Goliath. Black Goliath. Doctor. Giant-Man. These are all names or titles Bill Foster has had in his life. From the streets of Los Angeles to the halls of Avengers Mansion, Bill Foster has seen much of the world. How does a doctor of biochemistry get involved with the hero life style? Let’s find out!
William Barrett Foster was born in Watts, Los Angeles, California where he grew up with dreams of becoming a scientist. Since he was poor, he would enlist in the military to help pay for school, here, he would make enemies with a CIA operative that would return later in his life. Once he was out of the military, Bill would graduate from the California Technical Institute with a Phd in biochemistry. He would also meet and marry Claire Temple while they were both going through their doctorate programs. While Bill was prospering at his work at Stark Industries, his marriage was failing due to his goals being so focused on his career and eventually they would get divorced.
Working at Stark Industries meant from time to time, you would run into heroes like Iron Man or even Giant-Man, Hank Pym. Bill would meet Pym when he was trapped in an enlarged, ten foot tall state and be brought on to help shrink him back down to his proper height. This meant that Bill now spent most of his time with Pym and Pym’s wife, Janet Van Dyne, often getting caught up in their heroic adventures. Eventually, Bill and Pym were able to shrink him back down and Bill would return to Stark Industries but he now had working knowledge of the Pym Particles formula.
Back at work, now promoted to the head of the biochemistry division, Bill was able to use his full access and equipment to work out the problems in the enlarging portion of Pym Particles, Bill could now grow to his own giant height and shrink back down to his normal height with ease. He would take this opportunity to try and get back together with his ex-wife but didn’t realize she was now dating Luke Cage. The two fought briefly before teaming up to fight the Circus of Crime.
Now having a costume for his work, with encouragement from Pym, Bill would begin fighting crime with his giant abilities. He would face off against the dangerous Atom Smasher and while fighting him get blasted with high doses of deadly radiation. Ignoring the extant of the damage, Bill continued his career as a hero and as head of Stark Industries biochemistry department. As time went on though, Bill would need some of the best minds in the world working on curing him from his radiation poisoning. It would take a blood transfusion from Spider-Woman, that would cost her the power of radiation immunity, to stop his cells from further degradation. Bill now believed that further attempts at enlarging himself would be too much for his body now and retired from hero work to become a researcher and consultant for the West Coast Avengers.
From time to time, Bill would become a giant once more to aide his friends. He would even find a way to fully restore his powers so he could fight along side other heroes for a more permanent basis. It was during the hero Civil War that Bill had sided with the anti-registration side of Captain America and company. He fought hard for them but was murdered by a clone of Thor by Tony Stark’s pro-registration team. For whatever reason, the other heroes could not seem to find the Pym Particles to shrink Bill back down to his proper height and had to bury him in a tarp with chains wrapped around his corpse and dropped into a massive grave by a mechanical crane.
There you have it. Bill Foster has always felt like one of the great injustices in comic book deaths. One of the few people to die during the hero Civil War proper and then given an undignified and nonsensical funeral, feeling like a tasteless and mean joke. He will hopefully have renewed interest as he will have a role in the new Ant-Man and Wasp film which will have just come out as this goes up. Played by Laurence Fishburne, no less, the character and performance have gotten praise in early reviews, maybe we’ll get to see more of him in the films and returned to life once more in the comics. See you next time!
Suggested Reading
The Avengers #32
Luke Cage, Power Man #24
Marvel Two-in-One #55
The Thing #1
Civil War
Dr. Bustos
drbustos@comicattack.net
