Marvel doin' something right?

Who'd a thunk it? If you've read the relatively few posts I have on this site (Speaking of which - is anyone actually reading them? A discussion for another time...), you have probably figured out that I don't necessarily consider Marvel to be a warm, fuzzy comic publisher. But by putting their archive of comics on their web site, they have me singing a new tune.

Here's some of what I've heard is on the site (I must admit that I have not taken the plunge):

The first 100 issues of Amazing Spider-Man by Stan Lee, Steve Ditko and John Romita, Sr.

The first 100 issues of The Fantastic Four by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby

The first 66 issues of Uncanny X-Men by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby (and others)

The first 50 issues of The Avengers by Stan and Jack and Don Heck

If they had stopped here, that would have been a great offering for $9.99 a month, or $4.99 monthly with a year-long commitment. The only changes I could see would be adding things like the first 50 issues of Daredevil, the first 100 issues of Journey Into Mystery/Thor, the first 50 issues of Captain America, the first 50 issues of Iron Man....basically, anything that Stan Lee wrote.

But they do have other offerings. Things like the first appearance of Spider-Man's black costume (Spider-Man 252 or Secret Wars 8?), Astonishing X-Men, selected titles from the Ultimate line (Spider-Man, X-Men, Fantastic Four and The Ultimates), The House of M, current issues of Amazing Spider-Man, New Avengers, Young Avengers and Runaways among others.

All of which I could do without. Most of these are pretty average issues, and they are also collected in trade paperbacks, aren't they? Enough exposure for Bendis, Whedon and Millar.

Please Marvel - save the bandwidth for the real classics. Instead of posting that stuff, why not post some of the 1970's and early 1980's comics that I remember so fondly from my younger years? Stuff like Marvel Team-Up, The Defenders, Moon Knight, Rom, Iron Fist, Doctor Strange, Super-Villain Team-Up (so cool and so short!) and Master Of Kung-Fu, just to name a few.

It would be fun to see these issues again - or even better, for the first time. It's a great thing for Marvel to enable readers to have such easy and direct access to comics. Marvel - if you want to know what you should post next, send me an email. I have lots of ideas.