PROJECT: B.I.G.

Membership: Bill Foster, Giant-Man (Hank Pym), Nash the Twelfth (a giant-sized ant)

Purpose: To solve global hunger by enlarging garden-based foods

Aliases: Biotechnically Induced Growth (what the B.I.G. acronym stood for)

Affiliations: Ant-Man (Scott Lang), the Avengers (Black Widow/Natalia Romanova, Captain America/Steve Rogers, Crystal/Crystalia Amaquelin, Vision/"Victor Shade"), Hawkeye (Clint Barton), Scarlet Witch (Wanda Maximoff), the US military (Lt. Arnold, Douglas, Nate Juran, Ludwig, others), Wasp (Janet Van Dyne); formerly Col. Glenn L. Manning

Enemies: Agar, Captain Atlas (Att-Lass), Dr. Honda, Kosmosians (Kolai, Pirei, others), Col. Glenn L. Manning, Doctor Minerva (Minn-Erva), the renegade giant insects from their own labs

Base of Operations: The B.I.G. Compound beneath Death Valley, Nevada, USA

First Appearance: Avengers I#379 (October, 1994)

History: (Avengers I#381/2 (fb) - BTS) - Hank Pym and Bill Foster founded Project: B.I.G., a scientific think-tank in which they both used their knowledge of Pym Particles to create a variant Pym Particle stream that would enlarge food in the hopes of ending world hunger.

(Avengers I#380/2 (fb)) - Hank Pym invited his ex-wife Janet Van Dyne to visit Project: B.I.G., where he explained B.I.G.'s purpose to end global hunger by using Pym Particles to enlarge garden-based food. Janet was overjoyed for Hank's discovery of the Pym Particle variant that he used to grow the food. While Bill Foster agreed to join up with Hank, he chose not to tell his ex that he was working with Hank again.

(Avengers I#379/2 (fb) - BTS) - Following the scientific breakthroughs of Project: B.I.G., Hank Pym received the scientific affirmation he had long felt he needed.

(Avengers I#381/2 (fb)) - To keep the balance of nature consistent, Project: B.I.G. enlarged some everyday insects and placed within Project: B.I.G.'s garden, risking that the insects might react badly to the variant Pym Particle stream but regulating the insects' exposure to the Pym Particles.

(Avengers I#380/2 (fb) - BTS) - Unfortunately, Hank began letting a lot of his own opinions of himself ride on the success of Project: B.I.G. and things turned sour soon after Project: B.I.G.'s formation.

(Avengers I#382/2 (fb) - BTS) - The "sour turn" of Project: B.I.G. began when some of Project: B.I.G.'s giant-sized insects were secretly exposed to the alien Kosmosians' fear-mist (alongside others who had been exposed to the Pym Particles that the Kosmosians used to access Earth), which was activated by the formic acid within the giant ants' bodies. The fear-mist caused the insects to become confrontational and caused them great pain.

(Avengers I#379/2 (fb) - BTS) - Project: B.I.G.'s giant-sized insects escaped the Project. Hank Pym blamed himself for failing and took sole responsibility. When Hank heard of Sandra Descher's report about giant ants in Arizona, Hank Pym suspected the Project: B.I.G. ants and decided to investigate as Ant-Man.

(Avengers I#379/2) - On June 21st, Hank Pym recorded Project: B.I.G. report#153 in which he noted that the flying ants he rode seemed to blame him for the situation involving the giant ants. At 7:25am, Pym located the renegade herd of giant-sized ants in the Arizona desert chasing Sandra Descher, who had earlier reported the giant ants to the Whitmore Scientific Institute in Phoenix, Arizona. Finding his old ant ally Nash among the giant ants, Ant-Man battled the near-mindless Nash until Nash briefly regained cogniscence long enough to get parts of a message involving changing mists and monsters to Ant-Man. Nash then grew mindless once more and trapped Ant-Man in his pincers, forcing Ant-Man to grow into Giant-Man, breaking Nash's pincers and ultimately killing the ant to save Sandra Descher. Hank later took Nash's corpse back to his Project: B.I.G. lab in Nevada, where he ran a particle diagnosis comparison on the renegade giant ants using Nash as a basis. Attempting to contact Hank in the bio-scan lab, Dr. Bill Foster eventually managed to reach Hank and asked why Hank wasn't networking his research into Project: B.I.G.'s research computer so that Bill could evaluate Hank's findings. Hank replied that he was worried Bill would come to the same conclusion he had: that the particle structure of the renegade ants was missing the nutrients provided by B.I.G. Hank then shut off his communication link after mentioning that he had found traces of Pym Particles that matched his own, suspecting himself to be the cause of the ants' mutation. Bill opened the lab door to inform Hank that Project: B.I.G.'s detectors had flushed more readings in Santa Fe, New Mexico and upon hearing that the readings might not be ants, Hank had Bill charge the new Rover vehicle for travel to New Mexico. Finding four giant-sized insects in New Mexico, surrounded by the US military, Giant-Man watched as the military hit the insects with missiles, inadvertently causing them to grow larger. Announcing that he could handle the situation, Giant-Man allowed the military to retreat from the area before dive-bombing his Rover vehicle and emerging to physically fight off the insects.

(Avengers I#380/2) - While Giant-Man battled the insects, Bill Foster was back at Project: B.I.G.'s labs deciding to use the old Rover vehicle to assist Hank but he was blasted unconscious by the Kree Captain Atlas. Back in New Mexico, Giant-Man continued fighting the giant insects, where the giant tarantula fed on the giant grasshopper and Giant-Man used the giant scorpion's own stinger to kill it while the giant mantis caused pilot Nate Juran's death due to its wing vibrations. With Lt. Arnold's military plane also caught in the mantis' wing vibrations, Giant-Man, deducing that the giant insects were drawn to his Pym Particle use, grew past his optimal size, attracting the insects to him. Giant-Man then quickly shrank down then back up to daze the mantis before smashing the mantis into the tarantula, downing both. Knocked aside by the dying insects, Giant-Man weakly tried to contact Bill Foster at Project: B.I.G. for transport away from the scene. Hank's message was met by weak pleas for help from Bill Foster, who had escaped the Kree Captain Atlas and Dr. Minerva by uncontrollably shrinking when the two Kree exposed him to Pym Particles but had gotten caught in a black widow's web in the process. Bill's near-death experience in Project: B.I.G.'s garden was fortunately cut short when Ant-Man (Scott Lang) arrived to save him. The two then regrouped as Captain Atlas and Dr. Minerva continued their search for Bill, remarking how Hank Pym would never realize how close his Project: B.I.G. came to ruining their master plan. Ant-Man asked about Project: B.I.G. and Bill proved curious as to how Ant-Man had even heard of Project: B.I.G. but promised to explain it once they had fully escaped. When the burst of the Kree's interdimensional portal triggered pains in the Pym Particle-powered Ant-Man and Bill Foster, Ant-Man explained that he had been experiencing similar pains for awhile and the disjointed messages from his ants had told him to go to Project: B.I.G., the apparent source of the pains. Explaining that Atlas and Minerva had mentioned Project: B.I.G. destroying their master plan, Ant-Man again asked what B.I.G. was and Bill explained that the garden was Project: B.I.G. Ant-Man then pointed out that the Project: B.I.G. garden had been set ablaze by the Kree during their search for Bill. Concerned that the Kree even knew about Project: B.I.G., Bill informed Ant-Man that he knew of only one other person who knew of B.I.G.'s existence: Janet Van Dyne, the Wasp. Bill then led Ant-Man into the bioscan lab of Project: B.I.G., where they discovered that Nash's body had returned to its normal size but Nash soon began to grow again. Dr. Pym, on the other hand, awoke from a coma in a military hospital following his encounter with the giant insects as Col. Manning looked over Hank's file.

(Avengers I#381/2 (fb) - BTS) - Tigra, drawn by Pym Particle-related pain, made her way from Australia towards the Project: B.I.G. Compound.

(Avengers I#381/2) - Having been placed in a padded cell within the military hospital, Dr. Hank Pym announced to Col. Manning and his captors that he had to get out and return to his Project: B.I.G., as he was responsible for the enlarged insects. Col. Manning explained that he was aware of Pym's fault and offered to give Pym a military escort if Pym would tell them where Project: B.I.G. was but Pym insisted that he could not risk any further Pym Particle contamination. Hank then attempted to explain that everything that had been exposed to Project: B.I.G. had been mutated by the variant Pym Particles he had used but when Col. Manning mentioned that Pym himself had not been mutated, Pym had no explanation. Refusing to believe that he had so badly failed, Pym soon began to sense a pulse in the Pym Particle stream as Ant-Man began to feel woozy himself over at the B.I.G. Compound. The B.I.G. Compound soon received a phone call from Dr. Rossin, therapist for Janet Van Dyne, who reported that the variant Pym Particle-contaminated Janet had grown to giant size and was rampaging, seeking out Hank Pym. Unfortunately, Ant-Man's wooziness got worse due to his own contamination and he passed out on the floor, leaving the microscopic Bill Foster helpless on a microscope slide as the intruder alarm went off. Dr. Honda, the doctor working with Col. Manning ultimately deduced that the enlarged insect attacks were due to an accident beyond Hank Pym's control as Captain America stepped to have Pym released. Foster, on the other hand, witnessed the intruder into the B.I.G. Compound reveal herself as Tigra, who had been drawn by pain due to her past exposure to Pym Particles. After Tigra destroyed Project: B.I.G.'s giant ant farm, she fled, promising to hunt down and kill the one responsible for her pain, as Bill Foster screamed in pain himself. Released from the military hospital, Giant-Man and Captain America discussed Pym's theory that all exposed to the variant Pym Particle stream were contaminated but Captain America questioned the theory and patched Pym through to Tennessee, where Hawkeye had uncontrollably grown to sixty feet tall, causing his muscles to deteriorate to the point of paralysis. Confused, Giant-Man began to suspect that Col. Manning had been right about the giant insects being related to Giant-Man somehow but Captain America suggested Giant-Man focus on the situation of the giant-sized, rampaging Janet Van Dyne, who announced that Giant-Man didn't have much time before "they" arrived. At first unsure who "they" were, Giant-Man began to suspect and asked Captain America the date. When Cap informed him it was June 26th, Giant-Man realized that it had been seven years since his battle with the creature from Kosmos. Jumping from the Avengers jet, Giant-Man grew to twenty feet tall and tried to assure Janet that things would be alright but when Janet turned away and ran for power lines, Giant-Man forced himself to grow even larger. When he grappled Janet, she turned, knocking Hank into the power lines instead, causing a power backlash that combined with his increasing Pym Particles amounts to release creatures from Kosmos onto Earth via portals linked to beings or objects exposed to Pym Particles.

(Avengers I#382/2 (fb) - BTS) - One Kosmosian emerged from portal within the Project: B.I.G. Compound due to Ant-Man and Bill Foster being present there and busted through the facility, escaping outside.

(Avengers I#382/2) - As the Kosmosians rampaged, Giant-Man brought Janet Van Dyne to the Project: B.I.G. labs and recorded a supplemental report for Project: B.I.G. involving his realization that the Kosmosians were using anyone and anything exposed to Pym Particles to energize doorways to Earth. In the report, Giant-Man recounted how he had thought the Pym Particles problems were caused by exposure to Project: B.I.G.'s variant Pym Particle stream before realizing the truth when learned about Hawkeye, who had never visited Project: B.I.G. As Giant-Man frantically tried to find the connection between the Kosmosians and the Kree Captain Atlas and Dr. Minerva, who had exposed Bill Foster to the Pym Particles that were causing to shrink smaller as time passed. While continuing his report, Giant-Man deduced that Bill Foster had shrunk 60% since Ant-Man had been analyzing him and noted that Ant-Man was comatose following his own Pym Particle-related pain. Knowing that he had to analyze the Kosmosians to pin down the cause of the Pym Particle-related pain and possibly find a cure, Giant-Man ended his B.I.G. report and geared up to take on the Kosmosians. Giant-Man then set off to battle the Kosmosians while the Avengers downloaded Giant-Man's data from the Project: B.I.G. Compound, hoping that the data wasn't damaged when the Kosmosian that emerged there busted through the Compound. While Hank reached his target Kosmosian in Las Vegas, Captain America and Crystal discussed Hank's judgment in the whole situation until Hank interrupted, checking on the status of Black Widow's download of the Project: B.I.G. data and announcing his entrance into battle against the Kosmosian. During the battle, Giant-Man proved immune to the Kosmosians' fear-mist due to the previous exposure of his ants to the fear-mist but announced his deduction that the fear-mists had been driving the giant insects and Pym Particle-exposed beings into fear-based rampages. The Kosmosian then announced Giant-Man's deduction of their plan to the other Kosmosians and when he attempted to flee through a Pym Particle-created portal, Giant-Man followed as Black Widow contacted Captain America to confirm that the Project: B.I.G. data had been saved. Relaying the data, Black Widow confirm that each Pym Particle-exposed being had also been exposed to a variant Pym Particle stream but not the one used within Project: B.I.G.'s gardens or Giant-Man's original and inherent Pym Particles. Black Widow then cross-referenced the Pym Particle variant stream and confirmed Giant-Man's data hypothesis that the variant Pym Particles had originated within the only Pym Particle-exposed person that they had not checked out: Erik Josten, the criminal Goliath. Within the Kosmosian dimension, Giant-Man found a gigantic Goliath, who revealed that the Kosmosians had tricked him into enlarging enough for them to use his Pym Particle stream to interact with their mist and anyone who had ever been exposed to the Kosmosian dimension by drawing on its mass with Pym Particles to change sizes. By drawing on those exposed to the Kosmosian dimensions, the Kosmosians had been able to open portals to Earth and Goliath had become a Pym Particle slave to the Kosmosians which Giant-Man opted to save by blasting the Kosmosians with his Particle Blaster. Blasting the Kosmosians within their own dimension drew the mass of the Earth-based Kosmosians back to the own dimension via Pym Particle-created rifts and shortly after, on June 28th, Giant-Man recorded Project: B.I.G. report#170 in which Hank reported that all those infected by the Kosmosian fear-mist via their Pym Particle were now unable to grow larger than their typical mass. The Project: B.I.G. report also explained how the Pym Particle-exposed beings reacted differently to the combination fear-mist/Erik Josten variant Pym Particles, as corroborated by Scarlet Witch and Tigra's already-mutated DNA and how the combination affected them differently than other beings. The report also documented a conversation between Giant-Man and Wasp in which Giant-Man revealed that the Pym Particle strain he used in his Particle Blaster to hit the Kosmosians was taken from his own Particle matrix, which was immune to the Kosmosians' fear-mist effects, but using his own matrix meant that he could no longer shrink. As Giant-Man and Wasp then boarded a Quinjet to leave, Giant-Man ended his Project: B.I.G. report.

Comments: Created by George Perez, Jeffrey Moore and Tim Dzon.

Project: Big only appeared in copies of Avengers I#379-382 that were sold as a "Marvel Double Feature" with "Giant-Man#1-4" stories in them. Avengers I#379-382 were sold in regular editions with only the main stories of #379-382 in them and also the "Marvel Double Feature" edition that contained the Giant-Man backup stories.

George Perez, like most comic book personalities of his generation, grew up with the classic science fiction films of the Fifties and wrote the story as a homage to them, specifically the "giant bug" movies of the decade. This is evident by the Army personnel who are all named after directors of these movies: Gordon Douglas (director of Them!, the giant ant movie that was the first and best of the cycle), Jack Arnold (director of Tarantula as well three of the decade's best science fiction films, one of which, The Incredible Shrinking Man, was a likely inspiration for Henry Pym) Nathan Juran (director of The Deadly Mantis, as well as Attack of the Fifty Foot Woman, paid homage to when Jan grows to giant size) and Edward Ludwig (director of The Black Scorpion). Project B.I.G itself is named after one of the most prolific such directors of the decade, Bert I. Gordon (note the initials). While his movies aren't highly regarded by most fans of Fifties science fiction, The Amazing Colossal Man is often cited for its (coincidental?) similarities to the Hulk's origin (and the real name of the titular character? Colonel Glenn Manning!). If you're interested in knowing more, I highly recommend KEEP WATCHING THE SKIES by the late Bill Warren.
--Andrew Kidd

Profile by Proto-Man.

CLARIFICATIONS:
Project: B.I.G. has no known connections to:

The B.I.G. Compound has no known connections to:
Nash the Twelfth has no known connections to:
B.I.G. Compound

The Project: B.I.G. Compound was built underneath Death Valley, Nevada and housed Project: B.I.G.'s bio-scan lab as well as the giant ant hill that extended miles below the surface of Project: B.I.G.'s giant garden. When the alien Kosmosians used the variant Pym Particle stream of Goliath (Erik Josten) to project their fear-mists into the enlarged insects within the B.I.G. Compound, the mists in combination with the insects' own Pym Particle stream, caused the insects to rampage and escape, prompting Giant-Man to seek out the renegade insects. After battling renegade giant ants, Giant-Man took the corpse of his ant friend Nash the Twelfth to the B.I.G. Compound's bio-scan lab but he was later interrupted when more insects were spotted. Taking off from the B.I.G. Compound's hangar bay, Giant-Man battled the enlarged insects while Bill Foster provided support from the B.I.G. Compound. Bill was later attacked in the B.I.G. Compound by Kree agents who forcibly exposed Bill to Josten's variant Pym Particle stream, shrinking him and inadvertently allowing his escape and later rescue by Ant-Man (Scott Lang), who had been led to the B.I.G. Compound by his ants. The two heroes then made their way from the B.I.G. Compound's gardens to a lab, where Ant-Man analyzed the shrunken Bill Foster until he passed out from the Kosmosians' variant Pym Particle stream/fear-mist combination. As Bill Foster began to succumb as well, the B.I.G. Compound's intruder alarm went off, announcing the arrival of Tigra who had also been infected with the variant Pym Particle/fear-mist combination and was seeking to kill Hank Pym. When Giant-Man was shocked by electrical wires while battling a variant Pym Particle/fear-mist affected Wasp, portals opened at the location of Pym Particle-exposed beings and one portal opened within the B.I.G. Compound, from where a Kosmosian emerged and destroyed a large chunk of the B.I.G. Compound while escaping into Death Valley. Giant-Man then returned to the remnants of the B.I.G. Compound, where the unconscious Wasp, Bill Foster and Ant-Man were being taken care of. After analyzing the heroes, Giant-Man allowed the Avengers Captain America and Crystal to watch over the heroes as he confronted the Kosmosians personally. Cap and Crystal remained in the medical bay of the B.I.G. Compound while Black Widow downloaded Project: B.I.G.'s data to the Avengers. While the Avengers monitored Giant-Man's progress from the B.I.G. Compound, Giant-Man defeated the Kosmosians and emerged with the captive Goliath as the unconscious heroes were returned to normal.

The B.I.G. Compound was equipped with a gigantic ant hill and garden, as well as sophisticated labs and medical bay.


--Avengers I#379/2 (#380/2, #381/2, #382/2,
Nash the Twelfth

Nash the Twelfth was the descendant of Hank Pym's ant friend, Nash, and was chosen to be enlarged to giant-size as part of Project: B.I.G.'s giant-sized garden alongside other insects. Unfortunately, the Pym Particles used to enlarge Nash caused him great pain and he was secretly affected by the Kosmosians' (who accessed Earth via those same Pym Particles) fear-mist, which drove Nash and the other insects to escape Project: B.I.G. Rampaging through the Arizona desert alongside other giant ants, Nash was confronted by Giant-Man but Nash's pain prevented him from properly communicating his plight through Giant-Man's helmet. Briefly regaining his mental faculties, Nash attempted to explain the situation but was only able to get out a partial messages before the pain grew too bad and he attacked Giant-Man. Forced to grow to giant size to save his own life from the rampaging Nash, Giant-Man broke Nash's pincers and ultimately had to kill him. Giant-Man then took Nash's corpse to Project: B.I.G. to analyze, finding none of Project: B.I.G.'s nutrients but instead, Pym Particles similar to his own. The shrunken Bill Foster and Ant-Man (Scott Lang) later visited Project: B.I.G.'s bio-scan lab, where they found that Nash's corpse had shrunk to its original size, only to watch it grow once more. Giant-Man later realized that he was immune to the Kosmosians' fear-mist due to previous research he had done when Nash's ancestor was exposed to the fear-mist during an earlier battle with the Kosmosians.

Nash was essentially a normal ant but had been enlarged to gigantic size. As such, he was proportionately strong and durable. He also grew in size in proportion to the force used against him. For example, when hit by military planes' missiles, he was unharmed but grew larger based on the force.



--Avengers I#379/2d (#380/2 (corpse), #381/2-382/2 - BTS, 

images: (without ads)
Avengers I#379, p38, pan1 (Bill Foster & Giant-Man within Project: B.I.G.'s hangar, main image)
Avengers I#380, p40, pan1 (Project: B.I.G.'s gardens)
Avengers I#379, p36, pan5 (Giant-Man in Project: B.I.G.'s bio-scan lab, analyzing Nash the Twelfth's corpse)
Avengers I#381, p32, pan2 (Project: B.I.G.'s giant ant hill)
Avengers I#381, p28, pan5 (The B.I.G. Compound supplemental image, the compound's interiors)
Avengers I#379, p27, pan5 (Nash the Twelfth)

Appearances:
Avengers I#379 (October, 1994) - "It's Them Again!" story - George Perez (writer), Jeffrey Moore (pencils), Tim Dzon (inks), Richard Ashford (editor)
Avengers I#380 (November, 1994) - "The Incredible Shrinking Giant-Man" story - George Perez (writer), Jeffrey Moore (pencils), Tim Dzon (inks), Richard Ashford (editor)
Avengers I#381 (December, 1994) - "Attack of the 50 ft. Jan" story - George Perez (writer), Jeffrey Moore (pencils), Timothy Dzon (inks), Richard Ashford (editor)
Avengers I#382 (January, 1995) - "Hank the Giant Killer" story - George Perez (writer), Jeffrey Moore (pencils), Timothy Dzon (inks), Richard Ashford (editor)

First Posted: 01/17/2018
Last updated: 12/18/2018

Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.

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