Holding Out For A Hero (Meta)

Tough one!

Lots of green things in the grid. Not a clue where to find the second part.

Yeah, definitely needed all of the nudges. Clever -- don't think I've ever seen something like this before. And it does look like a lantern when you shade it in. Thanks, Ben!

This was tough for me, not really being among the comics 6D. Clever puzzle, though.

Got it with nudges! That was very tricky!

Wow. Felt a bit like one of those skeleton crosswords where you have to fill in the black squares lol. Would never have got it without nudges, but very cool idea!

Finally got it somehow (after additional help with the missing words to enable me to complete the design) - by osmosis, I suppose. Or perhaps is was THE FLASH who came to my rescue...Very clever idea and ingeniously executed.

Sigh. After nudge 3 I noticed all the green things, but lantern was my 3rd try after hornet and arrow. So I guess I WAGged it with nudges. Now that I'm in, I see the explanation in the comments here.

Took me until Nudge #3 (to be fair, I already had been told #1 and deduced #2) to realize it was probably Green Lantern (hero with all those greens, but it could have been Green Hornet because of the "Bee"). i then looked for all of the things that were green (of course I did not notice them before...) and still wasn't sure but I did see they surrounded EARWAX and WICK, and remembering the opening of Shrek when he made a lantern out of earwax (eww!) I went with Green Lantern. I see later that I could have colored (or even coloured) in all the greens to form the lantern, Nice idea and tough puzzle mainly because it is different. You did indeed channeled your inner Josh.

OK, now after reading I see the wick was important, the earwax not so much. Never saw the propane, at least not to tie it in. Here is something else that I happened to see when Googling things to confirm, there is apparently a "brand" of cannabis called Panacea Green Lantern! https://shopdtla.stiiizy.com/dispensary/stiiizy-dtla-los-angeles-1/product/panacea-1g-live-rosin-green-lantern-7

I finally got it! It took me a while and some wrong guesses because even with the nudges I didn't recognize what it was supposed to be at first. Then it hit me just before bed. Very cool, the wick and propane are nice touches!

Nicely done! But I admit I needed all the hints; I noticed the green things (except the bee) but I'm so bad at the visual metas...

Not sure why all the green stuff didn't pop before googling the BEE (which I would never have thought to do). Never seen SHREK, so I think I was too worried that knowledge of the movie would be required or something. Once I googled the name and saw that it was green I quickly found the rest, but it wasn't until I looked back at the prompt that Green Lantern occurred to me. Was trying to decide if what I had circled constituted a lantern or not, but then I thought to google green lantern to see what the logo actually looked like and that was a clear match. Didn't see PROPANE until after I'd solved, and didn't notice WICK until coming here and reading. Fun stuff, and not sure why it was so tough in retrospect (though I suppose grid art is not usually one of my strong points).

Third time's the charm! Lots of green heroes. Finally saw WICK and PROPANE and the shape. Cool construction!

WOW I was all over the place with this one, before the nudges. John Cleese had a couple cameos (King Harold in Shrek, BASIL Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, and of course a member of 41A Monty Python) … all coincidence? So I spent a good bit of time looking up other roles, seeing if I could make something out of that … did he ever play a clear hero? I also rewatched that earwax candle scene from Shrek (https://youtu.be/inStPQaAgdM?si=mPrGVXfXU4YVe6cb) to see if there were clues… still disgusting as ever. The colored pencil nudge and the “two central clues” finally turned on the light… er, lantern. I do like how you got the wick (mantle) central and vertical in the grid!

Oh, that kind of mantle! My lantern resembled a building -- The Daily Planet -- and I first guessed Superman (admittedly, the guy's not green.) Also wondered if it was a birthday cake. (The MOAT puzzle still on my mind. :)) Finally, after Hulk and another one or two guesses, it all came together for me. Duh -- I need remedial drawing lessons! Thanks for the puzzle, Ben!

I think the title threw me off or didn’t help get things going. Maybe something like “I’m Envious” would have gotten us off to a better start. Really cool. Wish I didn’t need all the nudges.

Very fun! I'd love to get more insight into your thought process into making this. Did you decide on the meta / grid art and then try to fit in green-themed answers first?