On marvel.com they have a fan generated list of the best 70 Marvel covers of all time. Number one was the Wolverine cover from Hulk 340. Can't really argue with that. I thought a lot of the covers were from big events or from really good stories. I wonder if these covers stick in our head because they end up being pivotal in comic history story-wise. For example Spider-Man 252 was on the list. IMO that cover wasn't that original (being a copy of Amazing Fantasy 15 with the black costume).

One of my favorites was Avengers 171. Didn't make the list, but issue 167 did. First Gyrich. Important happening, but I don't think the cover was top 70 good.

Cover art is like the packaging of the comic, sometimes if its good enough it can sell the product by itself.

Shrug, personally I think the Captain America covers post 9/11 are some of the best Marvel ever did.

The #5 with Spidey walking away is my All-time favorite cover ever...

And the Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD #1 is sweet. Plus, it's no Secret I love Doom, so the secret wars cover with him on the front is up there.

I have to say that a lot of those covers, especially the more recent and event-driven ones, are ones I'd never have thought of putting on the list. So many of those types of covers (the Greg Land Dark Phoenix in the top ten, for example) just seem to be interchangeable pin-ups of characters. Don't get me wrong, I like them from an art standpoint, but you could just have easily put another pin-up of that (or another) character in its place.

As Zatara55 said, it's hard to argue with Hulk #340, but the one important cover I'd consider missing is Mike Zeck's Captain America #321. That was not only a good piece of art, but it was simple (one character, black background) and it grabbed you right away - you had to read that issue to find out what in the world was going on.

I haven't looked at the list. Did any of the "framework" covers from 1972 make it? You know, there was a big border (usually black) around the image itself? Something Marvel tried in '72 that didn't quite catch on. As with most things, some were good and some not so good. I thought, with some of them, a kind of "3-D Effect" was achieved, like Marvel Team-Up #4 and Marvel Feature #5.

I believe Marvel's best cover was of Doom Patrol. Course they just called it the X-Men.

You know, until you mentioned it I never realized that it was a systematic thing. But now that I think back, I can definitely recall that style across all of my comics from that period. If we're thinking of the same thing, the one from that era that would stand out for me would be Luke Cage, Hero for Hire #1. Not a terribly complicated cover, but that black border really made it 'pop' for me.