Leapin' Lizards!

I like Spider-Man as much as the next guy. He's no Batman of course. But since he's one of the top moneymaking Marvel superheroes of all time there have been a lot of toys of him and his villains over the years, and I have collected my share. I've gotten rid of a lot of them as I've thinned/refined my collection over time, but one that I have held on to is Lizard:

Dr. Connors, in an effort to regenerate his missing arm, instead transmogrified into the villainous Lizard! Rawr!

That's about all I know about The Lizard, based on what I've read in a handful of Spider-Man comics and seen in the old sixties cartoon. Dr. Connors did appear in some of the Sam Raimi Spider-Man flicks and the Lizard is supposed to appear in the upcoming Spider-Man reboot, so after that I'll know more. But let's face it, what's to know? He's a lizard-man, a werelizard if you will. Cool enough for me.

This Lizard figure was hard to find at the time. I recall only seeing this one and finding him at a Mervyns or a Sears of all places. He came with some accessories which I didn't care about and have long since misplaced. He was part of some Spider-Man-centric Toybiz toyline and not a Marvel Legend per se. Released  in 1997 these Spider-Man 6" scale figures acted as sort of a predecessor to Marvel Legends. His articulation is pretty good but his pose limits it. I'd prefer less artic and a dynamic pose over heavy aritc and a static pose. They tried to combine the two here with mixed results. The arms are great, with (then) standard shoulder rotation and bicep cuts that allow his forearms to spread out wide. But his knee and hip joints are useless with the single pose his stance allows him to take while still remaining upright. They did give him a hinged jaw which is real nice for display and play, so you gotta give 'em props for that! And his tail can rotate fully through his lab coat and be posed up or down, another nice design feature.

"Jazz hands!"