The Toxic Avenger lives in a junkyard, mops up crime in his city, made sushi of the evil Fish Man and even battled the Devil. Can he survive musical theater? As many a midnight moviegoer knows, it’s the story of Melvin Ferd III, a 90-pound weakling from the fictitious Garden State town of Tromaville. After Melvin is thrown into a vat containing radioactive waste, he becomes the Toxic Avenger (aka Toxie), a superhero who rights wrongs and out-bullies bullies. He gets the girl, too, his beloved Sarah, a blind librarian.

Not exactly a subject that Rodgers and Hammerstein would have tackled. But it has inspired two Jersey guys. The music is by David Bryan, an Edison native who is best known as a founding member of Bon Jovi, and the group’s keyboardist for 25 years. “There have been other attempts to make a musical of this,” says Bryan, 46, “but they were unsuccessful. Then we got our chance.”