Spawn Smackdown

Spawn Smackdown: In a long-disputed copyright case, a jury has found for Neil Gaiman on all counts. Here's a series of articles from ICv2 which trace recent events:

Wisconsin Courtroom Drama, Part I
Wisconsin Courtroom Drama, Part II
The Jury's Out on Gaiman vs. McFarlane
Gaiman Sweep!

The latest article in the series is puzzling to me because I don't understand Neil's strategy:

Gaiman Keeps Share of Spawn Characters

...after a short recess, Gaiman decided to keep his copyright interest in characters he created for Todd McFarlane's Spawn comic--Medieval Spawn, and Cagliostro--rather than seeking breach of contract damages from McFarlane. ... Under the option Gaiman chose, the rights for Miracleman that McFarlane purchased from Eclipse remain in McFarlane's hands.

Why did Gaiman choose to keep the character rights instead of seeking breach of contract damages (in addition to royalties due)?  Although the amount of money he left on the table was large, it may pale next to what McFarlane is willing to give to get back unencumbered rights to a portion of his Spawn creation.  ... McFarlane may be willing to cut a deal better than the one Gaiman could have enforced, and without all of the accounting issues that will otherwise have to be resolved.

In Gaiman's journal, he cites Maggie Thompson's article for collect.com ("Gaiman Wins") as particularly accurate, and he writes as though he'll be using the Miracleman characters soon:

We'll see what happens. I had a good chat today with Mark Buckingham, and we're certainly looking forward to getting the material to which we own the copyright back into print as fast as possible, along with the never-seen Miracleman 25.

...so there are clearly more developments in this story to come.