10 Comics Characters You Didn’t Know Were Rip-Offs

6. Black Cat And Catwoman (Catwoman And Black Cat)

All right, this is a weird one. Black Cat is a cat burglar who wears low cut clothing, is in a love-hate relationship with Spider-Man, and is sometimes a hero, sometimes a villain. Catwoman... is all of that except switch Batman in for Spider-Man. The two seem so similar, one of them must have ripped off the other. Here's the thing though - both of them ripped each other off, back and forth, for years.

First came Catwoman, known as The Cat at the time (this was in the forties). The Cat was a girl cat burglar, but aside from that wasn't recognizable as the character we know and love today. Her Adam West Batman show version did wear a skintight black suit, but aside from that she was generic, boring and plain.

Then came Black Cat, who burst onto the scene as a powerful, sensual thief. She had some similarities to The Cat - namely that she's a girl, a cat burglar, and uses the same bad puns. But then Catwoman - yes, Catwoman now - was reinvented in the eighties as a sensual, powerful thief, with a love-hate relationship with Batman.

So in this case, Black Cat was a partial rip-off of The Cat, who was later reinvented as Catwoman, being a complete rip-off of Black Cat. And that's comics for you.