As Marvel established its brand over the 60s and 70s, complex characters became their brand, defined by its opposition to the clean ideals presented by DC Comics, the standard-setter at the time. Characters like Namor and Spider-Man were great early examples of dynamic creations that diverged from the concept of evil villain or infallible hero. Others like the Lizard would eventually be iconic antagonists with built-in moral complexity. The theme writes itself: a decent person is turned into a monster, and destroying the monster would destroy the person. Surprisingly, even with that setup, the introduction of the Lizard in 1963 all but ignored the moral and thematic depth the character could have displayed.
The Amazing Spider-Man #6:
"Face-to-Face with... the Lizard!"
- Writers: Stan Lee & Steve Ditko
- Artists: Steve Ditko
- Editor: Stan Lee
- Publication Date: August 8, 1963
- Cover Date: November 1963
While a fun adventure and a respectable introduction to a classic Spidey villain, this issue is a step down in quality after three very solid ones. It’s a case of missed opportunities most of all, further undermined by a plot and script that feel a little duct-taped together – whether this was an inevitable occasional cost of the Marvel Method or just Stan Lee and Steve Ditko not putting in their best work, it’s hard to say.
What makes the Lizard interesting in most stories is the moral dilemma of the villain who’s not really a villain, but a victim. Not that Spider-Man is in the business of brutalizing his foes in any case, but the Lizard’s narrative power is in the concept that there’s no separating the evil from the good: you can’t destroy the Lizard without destroying Curt Connors. Connors is one of Spider-Man’s biggest allies, but he’s also a family man, and almost without exception his wife and young son are also in danger whenever the Lizard is involved, increasing the stakes.
It’s disappointing, then, that this story all but ignores that angle. After spending a few issues dealing with admirably engaging thematic and moral questions, the challenge of fighting a villain who’s really just a good man not in control of himself seemed like a natural next step. The ethical conflict of having to stop the Lizard without hurting Curt never comes into play, making what could have been a fascinating tale of difficult decisions into just a standard monster story – not a bad one, just mundane.
Equally wasted is the presence of Connors's family: his wife Martha reveals the secret of the Lizard's true identity to Spider-Man (no complaints there, this is a good beat), and then proceeds to stand somberly in the background of various panels without much of a purpose, until she helps sell the emotional release of the Lizard's reversal into a human at the end. Their son Billy is even less relevant to the plot, though he does trigger a burst of urgency by being approached by the Lizard, before being rescued by Spider-Man roughly three seconds later.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
There’s a couple of other odd misses here that tie into the structure of the story, which doesn’t quite come together as well as previous Spider-Man yarns have. Before Spidey departs for Florida to hunt the Lizard, we take a detour to a museum of natural history, where our hero stops some criminals attempting to steal a gem, and in the process rescued Liz from a dangerous situation.
That’s all well and good, but none of this actually has anything to do with the plot – the crooks are just crooks, Liz isn’t involved with the Lizard, and none of this ultimately matters. It does set up a fun dissonance where Liz is now crushing on Spider-Man but couldn’t care less about Peter, but even that is just another version of the gag of Flash bullying Peter but loving Spider-Man.
The museum sequence is particularly unfortunate in that it almost works as a setup for later – Peter goes in to learn more about reptiles, which is a great beat that could pay off in his fight with the villain later. But he only learns that dinosaurs had thick skin, which doesn't help him beat the Lizard. It still works as a check-in with Peter's supporting cast, with Flash and Liz being the main recurring characters in the school environment, but it suggests enough payoff elsewhere to be a let-down when it ends up being all but irrelevant.
When you add the antidote that Peter cooks up based on Connors’s notes and his high school education, which feels more like a magic trick than proper grounded science, it certainly feels like the museum scene could have done more to make the end come together. The series has had these moments of vague pseudo-scientific magic bullet before, but the trajectory of the previous issues was such that not having an understandable logic built into the solution feels like a step backwards. It's serviceable, and it at least operates under the excuse that Peter had the actual research data to work with, but it's hardly satisfying.
Another element that feels promising at setup but goes absolutely nowhere is a scene where Peter manages to convince J. Jonah Jameson to send him to Florida as a work assignment, not being able to afford his own trip in order to investigate the Lizard, but learns that the brash publisher of the Daily Bugle is planning to join him as well. The setup is funny, and promises a degree of tension when Peter has to figure out how to pull off dealing with the Lizard as Spider-Man, with Jameson watching over him and expecting him to photograph the monster.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
As soon as we get to Florida, however, it’s as if Jameson isn’t even there – Peter makes an excuse to leave, and we never see or hear from the old grouch again until after the story with the Lizard is done. As with the other missed opportunities, we later get stories that tap into exactly this setup for drama and comedy, but here it would have been just as well to cut Jameson traveling with Peter altogether – it adds nothing to the story.
This is not a terrible issue by any means; it’s certainly better than early Iron Man and the first two issues of Amazing Spider-Man. Ditko does a lot to elevate the story: his action is entertaining and engaging, his swamp environments are atmospheric and spooky, and the design of the Lizard is honestly a little scary in a freaky kind of way -- contrasted with the hulking dinosaur he'd later become, or even the version you'd see Todd McFarlane draw in the 90s, Ditko's skinny, slithering creep is uniquely disturbing.
It's just that there’s not much in this issue that’s particularly memorable, aside from it being the first Spidey story outside New York (which I’m never a huge fan of), and that it has retroactive historical significance as the debut of one of the more iconic rogues in Spider-Man’s gallery. It has a lot of ideas, and good ones at that, but they don't come together as a cohesive whole.
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| Art by Steve Ditko. © Marvel Comics. |
The last issue with Dr. Doom proved that even with an awkward plot, Spider-Man could still hit if the emotional and thematic core of the story is strong. With the way the preceding issues dealt with Peter losing his confidence, being overwhelmed, or wrestling with moral choices, issue #6 just comes across as an off-the-rack story of "punch the bad guy". It's a regression in thematic depth that cools the momentum of an impressive series of comic books.
With how strongly Stan and Steve covered the heavy, complex and messy themes just before this, it's hard to understand how they missed taking advantage of such narrative potential. The Lizard and the various other story elements are immensely rich components of dynamic storytelling, but here they're just inanimate raw material. All of these elements would be brought to life with great success in later stories, often by writers who must have read this story with a similar frustration to mine, and felt the urge to set things right by telling the story that Stan and Steve hinted at here, but never actually told.
And that's probably the biggest merit of this issue: it's not special in itself, but it did set up many strong concepts that, essentially without any re-working or retconning, would power stories about the Lizard for decades to come. The character wouldn't really get good until Gerry Conway and subsequent writers, but the pieces were all already there in 1963, just waiting for someone to pick them up and put them together.
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