When he saw sales figures for The Infinity Gauntlet, Pérez realized he probably lost "tens of thousands of dollars" in royalty payments by leaving the series, but he was glad he left when he learned a sequel was in development. Like Starlin, Pérez had begun the project believing it would be the last Thanos story, but management asked Starlin to write a sequel midway through The Infinity Gauntlet. By then, Starlin had already conceived follow-up concepts and knew it would be a trilogy.
