Literature Review
Growing up in the Los Angeles ghetto of Watts, Foster gets out by going to the California Technical Institute and subsequently lands a job at Stark Industries in Baltimore. Later, when Henry Pym becomes “trapped at a height of 10 feet because of an unstable growing serum,” biochemist Foster comes to his aid. Perfecting the serum, he uses it to duplicate Pym’s growth powers. With a nudge from Pym, Foster decides to become a costumed crimefighter and keep the streets of Los Angeles safe for regular size folk.
Bill Foster was born in Watts, Los Angeles, California. Biochemist Dr. Bill Foster worked in the Plans and Research Division for Tony Stark’s Baltimore factory. He was hired to be the lab assistant of Dr. Hank Pym (aka Giant-Man). Pym was stuck at the height of ten feet for a time and Dr. Foster helped him find a cure to change his size back to normal.
Dr. Foster moved to the West Coast and at some point acquired the formula to “Pym particles” which gave him the ability to grow in size like his former employer. Taking the name Black Goliath, he came under the control of the Circus of Crime, but was freed by Luke Cage who had come to rescue Claire Temple, Foster’s ex-wife and now Cage’s girlfriend. As Black Goliath he fought criminals such as Atom Smasher, Warhawk, Stilt-Man and the Hijacker. Black Goliath later assisted the Champions of Los Angeles, then joined the group part-time as their technical advisor. After the Champions disbanded, Black Goliath, along with a large group of other heroes, joined the Defenders for only one mission before quitting the group.
Dr. Foster later joined the staff of Project Pegasus, the U.S. government’s semi-secret energy research facility. While there he revealed his identity of Black Goliath to the Thing, who at the time was working for Project: Pegasus. In the process of answering an emergency alarm, Foster decided to change his name to Giant-Man at Ben’s suggestion. After working at Project: Pegasus for a short time Foster revealed that he was dying from radiation poisoning he contracted in his earlier fight with Atom-Smasher. Some time later, while on his death bed, Foster’s radiation poisoning was cured by a blood transfusion from Spider-Woman, who at the time was immune to radiation, but lost that immunity after giving Foster the transfusion.
After being cured, Foster gave up the Giant-Man identity for a long time. He finally returned as Giant-Man when he assisted the West Coast Avengers in their battle against the High Evolutionary in the Savage Land during the Evolutionary War. Giant-Man later defeated Ant-Man’s old foe Doctor Nemesis and Goliath in their scheme.
Foster soon gave up the Giant-Man identity and Hank Pym subsequently took it back for himself. Not too long after that, Goliath’s ionic powers were disrupted in a battle against the West Coast Avengers. This caused an energy disruption which allowed a race of extra-dimensional creatures, the Kosmosians, to attack Earth. Although the creatures were ultimately repelled, the energy disruption and effects on the Pym Particles affected all who had ever been exposed to them, except Pym himself, causing them to lose control of their growth and/or shrinking powers.
After losing his powers, Dr. Foster joined the staff of the Centers for Disease Control. In this capacity he helped the Avengers deal with a bio-weapon released near Mount Rushmore.
Foster donned the identity of Goliath again (along with a new costume and without the modifying “Black”) to first help the Thing deal with a supervillain (along with hitting him up for a research grant), then helped Spider-Man track down the Hulk in order for Bruce Banner to possibly deal with Spidey’s cellular degeneration.
During the superhuman Civil War, Foster was a member of Captain America’s anti-registration Secret Avengers, adopting the alias of Rockwell Dodsworth. He subsequently appeared briefly amongst the cavalcade of other African-American super-heroes attending the wedding of the Black Panther and Storm.
Foster was killed by a clone of Thor during a battle between the Secret Avengers and Iron Man’s pro-registration forces. Since it wasn’t possible to reduce his body to normal size, he was buried as a giant, with Tony Stark (Iron Man) paying for the thirty-eight burial plots required to accommodate him. His death affected the balance of forces in the war, leading several previously pro-Registration figures to change sides, most notably the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, the Black Panther, Storm and Spider-Man as well as many others questioning Iron Man’s cause.
Bill Foster was last seen in Pluto’s realm, refusing to accept death’s embrace while holding out possible hope for a resurrection.
Biochemistry: Bill Foster is an expert in the field of Biochemstry sometimes called biological chemistry, and is the study of chemical processes within and relating to living organisms. He has Amazing Reason in the field and is considered a peer to Hank Pym and Reed Richards, much like his nephew Tom.
Medicine: Bill, due to the cancer that he had for a while, studied medicine and has Remarkable Reason in the field of medicine, prescription drugs and surgery. Should he have to render first aid to someone he can stop a character that has reached ‘0’ health from losing any more endurance ranks and keep them stable.
Military: Bill was once in the military, evidently it wasn’t to his liking so he used the G.I. bill to go to college and get his degrees. Despite that fact he has Excellent Reason in when it came to protocol, regulations and equipment used by the U.S. military.
Black Goliath was Bill Foster – described as “a child of the ghetto who has pulled himself out of the Los Angeles slums to become director of one of the nation’s most prestigious research labs” and who could now turn himself into a 15-foot-giant. He first appeared in a few Avengers issues as a civilian back in the 1960s before turning up with super-growing powers in a few issues of Luke Cage, Power Man.
But his hyped 1976 solo comic lasted a mere five issues, failing to ever get out of first gear. He fought nondescript villains like “Atom Smasher” and “Vulcan” (plus the towering Stilt-Man, which was actually a pretty clever match-up) and plotlines were teased but never fully explored.
Black Goliath never quite got a chance. After his series was cut short, Black Goliath briefly popped up as a member of second-tier superhero team The Champions before they too got cancelled.
Years later, Foster turned up as a supporting character in Marvel Two-In-One starring The Thing, where he was slowly dying from radiation poisoning and eventually cured. It was at this point he changed his hero name from Black Goliath to plain Giant-Man, at the Thing’s suggestion. “I mean, it’s pretty obvious that you’re black – and if I remember my Sunday school lessons, Goliath was a bad guy,” he noted.
He moped around for a while, but Black Goliath/Giant-Man’s defining characteristic in his appearances always seemed to be that he never made the ‘big time.’ He tended to lose fights a lot. Too much of the time he appeared, his major defining characteristic was an inferiority complex, which was a bummer – as a successful Black biochemist in that era, Bill Foster could have been written a bit more uplifting (literally and figuratively).
Kind of like another favourite obscure 1970s hero fave of mine, Omega The Unknown, Black Goliath is kind of a failure at the job.
