jack

I've noticed this in the the 1975 revival of X-Men. I write about it here. See the last paragraph

What we have here is a kind of lazy internationalism which happily uses stock characters - the inscrutable Asian, the powerful African woman worshipped as a goddess, the humble and loyal Soviet worker, the proud Apache and the irascible Irishman. The Russian even has the name 'Rasputin' (c.f. the other prominent Russian Marvel hero from this era, who is called 'Romanoff' - I'll be talking about Russian names for some length later in the blog). This is impressive not because it is particularly good at it, but because of the sheer paucity of non-American cultures being represented in this context.

and then on the next issue

[It now has a] Star Trek-like diverse international cast which is nevertheless still largely white, and anyone with darker skin must be foreign.

(By the way, Nichelle's anecdote about her and King has... grown in the telling. First it was her imagining what King would say; then a phone call; now she met him. I can just about believe the first one.)