Behind all the costumes and powers, it's important to remember that comic books are an industry. These comics become toy lines, cartoons, video games, feature length films and other merchandise, not to mention products that spin off these cartoons, video games, and movies. Like any industry, calculating moves have to be made to reach success, some tactics even including buying out the competition. Marvel has a few examples of this.
You may remember Howard the Duck from his horrid 1989 film or from his cameo in The Guardians of the Galaxy movie, but Howard's career spans further from Marvel than you may think. The truth behind Howard's career actually stems from a legal dispute between Marvel Comics and Howard's creator Steve Gerber. Marvel Comics-after publishing Howard the Duck-clashed with Gerber over creative control of the character. Gerber was removed from the series and Howard would go on to be written by other Marvel talents. In retaliation, Gerber went over to the independently-owned Image Comics and created a parody of Howard named Destroyer Duck. Marvel would go to Gerber years later and ask him if he'd like to write a Howard the Duck/Spider-Man crossover. At the same time, Gerber was planning a crossover between Destroyer Duck and Image's Savage Dragon. Gerber had decided to write both of these books, but secretly allude to them crossing over with each other. While the Howard the Duck/Spider-Man crossover simply ended with the heroes defeating the villain and leaving, the Destroyer Duck/Savage Dragon crossover ended with the exact same villain creating multiple clones of Howard the Duck. Destroyer Duck and Savage Dragon grab the original Howard, enter a portal back into the Image universe, and claim the Howard who walked off with Spider-Man was a clone. Essentially, Gerber had swiped "the real Howard" back from Marvel. From then on, Image's version of Howard dyed his feather green and became Leonard the Duck. To many fans of the character, Marvel's Howard the Duck isn't the real deal.
While that instance was partly on Marvel's behalf, this rights of this next character were an issue between creators. The character Angela was originally a Spawn character partly owned by Todd McFarlane. Angela was a angel (duh) introduced in "Spawn #9" but because this issue was written by Neil Gaiman the character is also the creation of Gaiman. McFarlane claimed to have complete ownership of Angela years after the two men stop working together on the comic which led to Gaiman taking McFarlane to court in 2002 and legally establish joined ownership of the character. In 2012, McFarlane threw in the towel and Gaiman was given full ownership of the character. Marvel Comics had then bought the character from Gaiman in 2013 and introduced Angela into the Marvel Universe. In order to further promote their new character, Marvel put Angela on The Guardians of the Galaxy, The All-New Avengers, and had even given her a solo series and new origin which established her as Thor's long-lost sister. Sounds like a soup-opera.
I imagine these kinds of incidents are common in the comic book business, to create a character from scratch with only personal care put into them, only to have a man in a suit tell you someone else will be writing them. It's kind of like when you were a kid and you got a new toy, then when your friends came over you'd have to share it. It's not uncommon for Marvel to sink their teeth into successful talent, even these days Marvel is planning to buy Korean webcomic character White Fox and produce an Avengers/Attack on Titan crossover. So if these stories tell us anything, nothing belongs only to you unless you create it yourself, otherwise be ready to play ball with whoever wants to use your property. Or just write fan fiction, nobody wants to buy fan fiction. Thanks for reading!
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