Why The Lizard Is Spider-Man’s Most Tragic Villain

Despite his mixed representation across multiple story arcs, the Lizard is ultimately Spider-Man‘s most tragic villain. Portrayed by Rhys Ifans in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and The Amazing Spider-Man, the Lizard has often been misrepresented as a run-of-the-mill antagonist with base motivations. However, as the character’s long history proves, the Lizard is actually far more emotionally nuanced and heart-breaking than his representations on-screen often suggest.

Created by Stan Lee and Steve Ditko, the character is one of Spider-Man’s original supervillains. Having had a long history of being adapted for video games, television, and movies including Sam Raimi’s Spider-Man trilogy, the Lizard is usually Spider-Man’s mentor and friend. Losing his arm in a terrible accident, he becomes the villainous Lizard after experimenting with reptilian biology and methods to regrow limbs. Struggling between man and animal, doctor and mad scientist, he’s one of Spider-Man’s most dangerous enemies.

The version of the Lizard seen in both The Amazing Spider-Man and Spider-Man: No Way Home is a former colleague of Richard Parker, Spider-Man’s missing father. However, unlike other versions of the character, this iteration fails to capture the tragedy of his life, the horror of his transformation, and the complex relationship he has with Peter Parker. Instead, the movies water down most of the character’s motives, personality, and role, portraying him as more of a Saturday morning supervillain than a Frankensteinian anti-hero. In reality, there are many aspects of his personality and backstory that make the Lizard the ultimate tragic figure and explain why he is far more complicated than many of Spider-Man’s enemies.

Although the character usually has a dry and no-nonsense personality, Dr. Curt Connors is still very much human. The comics introduced Connors as “a good husband” and “good father,” but in Sony’s The Amazing Spider-Man, his wife and son are never even mentioned. One of the biggest tragedies of the Lizard is how he loses the people around him. The film prefers to show Connors’ mentor-intern relationship with Peter Parker. It’s a dynamic explored in other adaptations, but usually deeper and not as antagonistic. Sometimes even acting as a father figure for Peter and M.J. like in Spider-Man: The Animated Series. This is why it’s so tragic for Spider-Man to combat his scientific mentor, because he has to watch someone he respects devolve into something feral. This subtle difference is an aspect that both modern Spider-Man movies fail to capture.

One of the biggest criticisms of The Amazing Spider-Man’s Lizard was its failure to make the character threatening or as horrifying as his counterparts. Amazing Spider-Man #630-633 describes his devolution as very primal, reducing Connors’ mind to its most basic needs: kill or be killed, survive or go extinct. It’s a disturbing kind of body horror akin to a David Cronenberg movie that slowly eats away at one of the Marvel Universe’s most brilliant visionaries. After a while, he stops feeling love, stops feeling compassion and it seems everyone is either a threat, food, or a potential mate. Something that ruins his life and results in the death of his son Billy. It’s heartwrenching watching Connors driven to primal rage after both he and Spider-Man struggled to stop it. This is very different from the original The Amazing Spider-Man explanation that had the scientist obsessed with removing “weakness” from the gene pool and embracing his change.

The Lizard will always be one of Spider-Man’s most tragic villains, an ambitious scientist whose experiments cause him to lose everything that matters. Sadly, The Amazing Spider-Manfocused on his role as a typical mad scientist more than what went on beneath all the CGI scales. Perhaps after the Lizard’s return in Spider-Man: No Way Home, someday the character will get a second chance to tell a stronger story.

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