The Real Story Behind When DC Characters Appeared In Monthly Marvel Comics

8. The Image Exodus

In one of the most famous events in the medium's history, seven of Marvel's top creators walked out to start their own comic book company. Fed up with seeing Marvel profiting off characters they had created, Jim Lee, Rob Liefeld, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Marc Silvestri, Jim Valentino and Whilce Portacio struck out on their own and formed Image Comics.

The company's goal was to champion the creators' rights to such an extent that the only thing that Image Comics would own was the company logo.

Although initially the characters would exist in a shared universe, internal squabbling between the partners made this particular aspect of the new company fall by the wayside; leaving each creator in sole control of their studio and free to do whatever they wished with their intellectual properties - be it start a toy company, create an entire universe of titles or take their ball and go home.

Despite their best intentions, it didn't take long for the cracks in the partnership to start to show.