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LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: “They Turn Into Superheroes” by Quiara Vasquez
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is a heroic group.
Answer: The X-MEN, found by 244 solvers, of which 148 were solo

You think you’ve seen all the Greek-letter metas, and then Quiara does this! Lovely and original idea, the first step of which wasn’t much trouble at all: each of the five long theme entries concealed a Greek letter:

18-A: [Where it stops?] = FREEZE TAG (concealing zeta)
20-A: [Overshadowing] = ECLIPSING (concealing psi)
38-A: [German vice chancellor under Angela Merkel] = SIGMAR GABRIEL (concealing sigma)
60-A: [Outmoded tech that stores data on magnetized strips] = AUDIOTAPE (concealing iota). Sigh, the technology of my childhood/teenage years is now discussed like it’s from the Stone Age…
62-A: [Movie that beat “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” for the Best Visual Effects Oscar] = EX MACHINA (concealing chi)

So those five can’t be a coincidence, but what now? First thing: write down those Greek characters themselves (as opposed to their names):

So we’ve got five Greek letters, but now what? We haven’t used the title yet, so let’s “turn” the page 90 degrees counterclockwise and see what happens. Suddenly you’ve got four letters of the English alphabet plus a hyphen, and they spell X-MEN! That is so cool — the very idea of it (turning Greek letters on their side) and then finding X-MEN as a revealer, with the iota as the dash — that’s inspired. I give it the highest compliment I can muster: 51% nice job, Quiara! and 49% unmitigated self-rage that I never thought of this myself. So simple, so hard to see until you see it, so nicely executed. One of my favorite metas of the year thus far, and check out some of Quiara’s other work here.

Tough act to follow, but someone’s gotta do it…

GUEST CONSTRUCTOR MONTH, PUZZLE #3:

Our third Guest Constructor is Tom Burnakis. Tom is a retired health-care practitioner who used to avoid meta-puzzles like the plague until he finally solved a couple, and now he is totally smitten. If you are not an Xword-muggle (Xword-Muggles.com) you probably have never seen anything he has done unless you read medical journals. But he has had a number of puzzles on that site and says he could not be happier than to have a guest appearance on the MGWCC.

Great — let’s see what Tom has in store for Week 3 of 5…

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

This week’s contest answer is a number.

Solve well, and be not led astray by words intended to deceive.