Marvel Legends Lizard Build-A-Figure Review

Here it is! If you’ve been following along with my recent Marvel Legends reviews, you’ll know that every figure has come with a piece to build the Lizard, and here he is in all of his hideous, scaly, Build-A-Figure glory!

To recap, the Lizard comes in seven pieces: The head (from Lasher), the torso (from Spider-Woman), the tail (from Gwenpool), the right arm (from Spider-Punk), the left arm (from Spider-Man Noir), the right leg (from Prowler), and the left leg (from Mysterio). All of the parts snap together relatively pretty easily.

While Lizard’s sculpt is very, very detailed (he looks sensational!), but it’s also a bit of a problem when you get to the articulation. I love the scales and fine details of the wrinkles and torn clothing. I’m not crazy about the plates or raptor-like head, but they’re nicely done for what they are. Every tooth is individually sculpted, and his torn shirt and jacket are separate pieces which help eliminate sloppy paint applications. His tail is nicely sculpted, but my problem is that they sculpted a different underside to it (sort of how a crocodile’s underside has a different look to it than the other scaly parts of the body). By doing this, it looks awkward and breaks up the sculpt of the tail when you articulate the swivel joints, unfortunately. Fortunately, his tail is LONG, and will even help him stand, or, in his case, crouch. His tongue is also unnaturally huge, I mean, it even makes Venom quite envious. In fact, it’s so huge, that the weight of it seems to make the jaws on some Lizard figures become loose over time from what I’ve seen, which is why I’m personally trying not to move it.

Aside from the aforementioned sculpt/articulation issues I’ve already mentioned, there’s one more major problem to address. While he has double jointed knees, they barely move at all due to the sculpt and engineering implemented in the back of them. Thus, Lizard is going to be limited to mostly crouching poses. It’s rather unfortunate, because otherwise, he comes loaded with more articulation than your typical Marvel Legends figure. He has a hinged mouth, hinged head, ball jointed neck, shoulder swivels and hinges, bicep swivels, double jointed elbows, wrist swivels and hinges, ab crunch (which is hindered a bit by his lab coat), waist swivel (also hindered a bit by the coat), ball jointed tail, two tail swivels, two tail hinges, hip rotation, swivel thighs, double jointed knees (which, like I said, are greatly hindered by the sculpt), ankle hinges, ankle pivots, and toe hinges! Toe hinges were a staple of ToyBiz Marvel Legends, and it’s great to see them used again after such a long time. I count a whopping 40 points of articulation, something I haven’t quite seen on a Marvel Legend since I can’t remember when; it’s definitely been a while.

Lizard’s paint is top notch. The bottoms of his coat and sleeve are a dark brown, something you’d expect to see from a monster running around under the streets of New York City. His scales also get different shades of green to suggest different reptilian textures or what have you. I see little to no slop on his teeth, gums, and eyes.

Lizard doesn’t come with any accessories, probably because he was an accessory to every figure in this BAF Series. That, and I can’t really think of anything that was a must-have for him.

Lizard is a nice enough figure, but it’s unfortunate that his great sculpt and articulation hinder each other in so many different ways. He is a sweet bonus for picking up every figure in the series, and one that will, at any rate, look cool among your other Spider-Man-related figures.

The Lizard Build-A-Figure Series has been hitting for about two months now at brick and mortar stores like Walgreens and Target, as well as online at Dorkside Toys, Amazon, and Hasbro Toy Shop.