Toxic Avenger Comics #2 Review

 

Writer: Matt Bors

Artist: Felipe Sobreiro & Fred Harper

Colorist: Lee Loughridge

Production & Letterer: Rob Steen

Cover Artists: Fred Harper & Matt Bors

Trading Card Design: Tom Napolitano

Logo: Mark Kaufman

Editor: Tom Peyer

Publisher: Ahoy Comics

Price: $4.99/$5.99

Release Date: August 13, 2025

 

Senator Greene wants to tour Tromaville during her fact-finding mission. She plans to take her Clean Act to the White House. But men clad in combat gear, carrying assault rifles and other weapons, won't let her through their roadblock. Can the senior senator for New Jersey find her way into the town befouled by toxic waste? Let's pull on our hazmat suits, leap into Toxic Avenger Comics #2, and see!

 

Story

She may be traveling to her death. Her visit may change her forever. Still, Senator Greene pays Mr Grundy to take her to Tromaville. At least the ferryman doesn’t demand an obol.

 

Melvin Junko sees the toxic waste as a symptom of society. When it spilled into Tromaville, it empowered people to become who they secretly yearned to be. Melvin may regret the people he killed. He’s not a fan of how the ooze transformed him. But others see him as a model to follow.

 

In Toxic Avenger Comics #2, Sabrina likes mushrooms. She believes that Human society is corrupt, and fungus offers the way to enlightenment. When people find a corpse, the police want to question Melvin. But he prefers investigating the crime to sitting in jail.

 

Matt Bors’ story tackles the impact of Humans on our environment. Unchecked, the demands of society can extract a heavy toll on our ecosystem. Toxic Avenger Comics #2 may address the effects of pollution, avarice, and indifference in its humorously over-the-top way. Still, it reminds us to educate ourselves about the problems we face, and that causes are never more important than people.

 

Art

As a giant hand reaches toward the reader, we spot Mr Grundy's head in this forced-perspective opening page. A later panel reveals the distorted features of the fisherman’s other hand. Fred Harper shows the senator’s minders, clad in dark suits, studying the debris floating down the river. Senator Greene, the only one on the vessel wearing an orange life vest, watches as Mr Grundy reaches into the river. The local fisherman smiles as he shows his senator a fish with tentacles spouting from its mouth.

 

As the story in Toxic Avenger Comics #2 shifts to Melvin and Sabrina’s journeys, Felipe Sobreiro shows Melvin walking down a street strewn with bodies. Weapons lay on the ground, while the handles of more bladed weapons sprout from Melvin's body. Mushrooms frame Sabrina's face as she imagines her future, before trudging up a pile of refuse and crawling into a metal drum. A man wielding a knife, surrounded by others wearing frog and dolphin masks, displays a black armband bearing the letters GSCO. But the knife he leaves in a body, pinning a blood-splattered paper, reads “The Toxic Avenger was here.”

 

While Lee Loughridge portrays Senator Greene’s story and Melvin’s memories in color, he presents the main story in black, green, and red. Rob Steen fills white dialogue balloons with black uppercase letters and melting black narrative boxes with white lowercase letters. The dialogue grows bold with intonation, enlarges for elevated voices, and rarely shrinks. Sound effects enhance gunfire and showcase the transforming power of fungi in Toxic Avenger Comics #2.

 

Extras

In Franklin vs. the Flying Saucer, Tyrone Finch’s story involves a town's heritage and a visitor who dislikes pitchforks. While the story speaks to ways of breaking down cultural barriers, it evokes classic tales like The Day The Earth Stood Still, War Of The Worlds, and The Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man.” Or should that be, “To Serve Spaceman?”

 

In Scents And Susceptibility, Kirk Vanderbeek regales readers with a tale of a spinster. Having achieved her dreams of procuring a cottage surrounded by the beauty of nature, she grows enamored with the bachelor living next door. She adores everything about him. Yet, as she spends her days watering plants and reading in her picturesque garden, one quirk of his character sparks her unease.

 

A.R. Sullivan introduces Tyrone Finch's story with a grayscale image evoking a black-and-white still from a 1950s sci-fi B movie. Joe Orsak illustrates Kirk Vanderbeek's Regency Romance with a pastoral portrait spanning two pages. Thanks to Ahoy Comics and Superfan Promotions for providing a review copy.

 

Final Thoughts

Some people despise the past. Others wish to preserve it. Matt Bors’ main story, The Garden State Co-Op, in Toxic Avenger Comics #2, addresses the anger that arises as Human society sparks changes in the world we all share.

 

Rating 9.4/10

 

To look inside see my preview of Toxic Avenger Comics #2.