The Guest Star:
      Black Goliath

The Villain:
      the Hijacker

Guest Shots:
      Tony Stark

The Set Up:
      Ben is in Los Angeles, testing out an atmosphere suit designed to hold up to atmospheric pressure on Venus. The scientist in charge of the experiment is Bill Foster, better known to the reader as Black Goliath. The experiment is going very well when an intruder in a funky suit and helemt bursts in, gasses the scientists, and opens one of the airlock doors so that Ben cannot break out without releasing the deadly atmosphere of the chamber into the room and killing all present. The intruder, having identified himself as the Hijacker, departs to carry out his thefts, and a semi-conscious Bill Foster manages to activate the airlock, allowing Ben to smash the rest of the way out safely.
     Ben hauls the gassed scientists out into the open air, where they begin coming to. Leaving them there, Ben heads back in to stop the Hijacker. Unnoticed, Bill Foster gets up and follows him, stopping just inside the building to change into his Black Goliath costume...

Clobberin' Time?:
      Nope.

Petunia's Patch:
      Nope.

Things of Interest:
      The Hijacker had previously appeared in Tales to Astonish 40, where he was defeated by the Ant-Man (this was recently reprinted in Essential Ant-Man #1). He appears again in MTIO 96, and then is killed by the Scourge in his final appearance in Captain America #319 (boy, I'm starting to think that the Scourge is hard on MTIO villains!).
     Black Goliath had had his own series at about this time, however, it only lasted 5 issues before being cancelled. Its final issue was two years previous to this issue, though some of his supporting cast appears as scientists here, so you can't really tell the chronology from reading it. This story stands on its own, still- it does not wrap up any loose ends from the Black Goliath book, which is a nice change for MTIO!
     Bill Foster / Black Goliath goes on to play semi-major roles in MTIO- he's in the Project Pegasus storyline that runs through issues 53-58, and then drives another major storyline about his radiation poisoning in issues 81-85.