A Crossover

Answer: EISNER NOMINEE

By Ben Coukos-Wiley

The first step is filling in the crossword grid, which is completely standard.

O D I N R O R S C H A C H M E D U S A
S O H O O P E N L Y G A Y A T O N A L
A R A L B E S E E M I N G R H O M B I
K A T A N A C A R N A G E C Y B O R G
A G E N A P U K K I E L S O L D E N
H I R E C A T A N S Y E S
R S A V E R S T P I C K G E R
C H E E S E D C L I N T M E N T O
B E A S T I C I C L E P A T T E R N
S A M O A C E O M I S E R S R Y E
P R E T E N D C I V I L L Y
M O O T O S S E S G E M O U T E R
T H U N D E R N E B U L A S C O R E
G O T E M J O K E R E L E C T R O
O R C A G U T H D T V S A S S
O F F S H I G E O I A T A
A M C T H I N G S T E E L V E N O M
N E O G E O L A S C A L A L E X I L E
I G U A N A A L L O P A T H Y P E E R
M A R V E L N O O P I N I O N A C D C
A S T E R S E S T E R D E A N T E S S

The major hint to the theme comes in the clue for 87-across: "Number of the row that contains both halves of this puzzle's theme." The answer to this clue is SCORE, and looking at the twentieth row, we see MARVEL (on its own) and DC (contained within AC/DC), the two biggest publishers of superhero comics.

This clue along with the flavortext mention of "characters" hint that we should be looking for characters from Marvel and DC comics. Looking around, we can find seventeen well-known comics characters from these publishers. Notably they are all across answers and all are directly adjacent to a character from the competing publisher. In the grid below, Marvel characters are red and DC characters are blue.

O D I N R O R S C H A C H M E D U S A
S O H O O P E N L Y G A Y A T O N A L
A R A L B E S E E M I N G R H O M B I
K A T A N A C A R N A G E C Y B O R G
A G E N A P U K K I E L S O L D E N
H I R E C A T A N S Y E S
R S A V E R S T P I C K G E R
C H E E S E D C L I N T M E N T O
B E A S T I C I C L E P A T T E R N
S A M O A C E O M I S E R S R Y E
P R E T E N D C I V I L L Y
M O O T O S S E S G E M O U T E R
T H U N D E R N E B U L A S C O R E
G O T E M J O K E R E L E C T R O
O R C A G U T H D T V S A S S
O F F S H I G E O I A T A
A M C T H I N G S T E E L V E N O M
N E O G E O L A S C A L A L E X I L E
I G U A N A A L L O P A T H Y P E E R
M A R V E L N O O P I N I O N A C D C
A S T E R S E S T E R D E A N T E S S

*Note: While DC comics also has a character named Medusa, she is much less important, having only 29 appearances to the Marvel incarnation's 556.

Now we need an extraction. The title of this puzzle is "A Crossover", referencing crossover events, a comics staple wherein characters from more than one series, continuity, or even publisher will appear in a storyline together. It also sounds like "across over", which clues that we will need to connect the universes by placing a new across answer over the thematic ones.

We do this by placing new "characters" (i.e. letters) in the black squares separating the thematic acrosses, spelling out a new word between them. Each of these words connects to one of the images in the image bank, which are in alphabetical order.

O D I N E R O R S C H A C H I M E D U S A
S O H O O P E N L Y G A Y A T O N A L
A R A L B E S E E M I N G R H O M B I
K A T A N A S C A R N A G E N C Y B O R G
A G E N A P U K K I E L S O L D E N
H I R E C A T A N S Y E S
R S A V E R S T P I C K G E R
C H E E S E D C L I N T E R N M E N T O
B E A S T O I C I C L E P A T T E R N
S A M O A C E O M I S E R S R Y E
P R E T E N D C I V I L L Y
M O O T O S S E S G E M O U T E R
T H U N D E R M I N E B U L A S C O R E
G O T E M J O K E R N E L E C T R O
O R C A G U T H D T V S A S S
O F F S H I G E O I A T A
A M C T H I N G E S T E E L E V E N O M
N E O G E O L A S C A L A L E X I L E
I G U A N A A L L O P A T H Y P E E R
M A R V E L N O O P I N I O N A C D C
A S T E R S E S T E R D E A N T E S S

To extract we read the letters in each black square left-to-right top-to-bottom to reveal the answer to this puzzle - EISNER NOMINEE, i.e. a work or creator that was nominated for an Eisner award.

Crossovers paired with their respective image clue:

AGENCY
CHIME
DINERO
ELEVEN
INGEST
INTERNMENT
KERNEL
NASCAR
STOIC
UNDERMINE

Author's Notes

When I first conceptualized the fairly simple "crossover" mechanic, I had no idea how complicated it would be to implement. I initially wanted to have the crossover words be events and include a "crossover events" revealer, but that proved much too difficult. Even once I decided to have all the words be unrelated, the actual curation of the word list was time-consuming. I wanted the grid to be symmetrical, the letters to spell the answer in order, the theme words to be characters whose names are ambiguously comics-related, and the crossovers to include at least two letters from each theme word.

The breakthrough that let me fit all of this into a single 21x21 grid was realizing I could put multiple crossovers on one line. That along with a couple of multi-letter crossovers meant I essentially had seven long theme answers - doable, but still difficult. It became even more difficult when I decided the grid needed a revealer and added MARVEL, AC/DC, and SCORE during a revision.

Due to the number of constraints on the grid I had to rewrite the fill several times to bring it up to my own standards of quality, and there are still some words that stick out - CATANS and AGIA come to mind. But I'm proud of the significant improvements that I managed to make in fill quality and spiciness.

The last big change we made was changing the clues for the crossovers, which were initially synonyms, to images. I was worried about making the crossovers too obvious, but in testing we found that the images provided just the right amount of help. They also prevented some red herrings involving letters in the grid - though unfortunately the final grid did have an undetected red herring in the form of UNMODERNER/UNDERMINER.

Honorable Mentions:

I came up with lots of crossovers involving comics-related organizations, series, or publishers before deciding to limit myself to characters only. Others involved two characters but wouldn't fit in the grid. My favorite crossovers that didn't make it into the puzzle were:

  • scorpionEEredarrow
  • zoomEgambit
  • quakeSharley
  • checkmateRNalias
  • flashpointERvalkyrie
  • bladeNvertigoOgoliath
  • daredevilEstarman
  • avalancheMIcalculator

Weird Wiki Pages I Found While Researching:

DC:
Marvel: