Spider-Man: The Animated Series Episode One: Night of the Lizard

Night of the Lizard

First Aired: November 19th, 1994

Synopsis: Two sewer workers are attacked by the Lizard, and one of them is captured. Shortly afterwards, Peter Parker is given an assignment to photograph the Lizard, although he's sceptical that he exists. Eddie Brock, Peter's photography rival, also wants the assignment since J. Jonah Jameson is offering a $1,000 bonus to whoever gets the photos, but Jonah gives everything to Peter since he's worked with the reptile scientist Curt Connors. When Peter goes to university to see Connors, followed by fellow student Debbie Whitman, the two of them are attacked by the Lizard, who gets away with a mysterious wrapped-up package. Peter goes to Connors' house, as does Eddie Brock, secretly, and finds the Lizard there. After a brief fight with the Lizard, Curt's son Billy calls out to the Lizard, who runs away. Curt's wife then reveals the truth to Spider-Man: Curt Connors is the Lizard.

Curt's wife gives the Lizard's origin story to Spider-Man, but Eddie Brock eavesdrops and runs off, determined to use it for a scoop. While Spider-Man stops Eddie, knowing that Connors doesn't deserve for his secret to get out, the Lizard returns and kidnaps his wife. Spider-Man heads into the sewers, and finds the worker from the start of the episode imprisoned. Lizard wanted his help with an electrical project, which, as he exposits to his wife, is to be able to replicate the effects of his experiment so that he can heal people all over the world by turning them into lizard-people. It turns out that the mysterious wrapped-up package he's had is a gun-like device for administering the effects. Spider-Man interrupts and fights him, managing to discharge the gun and turning Lizard back into Curt Connors. In the aftermath, Eddie is humiliated when Connors is shown not to be the Lizard, and Aunt May is worried about Peter after seeing that he went into the sewers to get photos of Spider-Man.

Miscellaneous Notes:

• So far all of the Spider-Man shows I've watched have chosen a different way to depict Spider-Man's spider-sense. This show is no exception; it shows it as his eyes glowing green while some vague imagery flashes in the background. Were there concerns that squiggly lines wouldn't be distinct enough, or something?
• I've referred to the Lizard's alter ego as Curt Connors throughout my synopsis, but we see a sign labeled Conners at one point. Which is different, but, y'know...it's not like I really care.
• On a similar note, the Lizard's wife is named Margaret in this continuity, whereas she's normally named Martha in the comics.
• If you look very carefully, the article which Peter took the photo of the Lizard for is written by Ned Leeds. At this time in the comics Ned was thought to have been the original Hobgoblin, and I know that Hobgoblin shows up in this  series. If this is intentional foreshadowing it's pretty good.
• This episode gives a writing credit to Gerry Conway, a longtime Spider-Man writer and one of my personal favourites. If you haven't read any of his stuff I'd highly recommend it; he's the man we have to thank for the iconic issue of Amazing Spider-Man where Spider-Man fought Luke Cage.

Review: I can't say that starting off with a B-Lister like the Lizard is the most exciting start to the series, but that isn't to say that this episode is by any means bad. In fact, I'd say it's downright great - while the stakes aren't that high, it gives us room to establish who Spider-Man is and what all of his relationships are. While the setup with him at the Bugle and Aunt May are pretty much what you'd expect, seeing Debbie Whitman, seemingly his love interest, is a surprise. I hope they go with the same direction for her that they did in the comics; it'll be interesting to see how the show depicts everything. Eddie Brock is also a fantastic addition - he's not enough of a jerk that you want to punch him, but he's very obviously a bit slimy. It's easy to see from his perspective that Jonah is favouring Peter, so the seeds of him having a grudge against Peter are already there, which works brilliantly.

Most of the Lizard stuff in this episode is pretty standard, right down to Lizard backing off when Billy cries out to him, but something that did really stand out is Lizard's motivation. Most of the time his plan is to basically turn everyone into lizard monsters like himself, just 'cos, and while he does want to do that here, there's an interesting spin on it - he sees his method as being a way to heal people, which is definitely true from a certain perspective. Something else interesting is that the Lizard doesn't seem to have an entirely different personality to Curt, as he responds to his first name. I doubt that the show will do anything ridiculous like revealing that Curt was in control of the Lizard the whole time, but it's an interesting decision to make.

Overall, while on the surface this is a pretty typical Lizard story, it's done a pretty good job of both introducing the premise of the show and setting up some potential future developments. I'll be interested to see where things go next.