Bingo The Racist Wonder Boy

"Comics" McCormick could be viewed as being history's first fan fiction writer. Created by Ed Wheelan, the young boy named Comics is a member of the The Little Conquerors Social And Reading Club where they talk about comic book characters. Mr. McCormick would regularly have dreams where he had crossovers with the various fictional superheroes that run in the comics that "Comics" is a fan of. In Terrific Comics #5, "Comics" and his friends are fanboying about the latest character, Bingo, who was a parody of the original Captain Marvel(the Shazam one). In his own story, whenever Jerry Jones Jr. would say "Ka-bang", he changes into Bingo the Wonder Boy, which of course is a name out of a baker's dozen of young comic book characters with a similar moniker, including Batman's old chum. "Comics" tries out the magic word and summons up Yama Lama of Ka-Bang, a racist caricature of a Tibetan guru which here is a wish-granting genie. The yellow-skinned djinn grants "Comics" wish of transforming into his own OC character, The Kid Conqueror. The now super-powered "Comics" flies to Bingo's house as he apparently knew where he lived in his secret identity, and immediately talks the fellow hero into teaming up with him since they both get their powers from the same source, a bad magical stereotype from the Far East. Bingo and Kid Conqueror soar into the sky towards the haunted house lair of the evil mad scientist known as The Beard who is planning to take over the world. Bingo pulls seniority rank on K.C. saying it's his job to nab Beard, but "Comics" gets the jump on the spinach-chinned villain, which makes Bingo cry. "Comics" had enough of Bingo's prima donna attitude and slugs him out which wakes our dreamer up and lying to his teacher about studying geography to cover for his sleeping. Mr. McCormick's fascination with comics isn't altogether unhealthy, even though his real-life creator might have been a bigot with not only his overused premise of an enchanted Asian, but one of the members of his club was a charcoal-black boy with huge lips named Ajax Johnson. Even though Ajax was treated as an equal by his white friends in the story, Ed Wheelan should've used a little more tact when it came to using cartoonish facial details that were a sign of the times.

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