Step aside, Wicked…  move over, Shrek…   The Toxic Avenger is here!   New York’s got another misunderstood musical theatre hero with a song in his heart, and he should be a neighbor of Manhattan’s other greenies for some time to come.

The Garden State’s first superhero crosses the Hudson straight from its critically-acclaimed world premiere at New Jersey’s George Street Playhouse.   Based on the eponymous 1985 cult horror/comedy film, it’s the old story…   Boy meets girl, local bullies dump boy into a vat of radioactive goo mutating him beyond recognition and giving him superhuman strength, boy gets girl (after dismembering said bullies, displacing a corrupt mayor, and pledging a cleaner, greener tomorrow).

The keywords here are campy, silly fun, and the show delivers in spades.   Director John Rando, visiting a parallel universe to his Tony-winning Urinetown, has assembled a crack team of mischief-makers, headed by librettist/co-lyricist Joe DiPietro (I Love You, You’re Perfect Now Change) and composer/co-lyricist David Bryan (keyboardist for Jersey-based rock band Bon Jovi).    Their score swings madly between genres, from a mock-Springsteen tune to a 60’s girl group number, to traditional musical theatre ballads, all played by a kick-butt onstage band.   (Not ones to rest on their laurels, DiPietro and Bryan’s latest collaboration, Memphis, is eyeing a fall 2009 Broadway bow.)

The five-member cast hilariously knocks themselves out in a wide variety of quick-change roles.  Steel-larynxed siren Nancy Opel scores the biggest coup as two of her characters duet in the tour-de-farce number “Bitch/Slut/Liar/Whore,” which alone is worth the price of admission.    The two-man ensemble, comprised of Matthew Saldivar (The Wedding Singer, Grease) and Demond Green (making his Off-Broadway debut, and definitely one to look for in the future!) are a hoot as cops, bullies, hairdressers, et al.   One of the miracles of this production is Nick Cordero, who strikes a perfect balance between absurdity and honesty in his performance as Melvin Ferd the Third/The Toxic Avenger, particularly in his scenes with Sara Chase who plays the prettiest, blindest librarian in Tromaville, New Jersey.

The show never flags during its intermissionless 100-minute running time as the cast scampers up and down Beowulf Boritt’s marvelous playground of a set, comprised of dozens of toxic waste barrels that ooze, spin, and open up like a gloriously fetid fun house under Kenneth Posner’s rock concert lighting.

With song titles like “Evil is Hot,” “All Men Are Freaks,”and “Kick Your Ass,” The Toxic Avenger is not exactly subtle.   But for anyone looking for a fun-filled, rip-out-your-intestines romp with a heart as big as Newark, it’s a winner – and you don’t even have to take the PATH train to get there!