Lizard (character)
The Lizard is a character appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, he first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #6 as an enemy of the superhero Spider-Man. While the character has retained this role throughout most of his subsequent appearances, he has also been portrayed as a tragic antihero and occasional ally of Spider-Man. Connors is sometimes an ally of Spider-Man just as himself, and not necessarily as his alter ego.
In the original Earth-616 version of the story, Curt Connors was a geneticist researching the ability of certain reptiles to regrow missing limbs. He developed a lizard DNA-based serum that would allow humans to do the same, and tested it on himself, hoping to regain his missing right arm; instead, he transformed into a feral anthropomorphic lizard. Although Spider-Man was able to undo the transformation, the Lizard remained a part of Connors's subconscious and would resurface time and time again, often retaining Connors's intelligence and attempting to replace humankind with a race of reptilian creatures like himself. Many stories featuring the Lizard deal with the effects he has on Connors's life and psyche since the latter lives in constant fear that the Lizard will one day completely and irreversibly take over his body. Because of this, he works tirelessly to find a permanent cure for his alternate personality, much to the worry of his wife, Martha Connors, and son, Billy, but also standing in contrast to other Spider-Man foes who take pride in their powers and use them irresponsibly.
The character has appeared in numerous Spider-Man adaptations, including films, animated series, and video games. In live-action, Curt Connors was portrayed by Dylan Baker in Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3, while Connors / Lizard is portrayed by Rhys Ifans in The Amazing Spider-Man and the Marvel Cinematic Universe film Spider-Man: No Way Home. In 2009, the Lizard was ranked IGNs 62nd Greatest Comic Villain of All Time.
Publication history
The Lizard first appeared in The Amazing Spider-Man #6, and was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.Fictional character biography
Origin
Curtis "Curt" Connors was born in Coral Gables, Florida. He was a gifted surgeon who enlisted in the U.S. Army. He performed emergency battlefield surgery on wounded GIs. However, his right arm was injured in a wartime blast, resulting in its amputation.After his return to civilian life as a research technologist, Connors became obsessed with uncovering the secrets of reptilian limb regeneration. Working from his home in the Florida Everglades with the help of war buddy Ted Sallis, he finally developed an experimental serum taken from reptilian DNA. The serum successfully regrew the missing limb of a rabbit, so then Connors chose to test the serum on himself. He ingested the formula and he did indeed grow a new arm.
However, the formula had an unfortunate side effect: Connors was subsequently transformed into a reptilian humanoid monster. Spider-Man discovered this situation during a trip to Florida to investigate newspaper reports of the Lizard after his employer the Daily Bugle challenged him. After discovering the Lizard's true identity and origin, Spider-Man used Connors's notes to create an antidote to restore him to his human form and mentality. Another attempt to develop this serum for safe use again resulted in Connors transforming into the Lizard, but on this occasion, he was saved thanks to his former colleague Professor X and his first team of X-Men, Beast and Angel tracking the Lizard down in the swamps so that the Iceman could send him into hibernation long enough to develop a cure.
Life in New York
Later, Curt Connors relocated to New York City attending Empire State University. He was able to repay Spider-Man by developing a formula to save May Parker's life after Peter Parker had given his aunt his radioactive blood during a transfusion, unintentionally putting her in mortal peril. It later became clear that the success of Connors's apparent cure from the Lizard persona was short-lived. A repeating pattern soon occurred, with stress or a chemical reaction turning Connors into the Lizard, Spider-Man fighting him, and then forcing him to swallow the antidote to reverse the transformation until the next time. A second personality had formed with the Lizard, one with the familiar goal shared by many villains of taking over the world. The Lizard envisioned a world where all humans had been transformed into super-reptiles like himself. Despite the Lizard's overall hatred of humans, he was often shown to be unwilling to harm his wife Martha or young son Billy.As Connors, he aided Spider-Man in defeating the Rhino by developing a formula to dissolve the Rhino's bulletproof hide, but accidentally transformed himself into the Lizard due to exposure to the chemicals needed to create the formula and was restored by Spider-Man. Connors was later abducted and forced to create a rejuvenation serum for Silvermane. However, the stress from this caused Connors to again transform; the Lizard then battled Spider-Man and the Human Torch, and was restored to normal once again by Spider-Man.
During another encounter with Spider-Man after Peter's attempts to remove his powers resulted in him growing four extra arms, a bite from Morbius endowed the Lizard with Connors's personality via the infection of a strange enzyme. Connors then synthesized an antidote for himself and Spider-Man using the Morbius enzyme. Curt Connors later aided Spider-Man, Ka-Zar, and Black Panther against Stegron. After the apparent death of the Jackal, Connors determined that Spider-Man was not a clone. Later, the Lizard battled both Stegron and Spider-Man after Stegron kidnapped Billy Connors. For a time, Peter Parker worked as a teaching assistant to Connors at Empire State University, although Connors had no idea that Peter was Spider-Man. During this time, Spider-Man and Connors dealt with one of Connors's previous experiments in the form of the Iguana.
During the first of the Secret Wars, the Lizard had reverted to his more primitive state and refused to participate on either side of the conflict. Although he was collected by the Beyonder along with other villains, he broke away from the main group after the first battle to settle in a swamp, where he befriended the Wasp, who had helped him treat an injury that he had sustained in the first battle. After the Lizard was blasted by the magic of the Enchantress, he reverted to human form.
After Connors's return from this event, his wife Martha, unable to take it anymore since Connors had said that he had been permanently cured, only to disappear for many days and then return home in tattered clothing with no plausible explanation as to where he had been, took their son Billy and separated from Curt. The Lizard had been affected by inter-dimensional teleportation so that Connors's mind presided over the Lizard, and he battled the Owl alongside Spider-Man. However, mystical activity during Inferno once again brought the Lizard's bestial nature to the fore, and Spider-Man cured him again.
The 1990s through 2007: ''Civil War''
Connors then tried to straighten out his life and control the Lizard, with some degree of success. This ended when the villainess Calypso used her voodoo magic to take control of the Lizard for her purposes, reducing him to a mindless, savage state. After a series of bloody battles, the Lizard and Calypso were defeated by Spider-Man, and Spider-Man assumed that he perished under Calypso's spell. Connors once again gained control of the Lizard's mind and body, although it was very weak. Curt carried out a plan to cure himself temporarily, after which he voluntarily submitted to incarceration in the supervillain prison the Vault. When Calypso forces the transformation and attempted to control the Lizard once again, the creature killed her and escaped from the Vault. After this escape, the Lizard falls into a quicksand pit during a battle in the Everglades with Spider-Man and the bounty hunter Warrant and was believed to have died.Later, a huge bestial Lizard appeared, shortly after Connors was called in to investigate Peter Parker's sudden sickness. Spider-Man realized that not only had the Lizard survived, but revealed later his new monstrous transformation seemed to be permanent and the personality of Curt Connors appeared completely lost. However, when this savage mindless Lizard later unexpectedly encountered Dr. Connors himself while Connors was helping Peter, Curt became the true Lizard once again and saved his family by killing the "Lizard-clone." It was revealed that the Lizard clone was a scientific accident resulting from an experimental formula being tested on a piece of the original Lizard's tail, which had then grown into a fully formed second creature.
Although reunited after Curt's apparent death, Martha and Billy were diagnosed with cancer after being exposed to carcinogens from living near an industrial lab in Florida. Spider-Man assisted Curt in successfully forcing Monnano, the lab's owner, to admit culpability, but Martha died from her cancer. Billy recovered but remained bitter towards his father. Curt's guilt and internalized anger led him to become the Lizard once again, and once human, Curt attempted a bank robbery so that he would be sent to prison. After a short-lived term, Connors was released and changed into the Lizard once more, this time due to a scheme by Norman Osborn to form the Sinister Twelve to kill Spider-Man. The Sinister Twelve were defeated and captured by the combined forces of Daredevil, the Fantastic Four, and the Avengers.
The Lizard resurfaced to face Spider-Man with the aid of Billy Connors, who was changed into an adolescent Lizard by his father. Both the Lizard and his son were captured and reverted. A new Sinister Six team, including new member the Lizard, appeared during the superhero Civil War, but it was stopped by Captain America and his Secret Avengers.
Post-Civil War, Curt Connors aided Spider-Man in developing a cure for the victims of Mister Hyde who were mutated with unstable versions of Spider-Man's powers. Dr. Connors has also monitored the progress of the hero Komodo, a female grad student who stole a sample of Connors's Lizard formula. She modified the formula for her own DNA to grow back her missing legs and to give herself reptilian powers.