Are these stories any good? Do I want to buy this?

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0785157298/?tag=imwan-20

I liked that run a lot as a kid. Haven't read it recently, but ....

If you like McFarlane's art, then you'd probably like the stories. They're all pretty straight-forward adventure plots -- you kind of get the impression that Micheline was keeping things simple so that McFarlane would have room to cut loose with his weird layouts and funky pin-up shots.

There's some cool stuff in that run that was kind of the definitive Spidey for me as a lad: a reinvented agenda for the Chameleon, the first ever (I think) fight between the Green Goblin and the Hobgoblin, and the initial Venom appearances when that character was still novel.

It's a lot better than the McFarlane-solo Spider-Man that followed.

It's not the best. I have that stuff and unless you're all about the nostalgia, stay away.

No nostalgia here. I'm not even a big Spider-Man fan, but I remember this being popular at the time. I thought it might be something special.

The Erik Larsen stuff was better.

I loved it at the time. It was my introduction to Spider-Man. I'll second what Doot said - if you like McFarlane's art it's worth picking up. I was a pretty big fan of the Michelinie/Layton Iron Man run around the same time, and I'd say the writing is of the same quality. The Assassin Nation Game storyline was pretty good. Wasn't a fan of the Larsen stuff. It came across as kind of silly in comparison.

I'm a big fan of it and that whole late 80s/early 90s pre-clone saga era of Spider-Man. I think it was the last hurrah.

At one point in the late '80s Michelinie was writing two of Marvel's biggest books and probably collecting some nice royalties on them. Where is he now?

He's at home -- WASHING HIS TIGHTS!

It was. Larsen's head and shoulders a far better storyteller than McFarlane with a better handle on fundamental drawing. McFarlane does have the more attractive rendering and inking stlye, though.

I liked the Micheline/MacFarlane run on Spidey, I just wish he would've drawn all of The Assassination Plot...

QFT.

I recall that I stopped buying "Spider-Man" when Todd McFarlane started drawing it. Personally I've always felt his art looked as ugly as homemade sin. Liefeld-ugly, even if it's less egregious than Liefeld's. I've never understood the attraction of that whole 1990s style.

Was pretty good, but Michelinie and Larsen did better stories.

And for Mc Farlane solo: Nice art, but empty stories.

Least informed post in the thread. Epic cluelessness on a grand scale. If this is the way you see things -- you might as well be blind.

Yeah. I don't care for McFarlane's rendering or inking at all.