Tag Archives: Bill Foster

#3502: Goliath

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , , , , ,

GOLIATH

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“In this universe, an alien threat forces Bill Foster to put aside his differences with former partner Hank Pym to join S.H.I.E.L.D.’s newest team of heroes.”

Though a minor character in the overall scheme of the Marvel universe, Bill Foster is a pretty big deal in real world terms, as one of Marvel’s first prominent African American characters.  In the comics, he would eventually take on his own super hero identity, the Black Goliath, ultimately shortening it to just “Goliath.”  Bill was added to the MCU in 2018’s Ant-Man and the Wasp, where he’s a disgruntled former partner of Hank, with his past as “Goliath” only briefly hinted at.  The second season of What If…? is poised to explore that at least *a little* further, with at least one of the episodes offering up a costumed variant of Bill, which just so happens to be one of the designs picked for action figure treatment.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

Goliath is figure 5 in the Hydra Stomper Series of Marvel Legends, and is one of the three What If…? figures to grace the line-up.  The figure stands 6 1/4 inches tall and he has 30 points of articulation.  Structurally, he’s using the arms, legs, and waist from the Ant-Man and the Wasp version of Scott, with a new head, torso, and belt.  We haven’t seen a ton of exactly what Goliath is going to look like in the show, but this set-up does seem pretty consistent with what we *have* seen.  I do like how they’ve kept elements of Bill’s Goliath costume from the comics, while filtering it into something a bit more consistent with the other Pym-suits from the movies.  I particularly dig how they’ve set-up the lenses on the helmet to mimic Bill’s usual domino mask.  The new head is solid; it’s got the proper transparent lenses, which the Ant-Man built on this body lacked.  The new belt also incorporates another Goliath-centered element: the big “G” belt buckle.  I absolutely adore that.  Bill’s color work carries the heaviest weight in making this a suitably unique release.  The blue and white makes for a good contrast, to be sure.  The actual application is decent enough.  the blue seems a tad thin, but otherwise tings are clean.  Bill gets no accessories of his own, but he does get the arm and alternate hand for the Hydra Stomper Build-A-Figure.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bill’s a character I really do love in the comics, so I’m happy about any sort of outside media appearances for him.  While his MCU appearance didn’t do a ton with him, it was still cool to see him, and I enjoyed that they left the door open for more of him.  I have no idea what his What If…? appearance is going to be like, but I’m certainly looking forward to it.  In the meantime, there’s this figure of him, and I already have the only other Bill Foster figure, so I might as well have this one, too, and keep that full set running.  He’s a pretty basic figure, but I do enjoy him.

Thanks to my sponsors over at All Time Toys for setting me up with this figure to review.  If you’re looking for cool toys both old and new, please check out their website and their eBay storefront.

#1221: Goliath

Posted by Ethan Wilson in Reviews and tagged with , , , ,

GOLIATH

MARVEL UNIVERSE: GIGANTIC BATTLES (HASBRO)

billfoster1

Black Panther is the Marvel Universe’s first prominent African character and not long after his introduction in 1966, they introduced their first noteworthy African-American character into their super hero world in the form of Hank Pym’s lab assistant, Bill Foster.  Bill was a big deal at the time, being totally competent in his job, and being the best expert in Pym Particles outside of Pym himself, all while avoiding many of the negative stereotypes that struck most black characters at the time.  In the ‘70s, he was promoted to a super hero in his own right, taking on the role of Black Goliath.  He then eventually took on Hank’s old Giant-Man name for a time, before retiring for a bit due to health issues.  In the early ‘00s, he was brought back, dropping the “Black” from his name and simply going by “Goliath.”  Then he got dragged into the stupidity of Civil War and ended up dead.  Thanks, Millar.  Well, at the very least he got an action figure out of all of it.

THE FIGURE ITSELF

billfoster2Goliath was released in the second series of Hasbro’s Marvel Universe: Gigantic Battles line, a sub-line of their main Marvel Universe line.  He was originally packed with Ragnarok, the evil clone version of Thor from Civil War, as well as Civil War #4, the issue where Bill died.  Those two parts of the set were a little morbid for me, so I got rid of them.  Just the Bill figure for me!  The figure stands about 12 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Bill is wearing the costume he was sporting during Civil War (though it was introduced just prior to that, I believe during Dan Slott and Andrea Di Vito’s The Thing mini-series).  It was a short-lived look, but also one of Bill’s best designs, lacking a lot of the dated design elements his other designs possessed. Structurally, the figure’s mostly a re-use of the Marvel Icons Cyclops figure, the same body used for the previously reviewed SDCC-exclusive Giant-Man, as well as the Gigantic Battles version of Hank Pym Goliath.  As I noted in the Giant-Man review, it’s a body that’s started looking quite dated in recent years.  It’s really gangly, and the articulation isn’t particularly well worked-in.  The gangly-ness of the body is particularly notable with Bill, who was classically depicted as having a fair bit of mass in his giant form.  That being said, one of my major issues with its use on Giant-Man was how the sculpted costume details didn’t line-up with his design.  That’s not an issue for Bill, which results in him looking a whole lot less strange when compared to Hank.  Bill had a new head sculpt, which remains one of Hasbro’s greatest head sculpts to date.  The level of detail on this sculpt is really incredible, to the point that it almost kinda looks out of place on this particular body.  He’s also got an add-on belt piece, which covers up the sculpted x-belt-buckle.  Due to its design and size, it covers the original belt much better than the piece on the Giant-Man figure.  In terms of paint, Bill’s fairly decent.  The base colors match up pretty well with the comics, and there’s some nice airbrushing present on several parts of the costume.  Since the arms they used have sculpted seams and folds, they couldn’t do the proper bare arms, so instead they’re black like the pants and boots.  It sort of looks off, but I guess it works alright.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

Bill is actually one of my favorite comics characters.  It all goes back to his appearance in the tie-in comics for Avengers: United They Stand, which is one of my personal favorite runs of Avengers comics.  I liked him there, which led to me tracking down some of his other appearances (with the Champions, another favorite team of mine, as well as in his short-lived solo series).  He’s just one of those cool background characters that I really enjoy, and I was beyond pissed when he was killed in Civil War.  I was super thrilled when Hasbro announced him as part of this line, and waited patiently for the two years it took for him to make it to retail.  Goliath isn’t one of Hasbro’s best, especially in light of the leaps and bounds they’ve made with Legends, but he was actually one of the best entries in the MU line at the time, and he’s the only Bill Foster action figure out there.