King Lizard

In his youth King Lizard has green-toned skin, a slim and athletic build, and short, straight hair of pale blonde. Adulthood keeps the coloring but stretches him taller and leaner with more muscle, his blonde hair now grown out to around shoulder length. His costume shifted with his rank. As Prince Lizard he wore a two-tone green outfit topped by a black chest piece bearing a white lizard crest, with puffed sleeves, layered armor-like panels, and darker green gloves and boots; a magenta cape hung from a high collar, a gold crown molded into a lizard's head sat on his brow, and a dark green mask covered his eyes. Taking the throne, he switched to a light green armored suit with darker green gloves, trousers, and boots, topped by a large purple cape clasped at the chest with a round fastener.

King Lizard is written as a textbook egomaniac and terrorist, obsessed with the trappings of leadership even as a boy while his mother still lived. He barks out muddled orders and cooks up schemes that read as either childish or unhinged, leaning on gadgets and disposable henchmen to do the actual work, and like the reptile he names himself after, he prefers to wait until a target drops its guard before striking. Beaten to the edge of death, though, that swagger evaporates into cowardice; he begs even a half-dead Rex Splode for mercy, laying bare how little of a genuine threat he ever was.

Born to Queen Lizard and an unnamed father, he was folded into her criminal outfit, the Lizard League, from birth and given the title Prince Lizard, likely groomed as her eventual successor. His early efforts were clumsy; after blasting open a facility and ordering the League to split up, his mother publicly scolded the plan and the others simply kept taking her orders. When Queen Lizard later died under unclear circumstances, the prince renamed himself King Lizard and inherited command.

His bid to turn the population into snakes with a special gun brought the League up against a raw new Guardians of the Globe; the villains managed real damage and casualties before losing, and King Lizard was hauled off by the Global Defense Agency, his seat passing to Supreme Lizard. He broke out, returned to base, and reclaimed the throne by shooting Supreme Lizard through the head. His next scheme seized a missile silo in Wyoming, where a deliberately tripped alarm set up a dead man's switch meant to force the government to meet his demands.

The Guardians who responded, Rex Splode, Dupli-Kate, and Shrinking Rae, were cut down one by one until only a battered, one-handed Rex remained. King Lizard, who had watched his whole crew die, stepped out and put a gun to Rex's head, and after a taunting speech he shot him in the skull. As he phoned in his demands, the still-living Rex lunged, driving his severed fist into King Lizard's face and beating him nearly to death before GDA agents pulled him off. What became of King Lizard afterward is left unstated, though his injuries strongly suggest he did not survive.