Marvel Select Fearsome Foes 4-Pack Lizard

The last figure I'll be taking a look at from the Spider-Man: Fearsome Foes box set is Lizard. Like Flash Thompson Venom, this is a brand new figure, adding another classic Spider-Man villain to the Marvel Select lineup. Join me as I take a closer look at Lizard.

Check out hi-res images for this figure in our GALLERY below.





PACKAGING - If you've read the other reviews from this four pack, then you know the packaging by now. It's a giant window box displaying every figure inside. The front features artwork of all four characters, and has nice big, bright logos for Spider-Man" and "Fearsome Foes", letting you know exactly what's inside. Lizard is posed very standard in the package, with his display base packaged behind him. The back features photos of each figure, along with a bio for each character.

SCULPT - Lizard stands at just over 8" tall, and has a very nice scaly look to his arms, legs, head, and tail. Very lizard-like I must say. His hands are sculpted in a clawing or grasping pose, either way seeming appropriate for the character. His clothes have lots of folds and wrinkles to them, with his hand legs ending about halfway to his shins and they look very nicely torn up. Likewise for his coat sleeves. The coat itself looks nice, though it's perhaps too smooth and I feel the bottom of it should be tattered slightly, but it's not.

The head sculpt has an open mouth with with tongue sticking out. He's got lots of long sharp teeth and the head definitely looks like a giant lizard. It feels squished though. His eyes seem too close together, and if you look at him straight on, it just feels like his entire head is too thin.

PAINT - For the most part, the paint is really good on this figure. The skin has an excellent paint texturing to it and you get a few different shades of green blending in, giving the appearance of lizard scales. His pants and shirt have some great dry brushing and washes applied, giving them a dirty a dingy look. I just wish the same was done to his coat. His coat looks brand new, except the sleeves are torn off indicating he's been wearing it for a while. It seems off to not include the dirty look on the coat as well.

His head has the same great lizard skin paint job as his arms and legs. There's some slop on his teeth. A lot actually. The green from his skin is also on the edges of his eyeballs. If there's one area you want to make sure looks good, it's the head, since that's the focal point of any action figure.

ARTICULATION - Lizard has a cut neck, ball jointed shoulders, swivel-hinged elbows, cut wrists, cut waist, ball jointed hips, thigh swivels, double knees, and swivel-hinged ankles. Like many of the others from this box set, he's really missing an ab crunch of some kind. It would help so much to have that, as you could put him in so many more poses. Still, the joints he has are ok to work with. His head moves easily, though he can't look up or down. His arms have a pretty good range of motion, though the elbows don't bend very far. The ball jointed hips are the kind I hate. The peg is inserted into the pelvis at a 45 degree angle, meaning you have to twist the ball around, then twist the thigh back in the opposite direction, just to bend his legs forward. And it's really hard to accomplish on this figure.

The coat is a huge hindrance to his posability. It's made of a pretty stiff plastic, and isn't removable. His tail has extremely limited articulation, only allowing for side to side wiggling where it attaches to his body. And because of the way it's sculpted, anything but dead center makes the tail look off and messes up the posing. If the coat and tail had been designed better, the articulation he does have might have worked out quite well.

ACCESSORIES - Lizard just comes with a display base. It's meant to be a cross section of an alley or street corner, with the brick wall sitting vertically, and the street at the bottom, complete with a sewer lid. The environment is appropriate for Lizard, though getting some kind of actual sewer display would have been cooler. Still, the one he comes with looks very nice. The bricks are nicely detailed and appropriately weathered, as is the ground with the sewer lid. If you're standing him on it, he does cover most of it up, as the base isn't very big and the Lizard figure is really big.

FUN - The extremely limited posability detracts tremendously from the fun factor. Lizard is one of this really acrobatic characters, like Spider-Man, who need the articulation to get them into any kind of cool or realistic poses. The articulation he does have is hard to work with, detracting even more from how fun he is. He looks good with the Spider-Man figure, but is more frustrating than fun to play with.

QUALITY CONTROL/THINGS TO WATCH OUT FOR - Nothing to watch out for.


OVERALL - Given that this is a new figure, and not a reissue like Spider-Man and Green Goblin, I feel that the lack of posability and general bad design are really disappointing. Diamond Select has been making some amazing Marvel figures lately, both in articulation and design. And here the Lizard seems to be an afterthought. It's clear that Flash Thompson Venom is the star of the box set, and the others were just there to fill spaces. It would have been nice to get the same amount of attention on Lizard, as he really is a great classic Spider-Man villain, and deserves a great figure.

His sculpt is ok except for the head, and the paint job is as well except on the lab coat. But with how stiff the coat is, and how immobile the tail is, it really limits any kind of cool posing you could put the figure in. If articulation doesn't bother you and you just want a cool display piece to stand next to the others, then you might consider getting him.


FINAL SCORE: 2 / 5