Check out the MANTIS Pilot if you can. The character is more like the Shadow, a dude in a regular suit with the mask then the full on Super Suit of the series.
Also in the pilot Lumby is the sole inventor of the super suit and even has some African Exchange Students as his tech crew. Also Gina Torres was the love interest.
In the series, every POC but Lumby was removed and now the suit was the shared design of Lumby's character and a White British Character added for the series.
I think I still have the pilot on VHS somewhere...lord knows where I put it...