Warning! Spoilers for A.X.E.: Judgment Day #5 cover by Marvel Comics
Update: Artist Mark Brooks has shared an explanation for the coloring error, saying that the skin color was lightened while he was doing light filters on the whole cover. Brooks also shared an updated version of the cover with Makkari's skin tone corrected.
In new Marvel Comics art for the upcoming A.X.E.: Judgment Day event featuring the Eternals, Avengers, and X-Men, readers couldn't help but notice that Makkari looked considerably different than usual, as she appeared to be caucasian in the recently revealed cover art. Unfortunately, it appears Marvel Comics has repeated a past error and accidentally changed the complexion of the POC character, making the dark-skinned Makkari (based on the hero from the Eternals film) look like someone else entirely.
Makkari has undergone considerable changes recently since first debuting in Jack Kirby's epic Eternals series in the mid-1970s. Initially, the speedster was drawn as a white male whose look mainly stayed the same throughout different interpretations and stories featuring the character. However, following Lauren Ridloff's performance in the Eternals film in the MCU, the hero was changed to be more like that version of the character. Like Ridloff, Makkari is also deaf and uses sign language to communicate. The new Makkari has appeared a handful of times in the Eternals comic book series from Kieron Gillen and Esad Ribic and is set to play a part in the upcoming A.X.E.: Judgment Day event. However, new art shows Marvel making the same error with a character's skin complexion they made just a few months ago.
Marvel Comics shared a new Mark Brooks cover for the upcoming A.X.E.: Judgment Day #5 by Kieron Gillen and Valerio Schiti, which features the Eternals, X-Men, and Avengers gathered together underneath the shadow of a Celestial. At first glance, the image seems to be a fine group shot, but upon closer look, Makkari's skin color has been changed as she appears caucasian in the image.
Update: Brooks has shared the new corrected art which can be seen below.
For reference, here is what Makkari looked like in one of the most recent Eternals series next to her MCU counterpart.
Now, it's important to note that there doesn't seem to be any malicious intent from Brooks or the creative team with the error, but it's not the first time a similar mistake has been made in the last few months. Back in April, Marvel revealed they were changing the skin tone of America Chavez after preview art for the new Thunderbolts series made her look more like a white woman than usual.
It's possible the error with Makkari's skin tone was made by potentially looking at old reference art of the white male version of the speedster, or simply because of a mix-up in characters, or was a simple coloring mistake. Regardless of what happened, Marvel will need to fix the Makkari mistake ahead of the A.X.E.: Judgment Day's release. It's a mistake, but the fact it's happened twice in a few months is unacceptable. We've reached out to Marvel for a comment and will add their response to this post if we get one.