Well.
Notice how the character on the cover is dressed in red, blue, and yellow? He's dressed that way throughout the issue.
But his name is "Black Racer."
And, partway through the story, the Racer chooses another avatar to take on his role who is, surprise surprise, a Black man.
Kind of like Black Panther, or Black Lightning, or Black Goliath, I guess. At the time, I think this may have been seen as a progressive attitude, the presentation of diverse ethnicities in superhero comics, but the addition to the beginning of each name of "Black" simply serves to divide a community from the one that is ostensibly trying to curb such division.
There's also some problems with the idea that the only (thus far) character of colour in the series is one that literally everyone in the issue is afraid of - "Don't Let Him Touch You" the cover proclaims. Again, not really the message one wants to send about a Person of Colour, now or when it was originally published. This issue originally came out less than a decade after the signing of the Civil Rights Act, and racial tensions were worse then than they are now. Imagine instead of Ms. Marvel, she was called the Muslim Marvel.
How about we just refer to him as the Racer from now on?
More to come...
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