human Torch, Kid Colt, and Patsy Walker - And I got no problem calling the Ditko Spider-Man or the Kirby Fantastic Four the greatest superhero comics ever. But it all felt a little bit... samey, given the lack of writers. I've always slightly preferred DC's output from the same period because of the multitude of voices and genres.

'70s: An ALMOST '40s like explosion of creativity and a corporate structure that allowed for writes to do extremely personal works.

'80s: All props to Goodwin's Epic line, but the main superhero title stated to feel like assembly line fan-fiction to me. Sometimes VERY GOOD assembly line fan-fiction, like Roger Stern's Spider-Man or John Byrne's Fantastic Four - but very little that wasn't retreading the '60s. Some interesting failed New-Univese type experiments on the side, though.

'90s: Street Poet Ray? Man, I don't understand the '90s.

'00s: Another '50s, where the decade started really strong and collapsed towards the end. The early '00s offered the most creative freedom (and the best and most interesting mainstream books!) since the '70s, but it all ended up in Civil War Crossover editorially mandated nonsense.

'10s: I'm REALLY happy with Marvel right now ... Lots of creator led and female friendly titles. But still to early to tell.

I cannot vote.
I am so in love with Stan's silver age stuff and the art then, that I'm KICKING MYSELF for promising my friend I'd only read DC this year. I'm seriously dying inside.
But, man, the 70s with those stories (and still some AMAZING art), and then things from the 80s and even into the early 90s feel straight from my life.
No, I cannot vote.

The tail end of the Silver Age zeitgest carried through in Lee on Spidey and FF, Thomas/Buscema on Avengers etc. a new wave of exploration in content and format (the birth of the Marvel mags, the horror books, Conan), a new wave of talent that came to become giants in the industry-Englehart, Gerber, Starlin, Perez, Miller, Byrne, Claremont, etc.) while the first wave of giants were still in their peak and makingh theirs MArvel (Kirby, Buscema, Colan, Steranko, Ditko, etc.), Kirby's second coming to Marvel, the rebirth of the X-Men, the beginning of the Caremont/Byrne X-Men, Miller on DD, Simonson's first stint on Thor, a wave of new characters, it was the epitome of the House of Ideas that they defined themselves as, the Bullpen Bullentin's Page and Stan's Soapbox creating a community around the Marvel brand, letters pages worth reading, editors worth their salt looking to ferment creativity not micro-manage it, the first Marvel live action series hitting television, reprint sof the classics readily available cheaply in books like Marvel Tales, Marvel Triple Action, etc. a shared universe when the line was small enough and affordable enough to read in it's entirety, variety of concepts being introduced (everything from blacksploitation with Cage, martial arts with Shang Chi and Iron Fist, sci-fi with Star Wars, Star-Lord, sword and sorcery, female leads like Spider-Woman and Ms. Marvel, strong women in the X-Men, etc. etc.

-M

The 70's for me. I loved both Marvel & DC in the 70's. Both publishers expanded & had stuff beyond the traditional superhero titles. Marvel tried stuff like Ghost Rider & Dracula & the Punisher. Even their superhero titles had stuff like Capt America fighting the government & quitting (I think for the first time!).

Really difficult question. The '60s were full of incredible invention. The '70s arguably produced better stories overall across most titles though, with the exception of perhaps Amazing Spider-Man, which has never really surpassed what Stan Lee/Steve Ditko/John Romita did with the series in the '60s IMHO. Still, I do love '70s Spider-Man too. And then there's Marvel's Star Wars comic from the late '70s, although the '80s issues of that series were the best. The '80s were pretty awesome as well really. Man, this is tough...

On balance, looking at all the titles that I most enjoy, I think I'm gonna vote for the 1970s.