Many of us looked upon this attitude as pure foolishness. After all, as the market existed in those days, there was very little likelihood that anyone was really going to create "the next Spider-Man." (The "next Spider-Man" HAD been created, recently, but nobody noticed. It would take years for Wolverine to assume dominance at Marvel.)

Aside from foolishness, there was, to my mind, a great degree of selfishness in that attitude. It wasn't just Marvel who were being denied new characters. It was the readers. Perception of the audience often ranged into strange territory. There was one writer back then, in the early days of ruminating on "creator's rights," who declared in a published interview that he intended to DELIBERATELY turn in inferior work, until the industry improved. The readers, he said, would support him in this!

The industry and marketplace have changed a lot since those days. Some of those changes have been for the good, but many have not. The delusion about creating "the next Spider-Man (or Wolverine)" persists, and many writers still prefer to mess with existing characters, rather than create new ones. If a writer makes a change to Captain Fonebone, and Captain Fonebone goes on to become the star of a hugely successful movie franchise, said writer has not "lost" anything.

But the readers have.

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Marvel has been offering something like that for a couple of decades. Doesn't really amount to much, unless the character IS hugely successful.