By JOEL HARLEY
“What the hell is this thing?” ask Lloyd Kaufman and Adam Jahnke in the foreword to their THE TOXIC AVENGER: THE NOVEL. “This is not a novelization. Think of this as the big-budget Toxie remake no studio would ever greenlight in a million, billion years.”
Written in 2006 and published by Thunder’s Mouth Press, THE TOXIC AVENGER: THE NOVEL (‘snot a novelization) came two decades after the Troma cult classic, and almost two decades before the upcoming big-budget remake starring Peter Dinklage and Elijah Wood. It remains to be seen whether the still-to-be-released remake will cut out Toxie’s “glowing green balls” and “big, hairy mop,” as Lloyd fears, but this tie-in book got one thing right— predicting the rise to prominence of the tie-in not-novelization.
These days, you can’t swing a big, hairy mop without hitting a belated not-novelization of a cult classic: Silent Night, Deadly Night; Maniac Cop; Chopping Mall; Deadgirl—everyone gets one (some even get two, if you count the actual novelizations which were released the first time around, such as Black Christmas 1976 vs Black Christmas 2024). There’s never been a better time to be both a reader and a fan of cult cinema.
THE TOXIC AVENGER: THE NOVEL may have been written almost twenty years ago, but it still feels as fresh as a bucket of recently laid effluence. The Make Your Own Damn Movie co-writers and filmmakers set out with a mission statement in mind—the full Troma experience, but in a book—and achieve exactly that. Even better, utilizing the Cinema of the Mind, it’s like watching a Troma movie from the 1980s without having to put up with the shonky special effects of a Troma movie from the 1980s (granted, this has its own appeal).
Featuring chapter titles such as “Melvin Takes a Dump” and “Angels, Demons and Other Assholes,’ it’s the epitome of Troma. Even better, they’ve marked the dirty bits in bold for you. Such little touches set THE TOXIC AVENGER: THE NOVEL apart from its kin, playing with format and style in a way that only the written word can.
One chapter is guest written by J.D. Salinger, while another is narrated by Oliver Stone. Meanwhile, another takes the shape of a Q&A or FAQ (although FUQ would probably have been more appropriate) as the authors answer “Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex with a Hideously Deformed Creature of Superhuman Size and Strength.” This makes the book ahead of the curve in another way too—predicting Spider-Man: Reign’s revelation about Spidey’s spider-sperm by at least a few months. Better news for Sarah than poor Mary Jane though. As Lloyd and Adam put it: “Fucking Toxie is like the greatest chemotherapy in the world … Sarah would now be immune from all cancers.” So there you have it.
Elsewhere, the book is otherwise faithful to Joe Ritter’s screenplay, depicting Melvin Ferd’s rise from 98-pound-of-solid nerd to mutant superhero The Toxic Avenger. With the film running at a brief 82 minutes, Lloyd and Adam take the opportunity to flesh out Tromaville and its inhabitants, from an eyeball-controlled rat to the various thugs and slugs Toxie encounters in his eventful rise from zero to hero.
Featuring excessive gore, vivid descriptions of lovemaking (it makes that scene in Team America: World Police look positively chaste by comparison) and a whole chapter of blind woman jokes (“hot and blind,” to be precise), it’s not for the faint of heart nor easily offended. Much like a Troma movie, really.
In the years since the film’s release, The Toxic Avenger has spawned a veritable franchise of sequels, spin-offs, comic books, children’s cartoons and toys. Of everything which has followed Melvin Ferd’s debut adventure, nothing has so perfectly distilled the essence of Citizen Toxie and his world like THE TOXIC AVENGER: THE NOVEL.
And yes, despite all the advances made by the novel, the head crushing still looks like a melon with a wig on it.
