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The Toxic Avenger

The Toxic Avenger

Real Name
Melvin Ferd
First Appearance
The Toxic Avenger (April 11, 1986)
Creators
Lloyd Kaufman, Joe Ritter, Michael Herz
Team Affliations
The Toxic Crusaders [Toxic Crusaders animated series only]
Aliases
Toxie, the Monster Hero
Base of Operations
Tromaville, New Jersey
Powers
Superhuman Strength, Superhuman Endurance, Superhuman Agility, Superhuman Durability, Evil Sense
Skills and Abilities
Fighting Experience
Paraphernalia
Mop

The Toxic Avenger (AKA The Monster Hero) is a superhero in the film series of the same name.

Mitch Cohen plays the Toxic Avenger and Kenneth Kessler provides his voice. Melvin was played by Mark Torgi.  In The Toxic Avenger II and The Toxic Avenger Part III, he is played both by Ron Fazio and John Altamura. 

Origin[]

A weakling constantly harassed by bullies, Melvin Ferd III was eventually chased into a drum of toxic waste that transformed him into a hideous yet super strong monster.  Melvin decides to use his newfound strength to fight evil as the Toxic Avenger.

Biography[]

The Toxic Avenger[]

Melvin Ferd's past is largely unknown.  At the beginning of the film, he is a frail, nerdy janitor for a health club in the city of Tromaville, New Jersey.  He was constantly tormented by a group of murderous bullies who frequented the club named Bozo, Slug, Julie and Wanda.  In a final prank pulled on him, Melvin was tricked by the bullies into kissing a sheep while wearing a tutu.  The bullies then chased him around the club until he fell out of an open window on the second floor into a barrel of toxic waste.  The waste caused him to erupt in and Melvin ran home and doused the flames in his bathtub.  One he is put out, he discovers that he's been transformed into a large, disfigured monster and also finds that he is tall with inhuman strength.

Melvin decided to put his strength and anger to use by fighting crime, in particular killing the gang of the criminal Cigar Face and leaving mops on their faces as a calling card.  Melvin then tried to return home but his mother, not recognizing her son, was scared of the monstrous figure trying to enter her house and wouldn't let him in.  Meanwhile, the public began to become enamored of Melvin in his monstrous crime-fighting form, calling him simply The Monster Hero.

The Toxic Avenger went on to save Sarah, a blind woman from a gang at a Mexican restaurant.  After Melvin took her home, they got to know each other and began a romantic relationship.  Melvin continued his crime fighting career and also wenton a campaign of revenge against his former tormentors.  However, this gained the ire of Tromaville Mayor Belgoody, who was secretly in charge of the gangs of the city.  He sent gangsters to kill Melvin, but the attempted assassination failed.  When Melvin seeming murdered an innocent old woman (in fact a slaver trader), Belgoody used that as an excuse to call the National Guard to try to bring down Melvin.

Melvin, meanwhile, believes that he killed an innocent and decides to exile himself outside of the city with Sarah.  However, when the authorities finally had Melvin cornered, he was supported by the citizens of Tromaville.  Soon after, Belgoody's evil doing was revealed and the Toxic Avenger murdered the Mayor and was celebrated as a hero.

The Toxic Avenger Part II[]

In the following five years, the Toxic Avenger remained the hero of Tromaville, having completely cleaned the city of crime.  With no more villains to fight, Toxie instead put his energies into helping Claire at a shelter for the blind.  The evil organization Apocalypse Inc. destroyed the shelter in an attempt to kill Toxie (believing that destroying Tromaville was key to their plan to pollute the world's cities) and in retaliation Toxie destroyed an army of the organization's goons.  Scheming to get him out of the way, Apocalypse Inc. convinced Toxie (through his therapist) to try to find his long lost father in Japan.

While in Japan, Toxie befriends a woman name Masami who decides to help him find his father.  When they finally found them, Melvin discovered that the man he believed to be his father was yakuza boss Big Mac Junko and decided to kill him, battling his army along the way.

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