Yes....they have been, but I gave up on Marvel not too long after MJ's apperance (and the death of Gwen Stacey...sigh) though I did stay on long enough for the Mobius Vampire-6 arm Spidey drawn by Gil Kane.
I dwindled down to only John Byrne's "Fantastic Four" until Frank Miller's "Dark Knight Returns" sent me on another collecting binge for about 10 years gobbling up Miller, Alan Moore's terrific stuff (Watchman, V for Vendetta, and the late great Miracleman), Neil Gaiman, The Hernandez Brother's "Love and Rockets" and other good independents and DC's Vertigo titles.
Then Todd McFarland and the Image boys came along and dumbed everything back down to fanboy level pushing the good stuff out. (IMHO, of course)
You mean you missed the Bob Layton/David Michelinie (did I spell that right after all these years?) run of "Iron Man"? Too bad. It was terrific. Personally, I hated to see Byrne take over the FF, because I liked Bill Sinkiewicz's (again, the spelling memory is tasked) work on it.