Oh, I know all that, obviously. I've been following their appearances.

What I'm saying is that the in-story reason for them to be there at all, as outlined here by McDuffie, is very fragile indeed. Basically if this one guy's concentration gets broken, they're outta there.

Since McDuffie retains the rights to those characters, it seems like he's giving himself an easy out, continuity-wise, to yank 'em whenever he's had enough of whatever nonsense is going on behind the scenes.