Who doesn’t love a good man-lizard every now and then? Or a woman-lizard, for that matter.
If the new (and old) series V tells us anything, it’s that mankind has, well, a thing for mutant humanoid reptiles.
Reptile men have a long and celebrated history of interaction with his mammalian brothers, and it’s usually not one of cooperation and mutual benefit. Possibly the very first reptile man to chillax with his primate brethren was Sobek, the Egyptian god of water, specifically, the waters of the Nile which allowed their crops to be bountiful. He was joined by his reptilian cousin Apep, the snake god (occasionally seen as a crocodile, as well), who was a lot nastier than the benevolent Sobek.
And who can forget the story told in Genesis, the first book of the Bible, in which Eve is tempted by none other than the serpent?
Shoot forward to the ’80s, and there was a veritable lizard man explosion!
First, you had the original V, in which Nazi-esque alien lizards descended upon humanity. Simultaneously, on Third Earth, the heroic Thundercats were dealing with some nasty mutant enemies, among them S-s-slithe, the reptilian leader (and yes, his name had hyphens. Hey, mine has an apostrophe, who am I to judge?). There was also the scaly presence of Cobra Commander in the world of G.I. Joe.
Meanwhile, on the big screen, a bizarre and touching friendship occurred between a human and a reptile being in an obscure but fascinating sci-fi film called Enemy Mine, and down here on Earth, James Earl Jones gamely turned into a giant snake in Conan the Barbarian.
In the ’90s, the world of video games brought us both Mortal Kombat’s Reptile and Soul Calibur’s Lizard Man.
And there’s my favorite bat-crap crazy philosopher, David Icke, who really believes that many of our world leaders are actually hybrids of humans and reptile-aliens (in other words, the exact plot of V), spanning the political spectrum 
from the first George Bush to Hillary Clinton, and belong to the shady institution known as the Illuminati. The man is insane with a capital WTF, so naturally I love him.
But the question has to be asked, what’s up with our fondness for these reptilians? What’s the dilly-yo?
It could be that we have that very human characteristic of being inexorably drawn to the other, the bizarre, that which is unlike us, and as mammals, a reptilian creature fits that mold. When in the shape of a man, it sort of looks like us, but is actually a funhouse mirror image, a bastardization of humanity, a representation of what we might have been had evolution taken a slightly different course. Reptile men are us, when seen through a glass darkly.
Or it could be that scales are just, you know, awesome.
Suffice it to say, with the new series V doing quite well for itself in the ratings, it would seem that lizard men are here to stay, at least until we find a new animal-man hybrid upon which to languish our affection. Personally, I’m leaning in favor of Bird Men. What do you think?
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Lucy
http://smallpet.info
Seeing how your post has a substantial gap between Biblical times and the 1980s, I feel compelled to point out that Robert E. Howard’s Serpent Men, upon which John Milius’ Thulsa Doom appeared to be inspired, first appeared in 1929’s “The Shadow Kingdom.” Lovecraft and Clark Ashton Smith seemed to love the guys too, and included them in their own stories.
What about the Slestak? Those appeared to be very much reptilian in nature…
I suspect that you’re right, reptiles exist somewhere in the realm of “weird animal that you can’t really empathize with”. They’re a little disconcerting.
Personally, I’m more perturbed by our collective societal fascination with Saw movies.
Ha!