Saturday, May 2, 2020

Giant-Man and Firestorm



Is Bill Foster still dead?  That's the kind of question you can only ask about comic characters.  I enjoyed following his story through his own short-lived series and then as a supporting character in Marvel Two-In-One as well as appearances in other titles.  He was killed by Ragnarok, a Thor Clone, in the first Civil War mini-series.  I'm not sure whether he's ever been brought back by any means.  I think there's a Bill Foster Jr. out there somewhere, maybe that's what I'm thinking of.

These two met during Foster's Black Goliath days in STF #2104...

15 comments:

Horsefeathers' clone said...

Is Bill Foster still dead? Does that include clones, parallel world versions, his mind transferred into someone else or into a computer or his soul is alive but not his body?

Cripes Ross, can't you ask a simple question for a change?

Across Crossovers said...

His nephew Tom Foster has took over the mantle, calling himself Black Goliath as a tribute to his lost uncle, Bill Foster.

Talking about Black Goliath, he has a short-lived foe called 'Atom-Smasher' (Ronald English), who sed a Nucleonic Radiator to become the super-villain and was capable of transforming his body into pure energy. So, Bill Foster facing Firestorm isn't so odd.

By the way, what about ... Bill Foster Black Goliath vs. DC's Atom Smasher?

far far from home said...

that mean there's a bad 'Bill of goods' there?
Does Stein see what Ronald sees or is his vision blocked?

Carycomic said...

@FFH: maybe Firestorm's ex-girlfriend, Firehawk, was about to reach critical mass for some reason. So, BG thought there was no other choice but to feed her to Morton "The Black Hole" Kribbee!

Bob Greenwade said...

I was just thinking about Bill Foster the other day, and how Laurence Fishburne came as close as anyone ever has to having simultaneous roles in Marvel and DC: When Ant-Man and the Wasp came out, with him as Foster, he was still under contract with Warner as Perry White to Henry Cavill's Superman. He's since left the role, so the overlap is entirely behind the scenes (though I suppose it isn't impossible for him to come back, since he hasn't actually been replaced).

I was wrong in that musing, though, as one person actually has had an overlap: Morena Baccarin, who has played Vanessa Carlysle in the Deadpool movies even as she's voiced both Talia al Ghul in animated Batman films and Gideon on The Flash, and played Leslie Thompkins on Gotham.

Back to Bill Foster, though: I'm hoping to see him suited up as Goliath in the next Ant-Man movie, if only in a flashback... though probably not in the costume shown here (yet another "pirate boots and gauntlet gloves" combo). Of course, at least Ronnie's not complaining about Bill's fashion sense here (oy, those shoulders!).

Tony said...

This version of Giant-Man was one of my favorites! I loved his team up with the Thing and the whole Project Pegasus ordeal. This cover rocks! Nice!

Across Crossovers said...

As a curiosity - and just to complement my previous comment - Atom-Smasher is exactly the villain that appears on cover STF #2104, January 16, 2018. I confess that I only noticed this when reviewing that cover.

We already had the meeting of the legionary Colossal Boy - who participates with the Black Goliath, among others, of the team 'The BIG League' (STF #1570, July 31, 2016) - with the Giant-Man (Hank Pym) (STF #1212, August 8, 2015), who can also face SJA's Atom Smasher.

Anonymous said...

I liked Bill Foster and really didn't like his death. Anyway, I was thinking how he was killed by the Thor clone and it got me to thinking. What if there were a clone war? What I mean is that a war with the Star Wars Stormtrooper clones vs Mr. Sinister's X-Men clones or the Jackal's Spider-Man clones. Or any other number of clones that are out there. Hmm, and now I can't seem to think of any DC clones. Has DC done much in the way of using clones in plots?
Ordinaryguy2

Across Crossovers said...

@Ordinaryguy2:

- Superboy/Kon-El [partial clone of Superman]
- Donna Troy [magical clone of Wonder Woman]
- Inertia/Thaddeus Thawne II [clone of Bart Allen]
- Fairchild [clone of the original Caithlyn Fairchild]
- H'el [Kryptonian clone]
- Heretic [clone of Damian Wayne]
- Bizarro [the perfect imperfect duplicate of Superman... lol]

Bigby65 said...

Doomsday (cloned over and over again until he killed the scientist)

Although don't agree with Wonder Girl. That may be her origin now but the original version by Wolfman & Perez was the best (normal child raised by Amazons).

Across Crossovers said...

@Bigby65: I cannot disagree with you. ... I just mentioned it because it was an official DC record. Donna Troy is often noted for having had a number of complicated revisions to her origin.

Writer Marv Wolfman recounted:
"I wrote the original Donna Troy origin story back in the first Titans run. She had never had one and was, in fact, not a "real" character (if you can call any of them real). She was a computer simulation of Wonder Woman as a girl. That story also named her Donna Troy and set up everything that followed. Unfortunately, after Crisis on Infinite Earths and the Wonder Woman revamp, we had to go back and redo it again as a brand new Wonder Woman being born on Earth could not have rescued the girl from the burning building. I wish we had been able to keep it as I think it's gone insane now. I just wanted a simple origin story. I came up with the original, and then [in "Who is Donna Troy?"] George [PĂ©rez] and I simply elaborated on what had been done, giving her real knowledge of who she was. I would love to say that everything after "Who is Donna Troy?" should be forgotten, but that's not the way continuity works, sadly."

Under John Byrne, Donna was retconned to be a mirror-image duplicate of Wonder Woman, created by the Amazon sorceress Magala using a spell to give life to Diana's reflections so that the young princess would have an age-appropriate friend.

You can read more about all conflicting origins of Donna Troy here.

Allen W. Wright said...

I think a Marvel Two-in-One with the Thing and Firehawk would complement this well.

I don’t suppose you could do a Robin Hood themed on for May 5.

Carycomic said...

Robin Hood's staying safe by staying home...to hawk Arrow Shirts on Ebay.

Anonymous said...

@Carycomic: *Super-Groan!*

Brother Kellymatthew said...

"The Heat Is AWWN!" - Firestorm The Nuclear Man.

Support STF: The Lost Issues!