Grantland excerpts a new book about the world of Marvel Comics, Sean Howe's Marvel Comics: The Untold Story.
From the piece...
Although he was no longer president, Lee remained publisher of Marvel Comics — and, once Chip was gone, publisher of the magazines, too. Increasingly, though, it fell to Roy Thomas to bridge the widening gap between business and editorial interests. One of Thomas's first responsibilities as the new editor in chief had been to bring further diversification to the Marvel Universe. As the company's initial attempts to entice a black readership (the Falcon, Luke Cage) sputtered along with middling sales, now a similarly clumsy effort was made to reach female readers, with the launch of three comics ostensibly about feminist empowerment.2 For added authenticity (or gimmickry, depending on one's level of cynicism), each of the three new titles was to be written by a woman. Unfortunately, there was none presently writing for Marvel, so Thomas improvised. He drafted his wife, Jeanie, Hulk artist Herb Trimpe's new wife, Linda Fite, and comic conventioneer Phil Seuling's wife, Carole. Lee came up with all three concepts the same day, and the titles spoke for themselves: Night Nurse, The Claws of the Cat, and Shanna the She-Devil. In the year of Helen Reddy's "I Am Woman" and the launch of Ms. magazine, Marvel's tales of candy stripers, cat-suited sexpots, and jungle queens could hardly be called revolutionary.3 (Lee later suggested that the title Night Nurse was a final legacy of his former boss: "Martin Goodman always thought there was something inherently sexy about nurses. I could never get inside his thinking there.") It was a disappointing lineup from the beginning. For Fite, a former Marvel secretary and the only one of the three with writing experience, the problems began with the name of the series she was writing. "Why do we have to name it The Cat, Roy?" she asked. "Is it a catfight?"
Like Luke Cage, the Cat was subjected to medical experiments that gave her super powers. Instead of just super-strength, though, Greer Grant, formerly a docile homemaker, was given an intensified "women's intuition." (Two years later, the character was subjected to radiation, which transformed her into a furry, striped feline named Tigra. Her costume was simply a bikini.) Alas, the message of empowerment was lost on Wally Wood, whom Stan Lee hired to ink the cover of The Cat #1. Wood sent back Marie Severin's pencil art with the heroine's clothes completely removed, and Severin — who'd had more than her fill of boys' club shenanigans over the years — had to white out the Cat's nipples and pubic hair.
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