Dear Mr. Silver Age,
I hear the Lizard might be featured in the Spider-Man reboot movie! Is he going to be a villain or a partner for Spidey?
Waylon J.
Gotham City Sewers
Mr. Silver Age says: It really could go either way, Waylon, and that’s true even if we don’t separate him into his split personalities of Dr. Connors and Mr. Lizard. Even in his reptilian-like form, The Lizard sometimes could be a pretty darned big help to an arachnid-like man blinded by science.
Much as was the case with a number of other early Marvel villains — Doctor Doom and Doctor Octopus come readily to mind — The Lizard was, in fact, a scientist who was working on an experiment that went all kinds of wrong.
Upon meeting a fully dressed, talking lizard-man in Amazing Spider-Man #6, the locals tried to kill him. That didn’t much please him.
We came face-to-face with The Lizard for the first time in “Face-to-Face with The Lizard!” in Amazing Spider-Man #6 (Nov 63), when visitors to The Everglades were attacked by a giant lizard wearing human clothes and a lab coat. In the early days of The Marvel Universe, that was all it took to get attention.
Bullets bounced off his scaly hide, as he uprooted trees to throw at the intruders in “his” swamp. Spidey became involved in this far-off escapade after Daily Bugle Publisher J. Jonah Jameson began running stories about the creature and challenged The Amazing Arachnid (in a front-page banner headline, of course) to bring him to justice. Needless to say, the chances of Peter Parker meeting up with a Floridian Lizard-Man, much less bringing him to justice, were pretty slim. So it seemed like a win-win to Jameson.
But, intrigued by the chance to see if this Lizard was the real reptilian deal and to make money selling photos to Jameson, Pete tried to convince his publisher to send him south to snap some shots. But Jameson declined, figuring that Spidey wouldn’t take the bait and that The Lizard was a hoax, anyway.
So Peter took another tack: He changed to Spidey and paid a call on JJJ. While he had Jonah webbed to the ceiling, The Web-Slinger told Jameson he was going to Florida to catch The Lizard, so he’d better send a photographer to get the proof. Soon, Pete (with Jameson in tow) was flying to Florida, smug in the knowledge that the publisher was actually paying for Spidey to get there, too.
Their first lizard-spider encounter did not go well for Spidey, as was traditional. The Lizard was too fast and too agile with his wide-sweeping tail. He flung Spider-Man into a tree and escaped, so our hero used that chance to go visit the local reptile expert he was hoping to involve in his plans: Dr. Curt Connors. Upon arrival, he learned from the doc’s wife, Martha, that Connors was also The Lizard! What were the chances?
Herpetologist Connors had lost his arm during “the war,” and he’d been working on ways to regrow it, as he knew some types of lizards could do. He concocted a serum and decided to (you got it) try it on himself. And it grew back his missing arm! Huzzah! Now for the bad news: Ah, you’ve probably already guessed. Yep, it turned him into a lizard-man, too. Bummer.
Spidey’s confab with the Connors clan was interrupted by The Lizard’s arrival in the back yard, where son Billy was playing. Spidey ran off the raging reptile and then used the doc’s notes and equipment to concoct an antidote. “Good thing I’m a science major in high school!” Peter thought to himself, making kids across the country pay more attention the next day in biology. Because who knew when their own teacher might turn green and scaly and need expert help?
Spidey chased Lizzy to the ruins of one of the many abandoned Spanish forts left ignored in The Everglades. You bet. Five pages of slipping, sliding, and slugging later, The Amazing Arachnid finally managed to sling his serum at The Lizard. Sure enough, high-school biology paid off big-time.
Spidey used his high-school science expertise to concoct a formula he forced The Lizard to drink during their battle in Amazing Spider-Man #6.
Sadly, JJJ wouldn’t pay off for the pix Peter proffered upon returning to their hotel, claiming they were a hoax. Since Spidey never produced a defeated Lizard, there was nothing Pete could do to prove his case.
Dr. Connors kept his green side under control for quite a while, but finally, in Amazing Spider-Man #44, The Lizard lived again.
The doc kept his lizard-like tendencies under control for an impressive three years. But his reserve apparently weakened when Spidey paid him a visit in his New York offices, when The Amazing Arachnid faced a “Rhino on the Rampage!” in ASM #43 (Dec 66). Doc Connors helped our favorite science student concoct a potion to dissolve The Rhino’s hard, sharp shell so he could be captured.
Their potion worked, but ingredients the doc had used triggered the lizard reaction in his body again. Oh, darn. In the next issue, we learned the answer to the question “Where Crawls the Lizard!” (if that, indeed, was a question). That answer was, “New York City right around where Spidey lives.”
Loose in the Big Apple, The Lizard robbed a jewelry showroom and used his powers to make it appear that Spider-Man was responsible. As if Spidey was the only person who could rip a safe open in Marvel’s New York. Hearing that Doc Connors had gone missing, Spidey guessed what was happening and went searching for him. He found him on a rooftop and mayhem ensued. In the melee, Spidey sprained his left arm, leaving him hobbled.
It also left him unable to explain why both Spidey — who was publicly seen being bandaged — and Peter Parker had hurt their left arms. So Pete was exiled to his house, where he bemoaned his fate (and his usual lack of funds, of course). Things got better in the next issue, #45 (Feb 67), when “Spidey Smashes Out!” and went after The Lizard to beat him with one hand tied behind his back — literally.
The Wall-Crawler had to battle The Lizard with one hand, due to an earlier injury, in Amazing Spider-Man #45, producing a memorable slugfest.
That led into nine all-out action pages of Spidey-Lizzy mayhem, which was pretty cool. We seldom saw a super-hero fight while injured and bandaged up, and this gave us plenty of time to see what would happen.
It finally ended when The Amazing Arachnid tricked his reptilian foe into fighting in a refrigerated train car. That slowed down The Lizard so The Astounding Arthropod could overcome him. Let’s not think about how the Doc’s potion apparently turned his warm-blooded human body into a cold-blooded humanoid-like reptile body so this could work.
Rather than turn him over to the police, Spidey wrapped him up and fed him the potion. Revived, Doc returned to his family, and they all lived happily ever after.
Just joshing, of course. But he did manage to keep things nice and cold for a couple years, at least until “The Web Closes!” in Amazing Spider-Man #73 (Jun 69). And it wasn’t even his fault, again, because he got mixed up in the epic Tablet Tale, one of Spider-Man’s most fun Silver Age adventures.
The Maggia’s Silvermane thought all his troubles were over when he kidnapped Dr. Connors to translate his mysterious tablet in Amazing Spider-Man #74. He was wrong.
It revolved around an ancient tablet that Maggia chieftain Silvermane believed could give him immortality. After a long, strange trip to obtain the tablet, Silvermane kidnapped Connors (and his family) to force him to translate the tablet to unlock its secrets. These events really upset Curt, and you don’t want to upset the doc, because you won’t like him when he’s upset. He told them that, albeit obliquely, but The Maggia doesn’t scare that easily.
In #74, Spider-Man eased closer to finding the kidnapped doc and foiling Silvermane’s plan but wasn’t fast enough. By issue’s end, Connors had done his job and the Maggia boss had reaped the benefits, becoming youthful again. In #75, The Amazing Arachnid had to take on a rejuvenated Silvermane (who looked remarkably like an angry Reed Richards) and, oh, yes, The Lizard, whom Connors could no longer control. Yowza!
Corralling the Lizard became tougher, not easier, once The Human Torch took an interest in the battle in Amazing Spider-Man #76.
By issue’s end, Silvermane was gone (organized crime never prospers), leaving only The Lizard to deal with. Spidey had avoided him to this point because Connors had retained some semblance of control over his reptilian side. But he couldn’t hold it off forever, leading Spidey to chase him over the rooftops of New York for some all-out Marvel mayhem. And, just in case that weren’t enough, at issue’s end The Human Torch showed up to help out, not realizing the full dynamic going down. Yowza again!
So in #77 (Oct 69), The Amazing Arachnid had to battle The Lizard while keeping The Torch from hurting the victim of metamorphosis. The Web-Slinger could have explained what was going on (“A good man has been turned into an evil reptile, so we can’t hurt him!”), but that would not have taken us where we needed to go (rational explanations never do in the Marvel Universe). Instead, Spidey told The Torch that this was a “private fight,” as if that was gonna stop Johnny Storm from whaling away at an evil-reptile guy.
Much more mayhem ensued until Spider-Man bluffed The Torch into thinking his teammates were in trouble, and he took off. Pete then dealt with The Lizard all by himself with the help of a 55-gallon drum of dehydrating powder. It not only weakened The Lizard but, wouldn’t you know it, it changed him back to the doc. What were the chances? That left Spidey with a grateful family and the nagging feeling that he’d be seeing The Torch real soon, once that incendiary individual realized he’d been tricked.
The doc kept things admirably under control until Spider-Man took an ill-advised potion he’d concocted in Amazing Spider-Man #100 (Sep 71). Peter arrived at the conclusion that he couldn’t marry Gwen Stacy while he was still Spider-Man or the strain of marrying the man she blamed for killing her father would be too much. He also worried that having radioactive blood might someday kill him. So he concocted a potion to make himself normal again and drank it down.
After a long, strange trip though visions of his foes (it was his 100th “anniversary” issue, after all), he discovered his science classes had let him down this time. Rather than make him normal, it gave him four extra arms, turning him into an eight-legged creature.
Frantic, Peter called his old bud Doc Connors in the Everglades, who offered his summer home in the Hamptons, which was stocked with a fully equipped basement lab. Just what every summer home needs. Sadly, upon arrival, Spidey ran into Morbius, who happened to have been shipwrecked nearby (long story). Cue the merry Marvel mayhem.
The Lizard came to the six-armed Spidey’s aid when he faced Morbius in Amazing Spider-Man #101, but it took a double-sized issue the following month to resolve everything.
Things did not improve when Connors, thinking he could help Spidey, arrived on the scene. Seeing some strange creature attacking Spidey, the doc became upset. And Morbius had not really wanted to upset ol’ Doc Connors. By issue’s end, Morbius was facing off against The Lizard, with Spidey stuck in between! You know we’d be back next issue, even if that issue did suddenly cost us a quarter!
It took all 35 pulse-pounding pages to get things squared away. One of the problems was that Morbius had bitten The Lizard during their brouhaha, weakening our reptilian friend so he reverted to a scaly version of the doc. He ultimately reverted to his lizard form but retained Connors’ mind (at least on and off), so he could aid Peter in tracking down Morbius. They realized that Morby’s blood contained an enzyme that might cure the doc — and Spidey, too.
Spider-Man gained The Lizard’s help in Amazing Spider-Man #102, when they realized that Morbius’s blood might have a cure for them both.
After a long origin sequence for our near-vampire, the Spidey-Lizard team caught up with Morby. Long story short, they secured some of Morbius’ blood before he was washed out to sea, possibly dead (yeah, right). The blood did cure the doc (at least temporarily), and Connors then used it to eliminate Spidey’s extra limbs. Not a bad story for The Amazing Arachnid’s one oversized issue in that helter-skelter time.
Once again, the rampaging reptile kept things buttoned up for some time, although a new Mysterio used a hallucination of him to bedevil The Amazing Arachnid for two issues starting in Amazing Spider-Man #141 (Feb 75). He finally returned for real in Amazing Spider-Man #165 (Feb 77), teaming up with Stegron. That didn’t go as planned.
He didn’t show up again (except for a quick cameo during Spidey’s review of his career in Amazing Spider-Man #181 (Jun 78)) until Secret Wars, where he avoided the conflict (smart dude) and returned to Earth with Spidey in Amazing Spider-Man #252 (May 84).
The Lizard made only a couple post-Silver Age appearance before taking part in the Secret Wars and returning with Spidey in Amazing Spider-Man #252.
Spidey returned from that cosmic dustup with a black costume, while the doc returned with the ability to remain in control during his lizard change. He once again fought alongside The Web-Slinger in Spectacular Spider-Man #127 (Jun 87) to save his family from The Owl. But it didn’t last long (just like the black costume), and he soon reverted to his lizard-like ways.
For a big-brained consultant to our neighborhood wall-crawler, Doc Connors showed up surprisingly few times in Spidey’s early career. But that’s kind of understandable, when any disturbance or mishap — which The Astounding Arthropod was well known for bringing in his wake — might be enough to awaken the Lizard inside.
Known to fans worldwide as “Mr. Silver Age,” Craig Shutt has waxed nostalgic about comics of old in CBG since 1992. Send comments and suggestions to craigshutt@ameritech.net
“Ask Mr. Silver Age” is © 2012 Craig Shutt
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