Tony Isabella has crafted a reputation for writing black heroes. His creation DC's Black Lightning being the most famous of his outings in this arena. But he began at Marvel and there he wrote some singular issues of the comic Luke Cage, Power Man and later he crafted the earliest adventures of Black Goliath.
In the debut issue of Black Goliath (smartly drawn by George Tuska and Vince Colletta) we meet the fifteen foot giant who is in his off hours Bill Foster, a talented bio-chemist who had in earlier days assisted Henry Pym and it was there that he'd "perfected" the growing formula which Pym had dabbled with for many years. In that first issue we find a Goliath who is reminiscing about his early days in the Watts community and who ends up fighting some low-level criminals he chances upon. Later we learn that Foster is a man in full command of his power, who can elevate to fifteen feet on a whim and who is running a research lab manned by three up and coming talented young scientists. He seems to be a man well positioned for a successful life, but as we well know the lot of a superhero is rarely blissful..
We'd first met Black Goliath in the pages of Luke Cage, Power Man when the aforementioned Hero for Hire came to blows with the giant when he was searching for his lady love Claire Temple. Turns out Claire is the ex-wife of Foster and had joined him on the West Coast to help because she thought he was trapped at the fifteen foot size. Apparently this is a lie perpetrated by Foster to keep Claire close.
Black Goliath and Luke Cage face off, but both find themselves fighting as a duo against the Circus of Crime.
I love the Circus of Crime, but this is not one of their most entertaining outings. Cage and Foster quickly dispense with them and Black Goliath moves on the headline his own title, but only briefly.
Black Goliath only lasted four more issues and rated on visit with Spidey in Marvel Team-Up. Later Bill Foster changed his fighting name to Giant-Man and fought alongside the Thing in Marvel-Two-In-One. He became a background character at Marvel for many years.
Always it seemed he was a hero looking for a place to fight, a time to show his worth. The very stuff of tragedy.
On a final note, let me that I always loved the corner box image for these the Black Goliath comics, brief though was their stay.
Note: This post originally appeared at Rip Jagger's Other Dojo.
Rip Off
I was never impressed by the character. Sticking the word 'black' in front of a character's name doesn't make him racially relevant in my opinion. After all, Hank Pym's or Clint Barton's version wasn't called White Goliath. And in the Black Panther's case, the word 'black' didn't necessarily refer to the colour of T'Challa's skin. Apparently, there was at least one letter from a black reader who found the name of Black Goliath patronising.
ReplyDeleteThis is all part of the "Blaxploitation" pop culture era when throwing "Black" into a title distinguished it from the mainstream entertainments intended and constructed primarily for white audiences. There was "Black Samuri" and "Black Caesar" among others. Marvel was trying to tap that market with Luke Cage and this comic just as they tried to tap every pop culture market that appeared. The advantage here is that Bill Foster was a pretty interesting character after all was said and done and so he lingered after the fad.
DeleteIn Europe, what we call Goliath is referred to as a "Big Black with Cheese."
DeleteHow about "Goliath Royale"?
DeleteI always liked Bill Foster as a character, and I hated that he was killed off rather ignominiously for shock effect decades later in the Civil War fiasco.
ReplyDeleteI concur. One of the reasons I left new comics around that same time was the rather unceremonious way the dispatched poor Bill Foster. He deserved better.
DeleteWhen Lawrence Fishburne played Bill Foster in Ant-Man and the Wasp and they mentioned he was Goliath, I was hoping to see a screenshot of him in costume (with Hank Pym in his Ant-Man garb) or his Goliath costume hanging in the lab!
ReplyDeleteYou and me both. Seeing Bill Foster on screen was something I never dreamed I see. Same goes for the appearance of the Black Knight (Dane Whitman at least) in the recent Eternals flick.
DeleteBeautiful artwork on that B&W page, I must say!
ReplyDeleteThat's George Tuska inked by Dave Hunt. It is slick.
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