I call that the "artist is everything" period, where Marvel gave total carte blanche to guys like Jim Lee and Todd McFarlane. Guys who can't write, who were suddenly writer/artists with no editorial restraint.
The peak of that period was when it was an apparent "him or me" situation on X-men between Claremont and Lee, and they booted Claremont!
Hey, he was just the guy who turned X-men into the top-selling Marvel title for 15 years, and kept it consistently at the top through multiple creative teams, we don't need him...
And things got even worse through the "Heroes Reborn" period.
Peter David's early years on HULK was the only Marvel title I was still reading through those years. That and GROO, which was technically still a Marvel title. What a contrast to the Shooter years, when I was buying more Marvel than DC for many years.
