Issue(s): Amazing Spider-Man #6
Cover Date: Nov 63
Title: "Face-to-Face with the Lizard!"
Credits:
Stan Lee - Writer
Steve Ditko - Penciler
Steve Ditko - Inker

Review/plot: A monster called The Lizard is rampaging through the Everglades...

...but Peter Parker can't afford a plane ticket to get down there to fight him. So he tricks J. Jonah Jameson into traveling down there with Peter to take pictures. Parker sneaks off, fights the Lizard...

...figures out that the Lizard is really a man who has been transformed in an experiment gone wrong (Doctor Connors was trying to replicate reptile tail regeneration to help humans regenerate lost limbs and, like any good mad scientist, experimented on himself), and cures him. The Lizard had a plan to take control of all the reptiles in the world (i wonder why he never tried that again? Possibly because each transformation left him with less of Doc Connors' personality and intelligence.). Parker has no pictures of the Spidey/Lizard fight, and he and JJ go home.

While the Lizard is a durable Spider-Man villain, this isn't the greatest issue of the series so far. Taking Spider-Man out of his New York City setting hurts it a bit, and the shenanigans with maintaining his secret ID while working with JJ is fairly stock.

Quality Rating: C

Historical Significance Rating: 7 - Formative Spider-Man story. First Lizard

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

What a run of amazing villains. Iron Man had a lot of Commies early on, Ant-Man kept fighting duds, Thor didn't have a lot in his first several appearances other than Loki. Yes, the FF had The Mole Man, the Skrulls and Doom, but Miracle Man wasn't exactly setting the world on fire and the Sub-Mariner had already existed.

But, in the first six issues of Spider-Man, Lee and Ditko introduce The Chameleon, The Vulture, The Tinkerer, Doc Ock, The Sandman and The Lizard, with one issue off to fight Doom. That's one hell of a classic villain lineup.

Spider-Man has indeed one of the best rogues gallery in super-hero history--certainly Marvel's finest. Most his enemies from the Stan Lee era has had fantastic staying power--not least the Lizard, with his unique balance of tragedy and repugnance

I placed this issue before Strange Tales#115.

This is one of my favorite early Spider-Man stories, partly because the Lizard seems like a real threat (and moreso, to me, than even Doc Ock) and partly because of Spidey's basic decency-- he saves a family then goes out of his way to protect their secret; and in return, he ends up having to pay Jameson back for the plane tickets.