Classic comics rallying cry / WED 6-10-20 / Angrily abandon video game / Boundary marking limits of black hole / The ___ Erwin Show 1950s sitcom

Constructor: Amanda Rafkin and Ross Trudeau

Relative difficulty: Easy (3:58 on an oversized 16x15 grid)

THEME: AVENGERS, ASSEMBLE! (62A: Classic comics rallying cry ... or a hint to 18-, 30- and 49-Across)— names of three different Avengers embedded in the themers:

Theme answers:

• ASSISTANT MANAGER (18A: Second-in-charge, as at a restaurant)
• EVENT HORIZON (30A: Boundary marking the limits of a black hole)
• THROW A SPIRAL (49A: Toss the pigskin perfectly)

Word of the Day: The Avengers (62A) —

The Avengers are a fictional team of superheroes appearing in American comic books published by Marvel Comics. The team made its debut in The Avengers #1 (cover-dated Sept. 1963), created by writer-editor Stan Lee and artist/co-plotter Jack Kirby. The Avengers is Lee and Kirby's renovation of a previous superhero team, All-Winners Squad, who appeared in comic books series published by Marvel Comics' predecessor Timely Comics.

Labeled "Earth's Mightiest Heroes", the Avengers originally consisted of Ant-Man, the Hulk, Iron Man, Thor, and the Wasp. Ant-Man had become Giant-Man by issue #2. The original Captain America was discovered trapped in ice in issue #4, and joined the group after they revived him. A rotating roster became a hallmark of the series, although one theme remained consistent: the Avengers fight "the foes no single superhero can withstand." The team, famous for its battle cry of "Avengers Assemble!", has featured humans, mutants, Inhumans, deitys, androids, aliens, legendary beings, and even former villains. (wikipedia)

This concept is cool, and the revealer is a nice touch (it's also the reason the puzzle is 16-wide). But the thing about the Avengers is that it's a rotating group of characters, so having three feels bizarre. It's a random sampling of three, meaningless as a set (i.e. there's no incarnation of Avengers that is just these three). There is the original set of five Avengers, and it would've been super-cool to see the original band get back together, but a. that would require a bigger, possibly a Sunday-sized puzzle, and b. good luck embedding either HULK or IRON-MAN inside a longer phrase. SHUL KID? HAIR ON MANDIBLE? I don't think the Ideal of this theme is attainable. So we have this, which feels light. Like a meeting with so many absentees that you don't really have a quorum so everyone goes home and you send out one of them Doodle polls to see if you can find a time slot where *everyone* can meet. Like that. Like the idea, like the revealer, saddened by the weak turnout. Also saddened by THROW A SPIRAL, which is definitely a member in good standing of the EAT A SANDWICH Society (dedicated to spreading "[blank] A [blank]" chaos throughout griddom). The fill was just fine, maybe a little above average, with RAGEQUIT (11D: Angrily abandon a video game) ("... or crossword puzzle," it might have added) and BEATBOXERS (9D: Vocal percussionists) being the real highlights.


First themer I got was EVENT HORIZON and immediately thought, "Oh, sh*t, I made this puzzle before!" Actually, the puzzle I made had Norse gods in it (THOR, ODIN, LOKI ... I forget the last one ... TYR? HEL?). That puzzle was rejected by Patrick Berry back when he was editing the Chronicle of Higher Education puzzle (that rejection was so thoughtful and taught me a lot about the difference between elegant and merely good). It was rejected largely on the grounds that he'd run something similar recently, but I didn't do anything with it. Then the same theme turned up in the NY Sun, in a puzzle made by Joon Pahk. I think I called it "Divine Intervention." Or maybe that's what Joon / Peter Gordon called their version. The whole reason I made my version of that theme was because I had heard that Shortz had never (at that time) heard of HELLO KITTY, that he had in fact told a veteran constructor (female) that that answer was not well known enough to be in the grid. This was in the late '00s (... ... ... ?). So I was like "Must ... Make ... HELLO KITTY ... Puzzle!" And I noticed that HELLO KITTY had LOKI embedded in it, and bam, a theme idea was born. (A NYT version of this theme eventually appeared; you can read about it here) Side note: LOKI is the antagonist in the very first Avengers story arc. Where was I? Oh, right, the THOR answer ... but then I got the ANTMAN answer and it turned out not to be a Norse gods puzzle at all. Which is probably for the best.


Trouble spots:

• 3D: Cover, as a car (INSURE)— definitely did not grasp the idiomatic meaning of "cover" here
• 15A: Dubliner's land (EIRE)— guessed wrong (ERIN), ugh
• 41A: Comedian Martin (DEMETRI) — I know his name, but man do I not know how to spell it. I wanted more "I"s for sure
• 32D: Rise from bed or drop to one's stomach (HIT THE DECK) — I absolutely do not know the meaning of this phrase as it relates to the first part of this clue. Rise from bed!? Yeesh. Also, I was somehow thinking "drop to one's stomach" had something to do with a sinking feeling *in* one's stomach ... or eating something heavy, maybe (??)
• 38D: Affect in a distant, menacing way (LOOM OVER) — also the answer to the question, "Hey, who moved my loo?"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

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