[trebleshot]

Generally, independant publishing companies or creater/owners go with whomever is willing to make figures of their characters. A couple of years ago, Toy Biz did a line of only independant characters called Legendary Comic Heroes (a ML offshoot that gave us a really slick and non-Stalone Judge Dredd). AFAIK, Toy Biz obtained the license from each publisher for the line.

Also, most McFarlane toys still have to get the rights from the owners, even if it's an Image imprint. Obviously, McFarlane Toys holds the license for all Spawn and Spawn-related characters.

Given the lower profile most of these publishing companies have, I would guess the license is limited to a specific run or time frame, depending on the character's popularity. I doubt either Hasbro or Mattel would want to be locked into a long-term deal with characters that may or may not be hot sellers.

Anyway, those are my thoughts.