The Four Color Media Monitor

McFarlane says he won't work for the Big Two again, partly because of his prominent job as one of Image's company managers, but he's willing to leave the door open for these possibilities:

However, McFarlane left the door open to some more co-publishing efforts with the Big Two. “Does that mean there will never be a Spawn/Spiderman cross-over? No. That could happen as a joint collaboration. The same would be true with a cross-over with DC Comics. But it would just be a one month ‘event’ thing that would be beneficial to both sides,” he said.

I don't think such an idea would benefit either. I do think - depending on the situation - that McFarlane's foolishly abandoned them for the sake of working on Spawn, one of a couple Image-sponsored products that was no big deal, at a time when his art could mean something. Some of his character designs from the early period in his career for DC and Marvel could be an acquired taste, but they were competent, and certainly meant much more than the awful output of his fellow Image founder Rob Liefeld, the one who really undermined their early business.

Then again, maybe it was for the best McFarlane left the Big Two, because their writing quality was going down the drain, so his artwork would've been wasted on bad scripting. But that's why he shouldn't return for the sake of a crossover either, not even one involving his own creations. He'd only be saddled with the bad quality they've heaped upon their own properties, and it wouldn't be any better than his own products.

Labels: crossoverloading, dc comics, indie publishers, marvel comics