The character was created by writer and artist Frank Borth, and debuted in Feature Comics #57, which bore a cover date of June 1942.
[4] Valerie Estelle Frankel compares her to the heroine of the 1940–1944 Fiction House comic Fantomah, Mystery Woman of the Jungle: "They transformed from nice young ladies into crone faces of rage and power".
Trina Robbins notes that Spider Widow "turned the tables" on the usual hero/sidekick relationship, being a female hero with a lovestruck male assistant.
[7] In Feature Comics #60 (Sept 1942), Nazi agents set a trap for Spider Widow by posting an advertisement in the newspaper that requests her assistance, and then knock her out when she shows up.
[10] The Spider Widow, the Raven and Phantom Lady appear in each other's stories for several months in 1943, but her final adventure in issue #72 (Oct 1943) was a solo act.