still profitable, several 'redundant' X-Titles are being axed." This disagreement factored in his decision to no longer work for Marvel Comics. Like X-Men: The Hidden Years, some other works of this period involved characters and events in time periods other than the present and, in some cases, considered "skipped over" (Marvel: The Lost Generation), or alternate timelines (DC's Superman & Batman: Generations); a feature some of these have in common is to have characters who actually age during the course of the series, which is uncommon for characters in ongoing comics. In early 2003, Byrne spent ten weeks as guest penciler on the syndicated newspaper strip Funky Winkerbean. Byrne did this as a favor for Winkerbean'''s creator, Tom Batiuk, who was recovering from foot surgery. Most of his work in the first decade of the new millennium was for DC Comics: JLA (issues #94–99 in 2004, co-writing and illustrating the "Tenth Circle" story arc, reuniting with his Uncanny X-Men writer Chris Claremont and with Jerry Ordway as inker), Doom Patrol, Blood of the Demon, a five-issue arc of JLA Classified. He penciled an issue of Hawkman (vol. 4) #26 in May 2004. Superman: True Brit was a collaboration with former Monty Python member John Cleese and Kim Johnson, with art by Byrne and inker Mark Farmer. Byrne returned to draw Superman in Action Comics #827–835, working with writer Gail Simone, from 2005 to 2006. Afterward, Simone and Byrne reteamed to launch The All-New Atom series in 2006, with Byrne pencilling the first three issues. For publisher IDW, Byrne worked on the superhero series FX #1–6, written by Wayne Osborne, starting with the March 2008 issue. His other projects for the publisher include stories for the Star Trek and Angel franchises. Byrne's Star Trek work included the final issue of the miniseries Star Trek: Alien Spotlight (February 2008); the self-described "professional fan fiction", Star Trek: Assignment: Earth #1–5; Star Trek: Romulans #1–2, Star Trek: Crew (a Christopher Pike-era comic book focusing on the character of "Number One") started in March 2009; the final chapter of his Romulans story, a four-issue miniseries, Star Trek: Leonard McCoy, Frontier Doctor, set before Star Trek: The Motion Picture, and the second Assignment: Earth series. His work on Angel included Angel: Blood and Trenches (set during World War I); an Angel vs Frankenstein one-shot; and an Andy Hallett tribute, Angel: Music of the Spheres and Angel