THE LIZARD

MARVEL LEGENDS (HASBRO)

“Desperate to be whole again, geneticist Curt Connors injects himself with a regenerative serum derived from reptile DNA, only to find himself transformed into the monstrous Lizard!”

Since Spider-Man was a animal-themed character who got his powers through a science experiment gone awry, it made for a nice narrative parallel that most of his early antagonists were, likewise, animal-themed and gained their powers through science experiments gone awry.  Four of his first six villains were animal themed, including The Lizard, who first appeared in Amazing Spider-Man #6, published in 1963, almost a whole 60 years ago.  That’s a good run for a guy with a name as indistinct as “The Lizard.”

THE FIGURE ITSELF

The Lizard is a Walmart-exclusive Marvel Legends release, which hit in the fall of 2022.  He’s sort of an odd release, honestly.  He’s a retro-carded figure, but those have generally been wider release, except for a few Spidey variants.  Also, he was released alongside a cel-shaded Spider-Man from the cartoon, but he himself has no such shading, nor is he at all cartoon-inspired.  Thematically, he seems like he would make more sense as part of the “60 Amazing Years” sub-line, and not retro-carded at all, and he’s also a weird choice for an exclusive…but, who knows exactly what’s going on there?  I certainly won’t pretend to have that knowledge.  The figure is about 6 1/2 inches tall and he has 32 points of articulation.  Compared to the last figure, he’s definitely got more of a range to his articulation.  He’s not stuck in any sort of permanent hunch (which is good, because he didn’t really have that much of one in the early days), and he gets a better selection of deeper poses.  His tail is no longer segmented like the last one, instead being soft plastic with a wire running through it.  While I’m always iffy on that sort of set-up, it’s a better look than the segmented, especially if you don’t have the budget to do more than three segments.  At least this way, the tail doesn’t have any hard angles.  This guy also gets the pinless construction for his elbows and knees, as well as using the newer torso set-up we’ve seen on some of the Spideys.  And, since he’s no longer a Build-A-Figure, he doesn’t fall apart during posing, which is a definite plus.  Lizard’s sculpt is an all-new one (courtesy of sculptor Rene Aldrete), and I’m quite a fan.  Over the course of his 60 year career, The Lizard has been on something of a sliding scale of humanoid vs monstrous.  The last Legends release was more on the monstrous side, while this one goes back to his earliest days, when he was far more humanoid. He’s not *quite* a Steve Ditko Lizard, instead arriving more at something resembling John Romita, Sr.’s slightly more refined depiction from around issue 44-45 of the original book.  It’s a version of the character we don’t see often in toy form, but it’s made the jump quite nicely here.  The main head is definitely that earlier version of the character, with his goofy facial expression and all.  You know, the best version of the Lizard.  If you’re not a huge fan of that, though, there’s a slightly later run version to swap out, which has the more distinctive serpent-style face, as well as the ever present tongue.  The body sculpt showcases his far less beastial build in the earlier days, being closer to an average build, and without the insane amounts of tattering to the clothes.  This one keeps it pretty low key on the tearing, with just a little on the edges of the sleeves and the legs of the pants.  It works well, and means that there’s a good chance some of these parts might see a bit of re-use.  The color work on this guy is generally pretty basic.  The best of it’s definitely on the lizard skin, which gets a wash to help bring out all of the scaly detailing.  The rest of it’s just base coloring, and the application is all generally pretty cleanly handled.  The Lizard includes the previously mentioned alternate head, two sets of hands (open gesture, and a fist/grip combo), and a pair of beakers.  The beakers are the same molds included with the Retro card Beast figure, but now in different colors.

THE ME HALF OF THE EQUATION

I’ve reached the point where I don’t hunt down Walmart exclusives because I just don’t need that kind of stress in my life.  So, when this guy was announced, I wrote him off as something I wasn’t going to get and decided I’d be content with my Build-A-Figure.  But, my decision to not hunt keeps paying off, because we got a loose one traded in at All Time, and boom, that means I got one.  I’m glad I did, because he’s exactly what I wanted out of a Lizard figure.  The monstrous ones never quite spoke to me, and this one just hits right where he needs to.