spider-woman

A Marvel superhero, civilian identity: Jessica Drew.

It's a common misconception that she is a "Female Spider-Man". In reality, her powers, abilities, origin story, and overall function are separate from his. She is a spy, and in practice has more in common with Black Widow.

Stan Lee insisted on creating her so that Marvel could copyright the name "Spider-Woman". as Marvel was previously sued for its "Wonder Man" series on account of DC's Wonder Woman, only for DC to create Power Girl in spite of Marvel's Luke Cage (Then known as "Power Man").

As a result, Spider-Woman kinda sat around their portfolio, unsure what to do with her until the Secret War, Civil War, and Secret Invasion comics in the mid-late 2000s.

Despite this, modern depictions associate her with the Spider-Man mythos. The Ultimate Universe depicts her as a literal female clone of Peter Parker. Sony Picture Animation's Spider-Verse film series depicts her as a straight up "Spider-Woman"

The "Spider-Woman" mantle has also been briefly held by other female Spider-heroes such as Mayday Parker/Spider-Girl and Gwen Stacy/Spider-Gwen. Most of these cases were only temporary, or only used by that character in their home universe, and neither changed costumes to go with the name.