Lizard erupts again, and Spider-Man helps Mrs. Connors and son Billy get into hiding.
Then he and Human Torch take on the creature. But first, he tries to give Johnny Storm cancer.
So Spider-Man just happens to carry asbestos webbing around all the time–even when he’s facing a reptile? This makes him a little Batman-ish.
It’s kind of a formula at this point: Lizard gets the upper hand, then he threatens his own wife or kid, then Spider-Man on his last legs forces him to change back into Dr. Connors.
It’s still a solid read, though, and Buscema’s art is terrific.
The cover to issue#76 is one of my top-three all-time favorite comic-book covers. Great drama, and the angle of the characters versus the sliding image of the building they are clinging to underscores the brilliance of it’s artist. At some point in the 1990’s, I believe, the Lizard finally got around to having his wife and son for dinner, and I think that is unfortunate, but, when you think about it, it was an inevitable tragedy. I hope it serves as a good lesson to all of those fools out there who think it’s a cool idea to keep reptiles, especially large, predatory reptiles, as pets. The old story about the horse and the rattlesnake on the bank of a river, and, as the horse begins to navigate the river, the rattler says, “Hey, buddy! How about a lift-??” The horse says “Sure! Hop on!”, The rattler slithers aboard the horse’s back, the horse makes it about halfway across the river when the snake strikes, and the horse say: “Hey!! Why did you bite me-??!! I gave you a lift, like you asked!! What’s wrong-??” To which the snake replies: “Hey! I’m a snake! It’s what I do!” Exactly, snake-people.