Because of this, he works tirelessly to find a permanent cure for his alternate personality, much to the worry of his wife, Martha Connors, and son, Billy, but also standing in contrast to other Spider-Man foes who take pride in their powers and use them irresponsibly.

Working from his home in the Florida Everglades with the help of war buddy Ted Sallis, he finally developed an experimental serum taken from reptilian DNA.

[9] Spider-Man discovered this situation during a trip to Florida to investigate newspaper reports of the Lizard after his employer the Daily Bugle challenged him.

After discovering the Lizard's true identity and origin, Spider-Man used Connors's notes to create an antidote to restore him to his human form and mentality.

A repeating pattern soon occurred, with stress or a chemical reaction turning Connors into the Lizard, Spider-Man fighting him, and then forcing him to swallow the antidote to reverse the transformation until the next time.

[14] During another encounter with Spider-Man after Peter's attempts to remove his powers resulted in him growing four extra arms, a bite from Morbius endowed the Lizard with Connors's personality via the infection of a strange enzyme.

This ended when the villainess Calypso used her voodoo magic to take control of the Lizard (during the Torment storyline) for her purposes, reducing him to a mindless, savage state.

After this escape, the Lizard falls into a quicksand pit during a battle in the Everglades with Spider-Man and the bounty hunter Warrant and was believed to have died.

Spider-Man (Ben Reilly) realized that not only had the Lizard survived, but revealed later his new monstrous transformation seemed to be permanent and the personality of Curt Connors appeared completely lost.

[29] Although reunited after Curt's apparent death, Martha and Billy were diagnosed with cancer after being exposed to carcinogens from living near an industrial lab in Florida.

Spider-Man assisted Curt in successfully forcing Monnano, the lab's owner, to admit culpability, but Martha died from her cancer.

[31] After a short-lived term, Connors was released and changed into the Lizard once more, this time due to a scheme by Norman Osborn to form the Sinister Twelve to kill Spider-Man.

A new Sinister Six team, including new member the Lizard, appeared during the superhero Civil War, but it was stopped by Captain America and his Secret Avengers.

[36] Doctor Curt Connors appeared in the 2008 Brand New Day storyline, where he experimented with animal stem cells as well as aiding forensic specialist Carlie Cooper.

Connors had lost custody of his son, Billy, and started hearing the voice of the Lizard persona goading him to let it have control.

[39] No longer having Connors internally warring with the Lizard, he enters a metamorphosis, emerging in a new form, sporting a leaner physique, long brown spikes on its head, spikes on its right forearm, human intelligence, and the ability to telepathically communicate with the underdeveloped "lizard hindbrain" portion of human brains.

He demonstrated the latter ability by triggering the instinctual prey response of Spider-man's lizard brain, temporarily overwhelming the superhero and causing him to flee in terror.

[55] The Lizard protected J. Jonah Jameson from the Scorpion, revealing that he had the mind of Curt Connors, and that he "will never let the monsters win again."

The red-suited man replied that he was not the Lizard; inside he was Curt Connors, a model prisoner who saved Mayor J. Jonah Jameson and various civilians before and was trapped in a monster's body.

[68] In a prelude to the "Sinister War" storyline, Doctor Octopus coerced Curt Connors into using the Isotope Genome Accelerator on himself which separates him from his Lizard side.

[69] Lizard's Isotope Genome Accelerator duplicate and the rest of the Sinister Six proceeded to compete with the other villains that Kindred enlisted to take out Spider-Man.

[71] Upon being taken to Beyond Corporation's secret facility on Staten Island, the genetic template of Lizard's Isotope Genome Accelerator duplicate was combined with the genetic template of Morbius the Living Vampire to create a binary clone called Creature Z which looks like a white version of Lizard with the fangs and wings of a vampire bat.

After the facility was destroyed by Monica Rambeau and the Machine Man Imposter and Creature Z was overloaded with the blood it sucked out, Lizard's Isotope Genome Accelerator duplicate was rescued by Morbius.

As Morbius planned to work with him in curing their conditions, he is unaware that the Lizard he rescued is an Istopte Genome accelerator duplicate.

[73] Lizard's Isotope Genome Accelerator duplicate was revealed to be recruited by Misty Knight to help look for Morbius the Living Vampire and Colleen Wing.

In addition, the Lizard has highly enhanced healing abilities which allow him to quickly recover from grievous wounds, including regenerating lost limbs.

Post-Brand New Day, a further enhancement of his telepathy granted him the power of telepathically compelling humans to act out their primal urges, by suppressing emotional control in their amygdala (the "lizard brain").

[volume & issue needed] In contrast to his previously feral nature, he has also shown sufficient intellectual capabilities to replicate Connors' work for himself, although he is still hampered by his inability to fully comprehend human emotions.

Alternate universe variants of Curt and Billy Connors from Earth-18119 who both became the Lizard appear in Amazing Spider-Man: Renew Your Vows.

[99] An alternate universe variant of Curt Connors / Lizard from Earth-12128 who wields Doctor Octopus's tentacles appears in Captain America and Black Widow #638.