The Avengers #32
Avengers #32 carries a double debut that makes it one of the more consequential single issues of Marvel's Silver Age: it introduces Dr. Bill Foster — the future Black Goliath — as one of the earliest Black characters to appear in a mainstream Marvel superhero title, at a moment when such representation was exceedingly rare in the medium. Simultaneously, the issue launches the Sons of the Serpent, a hooded, white-supremacist organization that critics and historians have consistently identified as Marvel's first KKK-coded villain group, making this a remarkably early attempt by a superhero comic to engage directly with civil-rights-era racial hatred. The story predates by several years the socially engaged comics work that would later define the Bronze Age — including the Hard Travelin' Heroes run in Green Lantern/Green Arrow and Amazing Spider-Man's anti-drug arc — placing Stan Lee and Don Heck ahead of that broader industry shift. Foster's eventual evolution into Black Goliath and later Giant-Man also makes this issue the opening chapter of a decades-long heroic lineage that reached the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
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The issue was produced under Marvel's standard 'Marvel Method' workflow of the period: penciler Don Heck would lay out pages with empty word balloons and caption boxes, and Stan Lee — who also served as his own editor — would write the dialogue and captions after the fact. The creative team of Lee and Heck had been the regular Avengers pairing for this era, and the story arrived in a mid-1966 publishing climate in which Lee was widely described as stretched thin across multiple titles simultaneously. The cover and interior art are both by Heck, with colors by Stan Goldberg and lettering by Artie Simek; the Grand Comics Database records the on-sale date as July 7, 1966, with a September 1966 cover date.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance of Dr. Bill Foster (later Black Goliath / Giant-Man), an African-American biochemist recruited by Tony Stark to assist Hank Pym with a cure for his inability to shrink from ten feet tall — created by Stan Lee and Don Heck.
- First appearance of the Sons of the Serpent, a white-supremacist villain organization widely identified by commentators as Marvel's first KKK analogue in superhero comics.
- First appearance of the Supreme Serpent, whose civilian identity is General Tai Chen, an agent of a hostile foreign nation — a Cold War-era plot twist that resolves across the two-part story concluding in Avengers #33.
- Written and edited by Stan Lee; pencils, inks, and cover art by Don Heck; colors by Stan Goldberg; lettering by Artie Simek.
- Story title: 'The Sign of the Serpent!'; cover date September 1966, on-sale July 7, 1966; cover price 12 cents.
- The issue also features Black Widow in a supporting role as she infiltrates the Sons of the Serpent on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D., contributing to her ongoing rehabilitation arc from Soviet agent to Avengers ally.
- Reprinted in Giant-Size Marvel Triple Action #2; also collected in Avengers Epic Collection Vol. 2: Once an Avenger (2016), Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers Vol. 4 (2012), The Avengers Omnibus Vol. 2 (2015; second edition 2023), and Mighty Marvel Masterworks: The Avengers #4 — The Sign of the Serpent (2024).
- Bill Foster's career trajectory from this debut spans decades: he gained size-changing powers as Black Goliath (first costumed appearance in Power Man #24, 1975), headlined his own five-issue Black Goliath series in 1976, and was prominently killed by Ragnarok in Civil War #4 (2006) — a death that shifted allegiances in that event's storyline.
Cast · 19 characters
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Plot details indexed by the Grand Comics Database (CC BY-SA).