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Goliath IV
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Alias:
William Barrett Foster
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First Appearance:
Avengers (Vol. I) #32
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Base of Operations:
[not on file]
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Occupation:
Biochemist
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Place of Birth:
Watts, Los Angeles, California
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Classification:
Human
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Marital Status:
Divorced
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Membership Status:
Deceased
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Powers / Abilities:
Foster's exposure to Pym particles gives him the ability to grow to a gigantic size while gaining mass and superhuman strength in proportion to his height.
Background / History:
William Foster spent his childhood in the Watts ghetto. His natural intelligence and the influence of several good people helped him to leave the ghetto, however, and attend California Technical Institute. There Foster worked toward a degree in biochemistry and met and married Claire Temple, a medical student. Upon graduation, Foster landed a job at Stark Industries’ Baltimore research center and began to work his way up the company ladder. As he did so, his relationship with Claire disintegrated and they divorced. When Henry Pym, the Avenger once known as Goliath, became trapped at ten feet tall when his growth serum yielded unwanted side effects, Pym’s friend Tony Stark recommended his employee Foster to assist Pym in concocting a cure. For several months, Foster worked with Pym in Pym’s private laboratory in New Jersey, analyzing and testing Pym’s growth formula. Together, the biochemists found a cure for Pym. Shortly thereafter, Foster returned to Stark Industries, where he was promoted to head of the biochemistry division of the Stark plant in his native Los Angeles. Fascinated by Pym’s research, Foster synthesized some of the growth compound, whose formula he had memorized in his months of work with Pym. Foster hoped to eliminate all of hits harmful side effects. Eventually Foster tested his formula on himself and found he had successfully duplicated Pym’s growing powers.
Taking a vacation from his duties at Start, Foster devised a plan by which he might win back the affection of his ex-wife, Claire Temple. He wrote her about how he worked with PYM and duplicated his powers, but deceived her into believing that he, like Pym, had been trapped in giant stature. She agreed to meet him to see what help she could provide. The rendezvoused at a traveling circus where he said he had to work in order to earn money to continue his research. Foster had outfitted himself in costume and was being billed as Black Goliath. Temple’s current boyfriend, Luke Cage, had followed her, however, and the two men fought over her. They settled their differences long enough to join forces against the Ringmaster and his Circus of Crime. Temple chose to remain with cage rather than her ex-husband, so Foster returned to Los Angeles, his shameful ploy having failed.
Although he had fashioned a costume identity for himself, Foster was uncertain whether he should use it to fight crime, considering the circumstances in which he fashioned it. With the encouragement of Henry Pym, he decided to try. On his first outing, Black Goliath encountered the Atom-Smasher, a criminal able to emit radioactivity from his body, and he was bombarded with deadly radiation. This bombardment immediately produced harmful side effects, making his size transformations painful and causing him to occasionally black out. Before Goliath was able to defeat the Atom-Smasher, his foe was killed by a sniper who he learned some years later was hired by the Atom-Smasher’s own brother. Ignoring the symptoms of radiation poisoning, Black Goliath tried to distinguish himself as a crimefighter, battling such menaces as Vulcan, the Stilt-Man and the Hijacker and aiding the Champions of Los Angeles and the Thing.
When it became difficult to ignore his illness, Foster took a leave of absence from Stark International to become a consultant at Project: Pegasus, an upstate New York research facility. There ostensibly to do research on the corpse of Atom-Smasher, Foster actually hoped to use the facilities to help him arrest the debilitating effects of radiation on his body. He concealed the real reason for his presence from his co-workers until, while in battle with the matter-devouring Nth Man, he explained his plight as he prepared to sacrifice himself. By this time, Forester had fashioned a new costume for himself, and at the suggestion of the Thing, assumed the name Giant-Man. After his superhuman co-workers managed to rescue him from the Nth Man, Project security chief Quasar arranged to have a team of top radiologists assist Foster in a cure for his condition.
When the resources of the Project were exhausted without success, Foster left. Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four studied Foster’s radiation-ravaged cellular structure for several days before admitting that it was out of his area of expertise. Richards sent his colleague, the Thing, to Canada to enlist the aid of a radiation specialist, Dr. Walter Langkowski, who was secretly the superhuman Sasquatch. Langkowski’s abilities were stymied by Foster’s state of deterioration as well, Foster finally decided to leave Richards’ custody and return to Los Angeles to put his affairs in order. Escorted by the Thing, Foster checked in with Stark West, just as the brother of the Atom-Smasher, who had duplicated the original’s powers, raided the plant. The Thing, Foster and Spider-Woman (who had been on the Atom-Smasher’s trail) battled the criminal, hoping that he might hold the key to Forester’s cure. That avenue also proved fruitless. However, as a result of the process that gave her superhuman powers, Spider-Woman possessed a unique factor in her blood that made her immune to radiation and all toxic poisons. Willingly, she submitted to a blood transfusion with Foster, at the expense of losing her immunity factor permanently. The transfusion managed to arrest Foster’s cellular decay, saving his life.
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 that 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.
Recently, Foster donned the identity of Goliath again. He first helped 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. He also appeared very briefly as part of an ad-hoc team of "urban" superheroes (Luke Cage/Power Man, Iron Fist, Brother Voodoo and The Falcon).
Caveat: William Foster was also known as Giant-Man II and Black Goliath.
Relatives:
Ant-Man
Doctor Pym
Giant-Man
Goliath
Yellowjacket
Yellowjacket II
Ant-Man II
Goliath II
Wasp
Wasp II
Stature
Hawkeye
Weapons / Paraphernalia:
[not on file]
Team Affiliations:
Avengers
Champions
Defenders
Project: Pegasus
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