There's that, and then there's the fact that working for them was a such a soul crushing experience that a bunch of their most talented artists left and founded

There's that, and then there's the fact that working for them was a such a soul crushing experience that a bunch of their most talented artists left and founded Image. The artists were unappreciated, poorly paid, overworked, and restricted from working on anything that didn't fall well within the norms of the classic superhero archetype, even if it was a personal project. When a company that deals in art gets to the point where they care more about protecting and propping up existing franchises than they do about producing original works, that company's usefulness has been exhausted.