These days, every time I complete a wave of Marvel Legends feels like a major victory. And when I say complete, I mean digging them out of my Pile of Shame™, opening them up, and having a look at them here at FFZ. The Lizard was one of my most anticipated BAFs in a while, not only because he’s an important addition to Spidey’s rogue gallery, but also because there’s so much potential there to make a great action figure. Even more so with him being a Build-A-Figure. And with how difficult it was for me to complete this wave, slapping this guy together feels all the sweeter. So, did Hasbro step up to the challenge on this one?

Oh, hell YES!!! Curt Connors is comprised of your usual five BAF parts (legs, arms, torso, head), plus one extra being the tail. And once cobbled together, he looks absolutely amazing! His hunched over, reptilian body includes elongated arms, which end in grasping claws that are just itching to grab hold of another figure, and legs that mirror the configuration of the hind legs of a dog, giving him a wonderful Were-Lizard profile. Every bit of his skin is textured with fine scaling, and the paintwork on the skin features some beautiful gradient shades of green. The remnants of his lab coat hang on his frame, sculpted mostly as a separate piece of soft plastic with the sleeves sculpted onto the arms. The tattered plastic garment features various holes and tears exposing his green hide, and the lower parts discolored, no doubt from being dragged through the sewers. His torn black shirt and purple trousers also show a lot of lizard skin peeking through.

The portrait here is pure magic, with a heavy T-Rex vibe to the facial structure, particularly in those ridges over the beady little eyes. The face features the same awesome textured scales as the rest of the body and some more of that beautiful coloring, with the lower jaw a much lighter olive green. The jaw is articulated so Dr. Connor can open up and really show off those rows of ferocious teeth and his long whip of a tongue protrudes out and down to below his waistline. This head sculpt is nothing less than a work of art!

Because of his unusual anatomy, Lizard features a few extra points of articulation. but the basics are still all there. The arms have rotating hinges in the shoulders and wrists, swivels in the biceps, and double hinges in the elbows. The legs have rotating hinges in the hips, swivels in the thighs and double-hinges in the knees. He also has hinges further down at those ankles and hinges in those secondary ankles, where his feet touch the ground. There’s an ab-crunch hinge in the torso, his neck is ball jointed, and his jaw is hinged. Finally, he has a ball joint where his tail connects to the body and two hinges further on down. If I had to nitpick something here, it’s that the hinges make the tail bend at sharp angles, which looks unnatural. They are, however, very helpful at keeping him standing when posed, so I’d say it’s an OK trade-off to getting a bendy tail.

I’ve already recounted how difficult it was for me to complete this wave, with Mysterio and Lasher available to me only through third-parties at scalper prices. Each of those figures set me back close to $50, and if this wave was built around any other BAF, I probably wouldn’t have bothered. In this case, however, I’m sure as hell glad I did. The Lizard BAF is nothing less than superb, and he is easily among my favorite Build-A-Figures to show up in the modern Legends line. Everything from the sculpt, paint, and design all came together so perfectly. He looks amazing and he’s loads of fun to play with, and he’ll assume a place of honor among my Spidey rogues gallery for sure! This one was a long journey, but the destination was well worth it!