John Byrne is largely the one who started the "taking Marvel series back to their roots" movement in the early 1980's.

Byrne began working on FANTASTIC FOUR as penciller in 1979-1980 (issues 209-218, 220-221).
But his real contribution began with issue 232, where he began his run as writer/penciller/inker, and he took the series back to the Lee/Kirby spirit, and the quaint little characterizations of the first 102 issues of the series.

Here's the cover of FF # 1 (November 1961)...



...paired with Byrne's tribute to it.
I loved what, to my knowledge, Byrne began: tribute covers.
Like this one, from FF 264 (in 1984), paying homage to the earliest Lee/Kirby and Lee/Ditko runs of Marvel titles, taking them back to their roots, and fully appreciating those roots.

http://fullsize.1.GIF
http://fullsize.264.GIF


And again, this cover Byrne did for a special issue of WHAT IF, where the FF are still heroes, even without their powers. A story that melded concepts of the FF with the story concepts of their predecessor, CHALLENGERS OF THE UNKNOWN ( which Kirby created in 1957-1958):


http://fullsize.36.GIF

and this last image, from FF 271, a tribute to the Lee/Kirby pre-Marvel monster stories in JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY, STRANGE TALES, TALES OF SUSPENSE, TALES TO ASTONISH, STRANGE WORLDS, WORLD OF FANTASY and other titles featuring the pre-Marvel 1958-1963 science fiction/monster stories.
And the early years of FANTASTIC FOUR, HULK, SPIDERMAN, THOR, Ant-man, Dr Strange and others largely began as similar monster stories, and evolved from those roots.



http://fullsize.271.GIF

I loved this story, that continued for two additional issues, in FF 271-273. A great time travel story to an alternate future on a parallel earth, in search of Reed Richards' long-lost father.

Around the same time, Roger Stern began working his magic in AMAZING SPIDERMAN (issues 224-250), and PETER PARKER (issues 49-58) where Stern taps into Spiderman's Lee/Ditko roots, with many panels mimmicking a Ditko look.
Stern also worked a similar Lee/Ditko retro-look on DOCTOR STRANGE (issues 46, 48-73).
And Byrne did some really nice Ditko-esque wraparound covers on a three-issue Lee/Ditko reprint, in DOCTOR STRANGE CLASSICS, in 1983. (These reprint issues also have some nice pin-up pages, including the first Marvel work by then-unknown Arthur Adams).

And finally, toward the end of Byrne's FF run, here's Byrne's FF 291 cover:



Which bears more than a passing resemblance to the cover of ACTION COMICS # 1.
A clear precursor to the work he would do immediately after leaving the FF series.

http://fullsize.291.GIF
http://fullsize.1.GIF


Byrne's run ended with issue 293, from which he left to do MAN OF STEEL, SUPERMAN, ACTION COMICS, and other Superman work for DC, from 1985-1988.

( There's a partial checklist of Byrne's work, in another topic I started:
  • "John Byrne: The good years, the bad years, and what the heck went wrong?"
    HERE )





But I think for most of us who were reading at the time, Byrne's run remains arguably the best run on FF in its 40 years, outside of the initial Lee/Kirby run.

His appreciation for Kirby's work is obvious, in these images, as well as his other work on the FF, and other Marvel and DC characters.

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"This Man, This Wonder Boy..."