Lizard

Mysterio isn't the only classic Spidey foe to get a new toy in Series 6 - there's also the Lizard! Although the reptilian menace known as the Lizard has long been one of Spider-Man's deadliest foes, the heroic webslinger has never been able to use his full powers against him - for the Lizard is, in actuality, the brilliant scientist Curt Conners, one of Spider-Man's most trusted allies. On those nightmarish occasions when Conners finds himself transformed into the lethal Lizard, Spider-Man must not only survive the Lizard's relentless assaults, but find a way to trick the Lizard into swallowing the antidote that returns him to normal without harming him. And each time they battle, the Lizard becomes more cunning, more merciless, and more difficult to defeat! Lizard is built from seven pieces - every figure in the series comes with one, so no one is being left out. (That also makes it weird that Gwenpool is packed two per case: it means no matter what, there will forever be twice as many tails as every other piece.) Buy the entire series, and you can plug all the parts together to assemble your own giant reptile. And due to the way it's assembled, you could even take some of the pieces aparat again, if you wanted. But why would you want that? When the Lizard was created by Steve Ditko, he looked like a kind of scaly human being. (The Lizard, not Ditko.) That's evolved over the years, with the formerly flat face getting a longer and longer snout, to the point where the modern Lizard looks more like a Jurassic Park raptor than a lizard. The eyes are set into deep, flat sockets, there are similar hollows on the sides of the nose, and a generally triangular ridge runs from the tip of the snout to the eyebrow ridges. Sharp teeth line both the upper and lower jaws, and he has a curling tongue that's about twice the length of the head. Another change over the years has been his size. Curt Conners originally stayed the same basic height and weight when he went primal, which was why he was able to keep his clothes on - they might get ripped a little, but it's not like they were bursting into shreads due to his increased bulk. Nowadays, he must go shopping at the same place as Bruce Banner, because he wears purple pants, and also because he towers over other characters. Andre the Giant would find these clothes loose and baggy! The sculpt is great, making his pants, shirt, and labcoat all show exactly the kind of stress and tightness that would lead the clothes to tear as they stretch around his body, while the scales vary from tiny little pebbly ones on his head to big rough plates on his forearms and feet. Lizard is designed with hinged toes, swivel/hinge ankles, double-hinged knees, swivel thighs, balljointed hips, a balljointed tail with two more swivel/hinges in the middle, a swivel waist, hinged torso, swivel/hinge wrists, double-hinged elbows, swivel biceps, swivel/hinge shoulders, a balljointed neck, and a hinged head and jaw. The legs are designed with a permanent crouch, so even with the double-knees, you can never straighten the legs out - you can bend them even farther than they already are, but don't expect to make him stand up tall. More annoying, though, is the tail. The balljoint where it meets the body is great, but the swivel-hinge joints in the middle absolutely do not work. Well, they "work" in the sense that you can successfully move them, but that's not what we mean; they don't work because while you can move them, nothing about them looks natural when you do. A tail wouldn't have a sharp bend in it unless it was broken - it would have a curve that these joints (one moving up and down, the other moving side to side) just cannot duplicate. I'm no fan of bendy tails, but that would have been better than this. As far as Lizard designs go, the Fearsome Foes box set one is more up my alley, but this Build-A-Figure is undeniably awesome. If not for Sauron (and the bad tail), it might have been the best BAF of 2018. Gwenpool | Prowler | Spider-Punk | Spider-Man Noir | Spider-Woman | Mysterio | Lasher -- 07/21/19

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