Origin

With a grant from Empire State University, Doc Connors was able to work on improving his enverator, which turned him into the Lizard. He thinks he finally found a way to grow back his arm, but he decided to test it on a marine iguana. His device backfired and started to change Connors, He panicked and backed into the device, causing the Lizard to be absorbed by the iguana. This allowed the iguana to evolve into a large humanoid who had all the memories of both Connors and Lizard. By night, he would stalk the city; by day, he would return to Connors lab and transform back into an everyday lizard.

Creation

Iguana first appeared in The Spectacular Spider-Man (1976) #32 by Bill Mantlo and Jim Mooney

Major Story Arcs

Night of the Iguana

On Peter Parker’s first day in grad school, he crosses paths with Doc Connors. Connors is carrying Iguana in his small form to donate to the Bronx Zoo. Iguana transforms, knocking Connors unconscious, and is forced to fight Spider-Man. He commands the zoo’s reptiles to attack, covering his escape. He decides to hunt down Connors’ wife and son to punish Connors, because he hates Connors the same way The Lizard does. As soon as he makes it to Connors’ home, Connors in his Lizard form arrives to continue fighting him. Spider-Man backs him up with a handheld version of the enverator that he constructed. Using it on the two reptiles transforms them back into their original forms. At his small stature, Iguana manages to sneak away.

Hunted

Iguana, having returned to his humanoid form, was one of many animal themed supervillains that were collected by Taskmaster and Black Ant for Kraven the Hunter. Kraven planned on releasing them into Central Park, which he had turned into a hunting ground with the help of Arcade. He would sell to the wealthy elite the opportunity to trophy hunt the animal-themed rogues who Kraven thought were offending their animal inspirations. Iguana was the first to be killed. A hunter using a Kraven-like drone beat Iguana to death with an energy baton as part of an instructional mode before the rest of the hunters were released.

Powers & Abilities

Monstrous: Iguana is a large humanoid reptile. He has scaly skin, claws on his hands and feet, fangs, enhanced senses, and a prehensile tail

• Animal Control: He is capable of psychically commanding lower reptiles.
• Mesmerize: Iguana was capable of mesmerizing humans like a snake was thought to be able to do.
• Weakness: Iguana is sensitive to light

Other Media

Video Games

• Amazing Spider-Man: Iguana appears in the 2012 Amazing Spider-Man video game which works as a sequel to the movie of the same name starring Andrew Garfield. Iguana, along with a number of animal-themed rogues of Spider-Man, are reenvisioned as animal-human hybrids. They were created by OsCorp who were continuing Doc Connors research from the movie. Iguana's corpse can be seen in the sequel game.
• Spider-Man Unlimited: Iguana makes an appearance in this mobile game.