Marvel Comics‘ then-publisher Stan Lee said in 1978, shortly after Spider-Woman’s debut in Marvel Spotlight #32 (Feb. 1977) and the start of the character’s 50-issue self-titled series (cover-datedApril 1978 – June 1983), the character originated because,
I suddenly realized that some other company may quickly put out a book like that and claim they have the right to use the name, and I thought we’d better do it real fast to copyright the name. So we just batted one quickly, and that’s exactly what happened. I wanted to protect the name, because it’s the type of thing [where] someone else might say, ‘Hey, why don’t we put out a Spider-Woman; they can’t stop us.’ … You know, years ago we brought out Wonder Man, and [DC Comics] sued us because they had Wonder Woman, and … I said okay, I’ll discontinue Wonder Man. And all of a sudden they’ve got Power Girl [after Marvel had introduced Power Man]. Oh, boy. How unfair.
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