Death Ray? What Death Ray?

Q:You seem to take it in stride when Marvel creators do creator-owned work. That strikes me as a bad policy - when the Image founders left in 1992 you didn't let them come back with open arms - until you did with HEROES REBORN, which sent the wrong message, that you can insult Marvel and come back. Everyone who leaves to do creator-owned work is a traitor, it's that simple.

Anonymous

I’m sorry, but what you’re saying is ridiculous.
Everybody who does creator-owned work is a traitor? Really?
Creative people aren’t cattle, nor do they do their best work when bound to one place. An open marketplace and strong competition is good for everybody.
The world is not so black and white as to be divided into Loyalists and Traitors. This is publishing, it’s not politics.
We want people to be working at Marvel because they want to be working at Marvel, because they’re able to make a good living and are creatively fulfilled by the work they do.If somebody has a jones to do something else, that’s completely within their rights—it’s not about them disrespecting Spider-Man or something.
In other words, it’s not personal. Don’t react towards it as though it is.
And don’t think for a moment that if Todd McFarlane or Jim Lee or whomever had knocked on the door in 1993 wanting to do another Marvel book that they wouldn’t have had an assignment in thirty seconds.