Lizard

The Lizard is the alter ego of Dr. Curtis "Curt" Connors, originating from Marvel Comics. He appears as an antagonist in the film Spider-Man: No Way Home, played by Rhys Ifans, reprising his role from The Amazing Spider-Man.

The Lizard was created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko.

Background

Powers and Abilities

Powers

• Superhuman Strength: Curt himself has the normal physical strength of a human male of his age, height, and build that engages in little regular exercise. While transformed, he possesses sufficient superhuman strength. He can overpower normal humans, turn over standard vehicles such as cars and vans, he is even slightly stronger Spider-Man who himself is stronger than normal humans as well.
• Superhuman Speed: While transformed, Curt can run and move at speeds greater than that of the finest human athlete and can reach a top speed of about 45 miles per hour. He is shown to be slightly slower than Spider-Man.
• Superhuman Stamina: While transformed, Curt's advanced musculature produces considerably less fatigue toxins during physical activity than the musculature of an ordinary human. He can physically exert himself at peak capacity for about 24 hours before fatigue begins to impair him.
• Superhuman Durability: While transformed, Curt's scaly skin and superhumanly enhanced bodily tissues provide him much greater resistance to physical injury than an ordinary human. He can withstand great impact forces, falls from great heights, and small caliber bullets without sustaining injury.
• Superhuman Agility: In his transformed state, Curt's agility, balance, and bodily coordination are enhanced to levels that are beyond the natural physical limits of even the finest human athlete. He is slightly less agile than Spider-Man.
• Superhuman Reflexes: Curt's reflexes are similarly enhanced while transformed and are superior to those of the finest human athlete.
• Regenerative Healing Factor: Despite the Lizard's physical durability, he can sustain physical injury. However, if injured, his body is able to rapidly regenerate damaged or destroyed tissue with much greater speed and efficiency than an ordinary human. While transformed, Curt's healing powers are developed to the point where he can fully regenerate missing limbs, just like many known reptile species.

Abilities

• Genius-Level Intellect: Curt has a genius-level intelligence and is an expert in reptiles as well. in his transformed state, he can talk and is still intelligent albeit twisted.
• Advanced Hand-to-Hand Combatant: Although he has had no formal combat training, his powers alone coupled with his natural savagery in his transformed state make him a formidable combatant.

Role in the film

The Lizard of Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-Man appears in Spider-Man: No Way Home. Due to Doctor Strange's botched spell to make the world forget the secret identity of Spider-Man after it was exposed by Mysterio, Lizard was transported out of his home dimension. Strange later captures him prowling the sewers, making him the Sanctum's first prisoner. He soon crosses eyes with a freshly captured Doctor Octopus and scares the Peter Parker of that dimension as well.

Later, as Sandman and Electro are captured, Lizard is surprised to see Electro again since he knew him when he was Max Dillon, especially noting that his physique from before was dismal. Electro then revealed to everyone how Lizard had attempted to turn New York into a city populated by mutant lizards, an act that Lizard called the next step in evolution. He then became confused when Strange revealed that most of the prisoners had died in their respective dimensions while confronting Spider-Man. Peter takes pity on these villains and stops Strange from sending them home until he finds a way to save them from their fate.

Peter moves the villains to Happy Hogan's apartment, though Lizard chooses to stay in a FEAST truck. When Green Goblin turns the other villains (except Octavius, who was already cured) against Spider-Man and attacks him, Lizard witnesses this and escapes the truck, scaring J. Jonah Jameson who took him for a dinosaur, who took him for a dinosaur. Lizard briefly lashes out at Peter while reminding him that he had warned him of the consequences.

Lizard, Electro, and Sandman travel later that night to Liberty Island to confront Spider-Man who teams up with two other displaced Spider-Men, one of whom is the same Spider-Man who defeated Lizard years before. As the battle began, Lizard immediately attacked his nemesis until he was stuck in synthetic webbing. Once freed, the reptile chases Ned Leeds and MJ Jones through a portal briefly taking them to a lab before returning to the Statue of Liberty. He then lunges at his Spider-Man yet again, only to bite into a cure specially designed to undo his mutation, once again transforming him back into his human form. Following the Green Goblin's defeat, Connors is returned to his universe along with Max and their Peter by Strange before reality collapses.

Trivia

• The shot of Lizard turning back into Curt Connors in No Way Home is an unused take from The Amazing Spider-Man.
• The Lizard is the only one of the villains in No Way Home whose design was not changed from his debut film in some capacity. But his facial look has changed a little bit, His teeth are sharper than in the 2012 film and on the top of his head appear to be small bumpy fin like ridges.
  • Green Goblin gets rid of his mask and replaces it with a purple hood like the comics.
  • Doctor Octopus gains Stark nanotechnology on his tentacles.
  • Sandman can no longer turn back into his human form and is now fully made of sand.
  • Electro was completely redesigned to better match the mainstream version.
• Like in The Amazing Spider-Man, Lizard's right hand only has four fingers due to his arm being amputated prior to his transformation.
• Lizard and Sandman are the only two displaced villains in the MCU who haven't died before.
• Like Sandman's actor Thomas Haden Church, Rhys Ifans did not physically appear on the set of Spider-Man: No Way Home. Instead, Infans just recorded his lines and old footage from their respective films of their transformations were used instead.^[1]
• Though Dr. Connors appear in Sam Raimi's Spider-Man Trilogy, he never becomes the Lizard despite clues and hints in Spider-Man 3 that he'll become the Lizard though he's shown missing an arm.

Gallery

See also

• Carla Connors
• Lizard (Marvel Animated Universe 2012-18)
• Lizard (Spidey and his Amazing Friends)

References

External links

• Lizard on the Marvel Cinematic Universe Wiki
• Curtis Connors (Earth-TRN928) on the Marvel Database