famac wrote:

When you look at some of the pages in this volume - it' hard not to imagine Marvel didn't understand they were having a problem with Jack.  I know we hear the story that he was dissatisfied with his standing at Marvel. So he went to DC with a fresh start - but you can't tell the difference in artistic effort, that's for sure.  Purely from that perspective, the decline seen in these issues was never recovered until Jack's later DC period.  
 

There is what I’ve always thought to be a very odd letter printed in FF #100, which claimed that the FF had “gone to pot” due to a large extent to Kirby being given too free a reign to draw large panels and splash pages when they weren’t warranted. It wasn’t odd so much because of the content – many reading the late Kirby FFs might come to the same conclusion – but because of the editorial response.

The response basically accepted the criticism (despite saying that such views were few in number!) and said that starting with that very issue the numbers of panels had increased, and “this is a trend we can guarantee will continue in the future”. I’ve always imagined (no evidence here… ) that this was a last-ditch attempt by Marvel to bring Jack into line, and possibly one that precipitated his leaving.

My feeling is somewhat supported by the facts. Although #87 is an extreme example with just 80 panels, more normally it was around 90 panels per issue. The sequence around the time of Jack’s leaving was:
  #98 (91 panels)
  #99 (90 panels)
  #100 (sudden increase 132 panels)
  #101 (decreasing again… 112 panels)
  #102 (back to normal 92 panels)
  #103 (Jack was gone! Romita produced 88 panels)
  #104 (Romita 90 panels)

It didn't seem to me there was any long-term plan at all, and maybe the editorial response had more to do with the underlying problems between Jack and Marvel at the time.

Just a thought...