This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post from Balladeer’s Blog looks at the early stories of Marvel’s Black Goliath (Bill Foster, PhD).
POWER MAN Vol 1 #24 (April 1975)
Title: Among Us Walks Black Goliath
Villain: Black Goliath
Synopsis: In California, Luke and his white friend D.W. find Claire and the couple have a private talk while D.W. leaves them alone. Claire admits she left to help her ex-husband, Bill Foster, PhD, the former colleague of Dr. Henry Pym aka Ant-Man aka Giant Man aka Goliath aka Yellowjacket.
NOTE: Bill Foster had worked with Hank Pym since the 1960s and had appeared in old issues of the Avengers with him.
Since Pym has given up his Goliath identity, Bill experimented with Pym Particles to try to gain Pym’s old growing powers. A misfire caused Dr. Foster to be unable to shrink back down to normal size, stranding him at 25 feet in height. While working on a cure, Bill has been hiding with a traveling circus.
Claire says she cannot abandon Bill during a moment of crisis like this and was afraid Luke wouldn’t understand. Dr. Foster unexpectedly finds Power Man and Claire together and misunderstands the situation. Revealing to Luke that he is now the costumed figure Black Goliath, he attacks Power Man.
After a while, their clash is interrupted when the people who run the circus that Black Goliath has been hiding with reveal that they are really the longtime supervillain team called the Circus of Crime. (And who had battled Spider-Man, Daredevil, the Hulk, Thor and the Avengers up to this point.)
POWER MAN Vol 1 #25 (June 1975)
Title: Crime and Circuses
Villains: The Circus of Crime
NOTE: The powers and weapons of the members of the Circus of Crime match their circus acts.
Members include: the Gambonno Acrobats, Bruto the Strong Man, the Clown, Princess Python, Blackwing, Cannonball and Live Wire, their newest member. Their leader is the Ringmaster, a descendant of Captain America’s World War Two villain of that name.
Synopsis: The Ringmaster quickly uses the hypnotic device in his top hat to enthrall Power Man and Black Goliath. He and his fellow villains plan to use the pair as accomplices in their crimes from now on.
Dr. Claire Temple and D.W. manage to free Power Man from hypnotic control, and he battes the entire Circus of Crime plus the enthralled Black Goliath. Eventually Luke manages to free Bill from the Ringmaster’s control, then the two heroes work together to defeat the Circus of Crime and turn them over to the police.
Claire explains things to Bill and goes back to New York with Luke.
NOTE: Black Goliath had his own series for a short time, in the first issue of which he revealed that he had been lying to Claire about being stuck at 25 feet high. Nice. Years later he renamed himself Giant-Man, another one of Hank Pym’s former aliases.
BLACK GOLIATH Vol 1 #1 (Jan 1976)
Title: Black Goliath
Villains: Atom-Smasher and the Jets
Synopsis: Thanks to his old friends Hank Pym, PhD and Janet Van Dyne (the Wasp), Bill Foster is now in charge of Stark Industries West in Los Angeles. We see Dr. Foster leading his team of 20-something geniuses nicknamed the Whiz Kids (Talia Kruma, Herbert Bell and Dale West).
After a long, busy day Bill heads home through the night-darkened streets of L.A. He becomes Black Goliath to thwart a gang called the Jets from carrying out a mugging and the next morning’s news praises his superhero alter ego for it.
During the following day at work, Bill learns that a supervillain called Atom-Smasher and his group of armed goons are stealing high-priced equipment and supplies from laboratories throughout California. That night, Bill becomes Black Goliath to watch over Stark Industries West.
The armed goons try to rob the Stark facilities but are defeated by Black Goliath, only for him to be attacked in turn by Atom-Smasher.
BLACK GOLIATH Vol 1 #2 (Apr 1976)
Title: White Fire, Atomic Death
Villain: Atom-Smasher
Synopsis: After a destructive battle throughout Stark Enterprises West, Atom-Smasher escapes from Black Goliath, who collapses from his injuries. Black flight attendant Celia Jackson comes across our hero’s unconscious form, which shrank back down to human form right before losing consciousness.
She feels obligated to help him since a never-named New York City superhero once saved her life so she loads Black Goliath into her car and takes him to her apartment to help him recover. They chat and fall for each other, kissing and spending the night together. The next day Stark Ent. West, Dr. Foster supervises his staff again while crafting a device that will let him trace Atom-Smasher’s radiation emissions to his hideout.
That night, Black Goliath uses the device to the villain’s lair and attacks him. Our hero defeats Atom-Smasher and is ready to turn him over to the authorities. Meanwhile, an assassin working for Marvel’s villainous corporation Cross Technological Enterprises is remotely ordered to kill what we think is Black Goliath.
BLACK GOLIATH Vol 1 #3 (Jun 1976)
Title: Dance to the Murder
Villains: Warhawk, Vulcan and his mercenary gang
Synopsis: It turns out that the Cross Tech assassin’s real target was Atom Smasher and the assassin is Warhawk, former foe of Iron Fist and future foe of the X-Men. Warhawk kills Atom-Smasher so he can’t talk to the authorities, then escapes from Black Goliath.
Again left reeling from Atom-Smasher’s energy blasts, Black Goliath drags himself to Dr. Foster’s residence and collapses. He is so groggy from the battle that he is late to work the next day, angering his boss Tony Stark when he wants to do a video conference with Bill and his Whiz Kids. The meeting was to be about a lightly glowing metal box that Stark had delivered to Stark Ent. West for Foster to study.
An armed gang of mercenaries on motorcycles invade Stark West and steal the box. They flee with it but eventually run into Black Goliath, who defeats the armed bikers before getting attacked by their super-strong and energy-slinging boss, the new supervillain called Vulcan.
After a destructive battle, Vulcan brings an entire building down on Black Goliath and escapes before our hero can emerge from the wreckage. Black Goliath has survived but the glowing box is buried in the rubble and begins leaking some form of energy.
BLACK GOLIATH Vol 1 #4 (Aug 1976)
Title: Enter Stilt-Man, Exit Black Goliath
Villain: Stilt-Man
Synopsis: An unknown number of days later, Black Goliath defeats and captures a gang of bank robbers who just stole millions of dollars. Afterward, he turns back into Dr. Foster and shows up at Stark West. Tony Stark does another video call with him and explains that the stolen box must be recovered but is stopped by his latest government client from telling Foster anything more.
Irked that he’s been cut out of the information loop, Bill finishes his day’s projects then becomes Black Goliath again and visits Sgt. Perez at police headquarters to see if anything needing his help is going on. Keith, the nephew of our hero’s girlfriend Celia Jackson, runs into the station yelling about a supervillain robbing a nearby bank.
Black Goliath gets to the bank and begins fighting the robber – Stilt-Man, former foe of Daredevil, Spider-Man, Captain America and the Falcon. After a battle that destroys a nearby building, Stilt-Man at last resorts to his newest weapon – the Z-Ray. The Z-Ray blast hits Black Goliath, Keith and Celia and transports them off the Earth.
BLACK GOLIATH Vol 1 #5 (Nov 1976)
Title: While Titans Rage
Villains: Mortag and Stilt-Man
Synopsis: Black Goliath, Celia and Keith are stranded on a desert planet. They walk for a full day and into the night, hit frequently by dust storms which our huge hero does his best to shelter Celia and Keith from with his body.
Eventually, they encounter a friendly, telepathic alien called A’askvarii who tells them they are on the planet Kirgar, home of a now-extinct race of warlords. He leads them all to a high-tech pyramid which he was unable to break into alone, but with Black Goliath’s strength he feels it might be penetrated.
Our hero breaks their way in and A’askvarii uses the tech inside to study the Z-Ray Radiation lingering in Black Goliath, Celia and Keith’s bodies. He constructs a device to teleport them all to Earth while B.G. and Celia slip away to canoodle. A million-year old robot guardian of the pyramid called Mortag activates and kills A’askvarii.
Black Goliath fights and eventually defeats Mortag, and he, Celia and Keith mourn A’askvarii, then teleport themselves back to Earth with the device their late friend put together. Back on Earth, Stilt-Man has been continuing his days-long crime spree.
NOTE: Last issue of the series due to low sales. The dangling plot threads will be resolved in other Marvel series.
MARVEL TWO-IN-ONE Vol 1 #24 (Feb 1977)
Title: Does Anyone Remember … the Hijacker?
Villain: The Hijacker
NOTE: The story title refers to the fact that the Hijacker’s one lone previous appearance came against Ant-Man way back in Tales to Astonish #40 (February 1963)
Synopsis: The Thing is out in Los Angeles at the laboratories of Stark West, Tony’s California compound. His super-strength and invulnerability make him a great human test subject for the latest all-environment space suit that scientist Bill Foster is trying to develop. That suit is intended for astronauts exploring hostile environments on planets like Venus, Mars and others.
The Hijacker strikes again after all these years. Using his knockout and memory-altering gas gun plus his new high-tech battle tank called the Murder Machine, he tries to steal the space suit but is defeated by the Thing and Black Goliath.
CHAMPIONS Vol 1 #11 (February 1977)
Title: The Shadow from the Stars
Champions Roster: Black Widow, Hercules, Ghost Rider, Madame Darkstar, Angel and Iceman
Villains: Warlord Kaa and the Shadow People
Synopsis: Black Goliath, in his secret identity of scientist Bill Foster, designs an aircraft for the Champions to use for short journeys. It malfunctions due to inferior material provided by racketeers. Bill reveals to the Champions that he is really Black Goliath and helps them deal with the malfunctioning vessel.
Soon the Champions are called to investigate an Arizona UFO incident. The Hulk’s old foe Warlord Kaa is leading his race of Shadow People in an invasion of Earth. Our heroes thwart the alien invasion. Iceman develops a romance with fellow mutant and teammate Darkstar, making him decide not to quit the Champions for now.
On their flight back to Los Angeles, the Champions are radioed by Black Goliath, who informs them that the still-at-large Stilt-Man is attacking Champions Headquarters to obtain the glowing box that was stolen from Stark West and was just brought to the HQ by Regina, girlfriend of a junkie who stole the box from the wreckage of the building Vulcan brought down. The junkie was waiting for a buyer for it.
CHAMPIONS Vol 1 #12 (March 1977)
Title: The Stranger Strikes
Villains: The Stranger and Stilt-Man
Synopsis: While Black Goliath battles Stilt-Man to settle his score with him, the Champions get caught up in the mystery of that high-tech box that was stolen from Stark West in L.A.
The cosmic villain called the Stranger, a former foe of the X-Men, Thor and others, arrives to take the box but the Champions fight him for it. It turns out the box contains the remnants of the Stranger’s old Null-Bomb that the Silver Surfer stopped him from using to destroy the Earth years ago.
Black Goliath at last defeats Stilt-Man and turns him over to the authorities. He returns to the skyscraper headquarters of the Champions but finds the entire building starting to vanish because of the Null-Bomb’s radiation.
CHAMPIONS Vol 1 #13 (May 1977)
Title: The Doom That Went on Forever
Villain: Kamo Tharn
Synopsis: Black Goliath and the Stranger fight the android creations of the Null-Bomb while the latter teleports the Champions (Hercules, Black Widow, Ghost Rider, Madame Darkstar, Iceman and Angel) to the huge planet of Kamo Tharn. Kamo is the Stranger’s fellow Elder of the Universe like the Collector, the Grandmaster and the Gardener.
Tharn’s Runestaff is the only thing that can stop the Null-Bomb from detonating, so the Stranger wants the Champions to obtain it while he and Black Goliath fight the androids. Kamo Tharn guards all his possessions zealously, but the Champions eventually defeat Tharn’s creatures and use the Runestaff to get rid of the Null-Bomb for good.
Kamo Tharn and the Stranger then head off into space to pursue their usual cosmic interests.
DEFENDERS Vol 1 #62-65 (Aug-Nov 1978)
Title: Defenders for a Day
Villains: The Reverse-Defenders
Synopsis: Following Aaron “Dollar Bill” English’s documentary exposing the years-long existence of the Defenders, Libra II recruits several villains as Reverse-Defenders to counter the anticipated flood of new members of the heroic Defenders. It was all as idiotic as it sounds and was so stupid it was like a 1970s Thor: Love and Thunder.
Anyway, Black Goliath was one of the many heroes who showed up to become new Defenders. After misunderstandings caused battles between the new Defenders and the current roster (Hulk, Valkyrie, Nighthawk, Son of Satan and Hellcat), the assembled heroes all fought the Reverse-Defenders.
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