Ahoy Comics is about to unleash one of its wildest, most radioactive showdowns yet with The Toxic Avenger vs. The Noxious Offender, a five‑part comic book event written by Matt Bors and brought to life with the neon‑charged intensity of artist Felipe Sobreiro. As is his norm, Bors taps into the anarchic spirit of Troma while sharpening it with his trademark satirical edge, creating a clash that’s as corrosive as it is timely. Today, we sit down again with Matt to dig into the origins, tone, and sheer spectacle powering this can’t‑miss series.
Inspirations for The Toxic Avenger vs. The Noxious Offender
GVN: Thank you once again for sharing a moment with us, Matt. It’s fitting that we are discussing Toxie again, as we last spoke about the TPB of “Toxie Team Up” in January of this year. Now, your new series with artist Felipe Sobreiro brings Troma’s cult icon once again into a new comics showdown. What sparked the idea to pit the Toxic Avenger against the Noxious Offender, and what excited you most about shaping this clash?
BORS: Automatic weaponry. I envied The Noxious Offender as dropping the mop and picking up uzis. Dropping the girl and the concerns for innocents and being an unrestrained menace. He is, in some ways, a badass. He kills and gives people permission to lash out. But underneath it, he’s pathetic, he’s unloved, he’s a real piece of shit! So I was excited about exploring what being a piece of shit would be like.
In this new series, Toxie and Yvonne are preparing to become parents—young parents, which is a choice people are making less and less these days. They’re from Tromaville, not upwardly mobile professionals, and they aren’t putting off having kids for decades. I’m a parent myself and I wanted to take that seriously—why have a kid in this shitty world? Why burden yourself with it? What is the role of a parent? We have some uncomfortable, disgusting answers.
GVN: As we have talked about in previous discussions, your work continues to blend sharp political satire with absurdist humor. How did you calibrate the tone for this new book to maintain Troma’s chaotic spirit while still delivering your signature commentary?
No Pressure
BORS: I don’t put any pressure on myself with that. Maybe if I was making a movie I would feel it more, but since we’re doing a comic book, it seems like it’s a side thing and not messing with anyone’s canonical interpretation of their favorite film. So we have a little room to play with things and I’ve been very focused on riding the line between some reverence for the character and doing completely new things. We do want to keep the spirit true, but I’m not trying to just deliver mere fan service.
Ultimately, a comic book is simply not going to be good for existing fans or new readers unless it has some surprises. You just can’t play the hits over and over. Fans think they want that sometimes, but they don’t—they want a new spin on things, new approaches, new outcomes. We are taking this concept of the Noxious Offender and going in an entirely new direction with it.
Working with Felipe Sobreiro
GVN: I mentioned your collaboration with the talented Felipe Sobreiro whose art has a wild, neon‑charged intensity. How did your collaboration influence the pacing, visual gags, or overall energy of Issue #1?
BORS: Felipe colors Justice Warriors, which I create with Ben Clarkson. It’s our dystopian mutant cop satire with AHOY (which had a crossover with the Toxic Avenger last year). I love Felipe and getting to work with him as an artist has been a treat because his style fits the Troma world so well.
Fred Harper and Tristan Wright bring their own sensibilities to the books and Felipe fits in well. He has a nice clean lined, detailed style that is good for goop and guts and gore. Seeing the initial first pages he turned in ended up inspiring directions I took. We’re feeding off each other, which is what I want in a collaborator. The final page of issue two really changed the direction on a few things because Felipe killed it on an unsettling concept and I just felt it had to be pursued more, so I worked it more into the writing. You’ll see. Check out the egg pods.
“Highbrow Lowbrow Comics”
GVN: Throughout your reinvention of “Toxie,” you have maintained your emphasis on the decades of history and fiercely loyal fanbase that surrounds the Toxic Avenger. As you work on each new saga, how has your approach changed regarding updating the character for modern readers while preserving the grime-covered charm that defines him?
BORS: I like to make highbrow lowbrow comics. I want smart people to say it’s stupid and stupid people to say it’s smart. We’re looking to send all levels of intelligence into a sequential stupor. Our last arc, “Toxie Goes to Washington,“ was by far the most political story we have told. There, we took Toxie to the White House to pass environmental legislation, killed a few presidents, and took on a Cyborg Nazi Senator.
The Noxious Offender is about family. This book is really about the decision to become a parent, whether or not you pass down your bad traits, and where those bad traits come from. Under different circumstances, would you become a terrible parent or a vile killer?
There will be people getting their faces ripped off too and plenty of body horror—that’s part of pregnancy and birth too. So for this arc, I wanted to zero in on our characters, including villains like Bonehead, the aggrieved mom of Toxie’s main bully, and get in their heads, figure out who they are deep down inside. It’s not all pretty in there.
Defining the Antagonist
GVN: You are bringing The Noxious Offender for the first time to a comic series with a very Bors‑esque edge. What went into crafting your interpretation of this antagonist, and how does he reflect the themes you wanted to explore?
BORS: When you do this dark universe counterpart in comics, it’s very common so you have to think of a new angle. I wanted to present something a little shocking: Noxie was a school shooter who annihilated his high school classmates—and that’s before he mutated. When you explore the inverted character, you are figuring out what makes the hero tick and reordering that to turn them into a villain. For Noxie, it was about how he was raised—and by whom—that affected how he responded to the bullying we have shown him go through.
Noxie became a school shooter and then laid down on the train tracks to die. Those train tracks delivered the same chemical waste spill that transformed our Toxie. In our series, the mutation made Noxie even worse. He’s vengeful and has nothing to live for—no Yvonne, no child on the way. In Toxie he sees the heroic version of himself and he wants to blow him to bits.
Ahoy: A Creative Sandbox
GVN: AHOY Comics is a favorite creative sandbox for smart, irreverent genre storytelling. How has your work with them shaped your creative freedom, structure, or the comedic rhythm of the series?
BORS: AHOY is fond of saying they’re like Vertigo, but funny, and I’ve always liked that approach. Tom Peyer and Stuart Moore hail from the original Vertigo era, which I revere as a creator and, like AHOY, I have a penchant for satire. That is what makes them such a great publisher to work for.
I like meaty satirical concepts and ultra violence and I’m able to spread out and do that in both Toxic Avenger and Justice Warriors. There is never a concern that we are getting too political. Not in this era!
Planning a Wild Ride
GVN: Thanks again, Matt. Finally, with Issue #1 dropping in October, what can readers expect as the rivalry escalates (without spoiling anything) — and how wild are you planning to let this series get?
BORS: We’re going to throw a few curveballs at the readers. For those who have been following along, the Smogulan aliens are still lurking in the background… and they have a role in all of this.
Huge thanks once again to the incredibly talented Matt Bors for breaking down the creative ooze behind The Toxic Avenger vs. The Noxious Offender. This series is shaping up to be one of Ahoy’s most gloriously unhinged event books — a collision of satire, sludge, and superhero grime that refuses to pull its punches. With Felipe Sobreiro’s explosive art fueling every beat, the road ahead looks loud, wild, and unmistakably toxic.
TOXIE VS. NOXIE #1 by Matt Bors and Felipe Sobreiro—featuring covers by Bors, Troma Entertainment, and Greg Scott—spawns in a comic shop near you this October 2026!
Senior Writer at GeekVibesNation – I am a 60 something child of the 70’s who admits to being a Star Trek/Star Wars/Comic Book junkie who once dove headfirst over a cliff (Ok, it was a small hill) to try to rescue his Fantastic Four comic from a watery grave. I am married to a lovely woman who is as crazy as I am and the proud parent of a 21-year-old young man with autism. My wife and son are my real heroes.
