Wrapping up the week with a summary of the eighty-fifth issue of Marvel Two-In-One. The top portion of the cover depicted the Thing and Spider-Woman tackling several shadowed opponents, including a gigantic robot. The bottom part teased that we'd know what would happen to Giant-Man. The tale was titled "The Final Fate of Giant-Man!" The issue had a cover date of March 1982.
The story started with Foster locked in battle with a dark demon in his dreams. As he slept, Foster thought back to his days as the director of the Los Angeles Stark-West research center. It continued to his discovery of a growth formula and his adoption of the costumed identity Black Goliath. As a superhero, Foster battled foes such as Vulcan, Stilt-Man, and Atom-Smasher, the latter or which exposed him to the radiation poisoning that was still continuing to affect him.
Only Foster's lady love, Celia Jackson, was enough to keep him moving forward. Things finally regressed to the point where Bill needed help. He went to Project Pegasus in New York. He met other super-powered beings and adopted a new identity as Giant-Man. However, his condition was not improving.
As Foster awoke, his friends Ben Grimm (the Thing), Alicia Masters, and Reed Richards (Mr. Fantastic) were waiting anxiously. Foster had had enough of tests, but Reed tried to persuade his comrade to stay vigilant. Bill wanted to live out his remaining days in peace, which Ben fully understood. Reed eventually relented, and Grimm boarded the Fantastic Four's pogo plane with Foster before taking off.
Meanwhile, in San Francisco, the superheroine known as Spider-Woman (Jessica Drew) was busy busting up a smuggling ring. She was about to succeed when a blast fired by a man lurking in the shadows knocked her out of the sky. As she recovered, the villains escaped in a small flier. Drew later returned to her apartment. She took some time to rest, remembering that her foes had mentioned Los Angeles. That was her next target.
Not far away, Grimm and Foster were met by Bill's old colleagues at Stark-West. The "Whiz Kids" were happy to see Foster, as was Celia, who was standing by herself until bill noticed her. While they reconnected, Grimm took a walk outside the complex. He then noticed a guard lying unconscious.
As he rounded the bend, Ben saw several men adorned in uniforms similar to the ones Spider-Woman had just battled in San Francisco. It was definitely clobbering time! The soldiers started to swarm the Thing, but he quickly shook them off. He then faced their employer: the Atom Smasher, a villain who was supposed to be dead but appeared to be very much alive.
The villain blasted Grimm through a wall. He landed inside Stark-West just before Drew's cab arrived outside the company's front doors. Spider-Woman entered through the new hole in the wall a few moments later (The Thing had met her before in MTIO #30-33, but his memory of that encounter had been erased).
After a few hasty introductions and explanations, Bill and his team went to work on a scanner that would detect Atom Smasher's unique form of radiation. Their foe was across town at the time, working on his devastating new weapon, the Neutralode. Once activated, it had the potential to release neutron rays in the area that were strong enough to kill millions of people.
Before he could proceed with his plans, Ben and Jessica burst into Atom Smasher's headquarters. The villain dispatched some of his lackeys to man the controls of his large robotrons. The mechanical menaces posed quite a threat, but they were nothing that the two superheroes couldn't effectively handle.
Atom Smasher fired at Spider-Woman. She was unaffected, after having become immune to his blasts following their initial meeting. The venom in her bloodstream helped with that, a fact that Ben wanted to share with Bill. Little did either of them know that Foster was also in their opponent's lair. Foster allowed his body to increase in size and engaged in battle with the brother of the original Atom Smasher.
His new foe was formidable, and he admitted during the conflict that he'd hired a professional to eliminate his sibling, citing his unwillingness to exploit the potential of his powers. The new Atom Smasher was eventually able to activate his new weapon, but a power overload caused it to explode with its creator still at the controls.
Foster collapsed almost immediately afterward. His friends brought him back to Stark-West, where Drew volunteered to give him a blood transfusion. A short while later, Bill woke up again, feeling much better, although his superpowers were now gone. Ben walked the halls sometime thereafter, happy that his friend would recover. He ran into Spider-Woman, who confessed that she felt a bit guilty about the possibility that she might unknowingly have had the cure for cancer, something that she'd have to live with. Grimm was still convinced that the day's outcome was enough to be a victory in anyone's book.
This was a satisfying conclusion to Giant Man's condition. I just wish that he had returned as an ally of Grimm and/or the Fantastic Four on a semi-regular or even regular basis after this storyline wrapped up. He proved to be an underestimated hero and a trusted companion to Ben and company. He would reappear again from time to time in various Marvel mags until his untimely demise during the Civil War series of books. His nephew Tom would later go on to revive and use the same formula that Bill took to gain his abilities.
That's it for this week from me. Tomorrow, I'll tackle the eighty-sixth issue of Marvel Two-In-One. This rather offbeat issue has the Thing meeting up with one of his old rivals, in a tale that most Marvelites wouldn't expect. There's also a backup story that features one of the Fantastic Four's most notable annoyances. Until then, have a great week and don't forget to be kind to one another.
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