Justice League of America

Whoops, caught me napping. The events of the last few weeks have upset my normal routine. Anyway, today's MMM is one of my creations, dutifully whipped into shape by Abide. I am going to say it is about a week 2.5-3 difficulty level just because recognizing what I'm thinking may be harder for some (heck even I don't always know what I am thinking so don't judge yourselves by that)

Nice break from MGWCC. Thanks Dr. Tom.

This is definitely not the Justice League of America that I test solved way back when. Many of the clues were different -- even the answer was different. It was like doing a whole new puzzle. But I managed to get the correct answer nonetheless. Thanks, Dr Tom@

Very nice. Was GRIER a hint or just fortuitous?

Good puzzle.

A TOPBANANA has lots of a peel. (But now I have to split!)

I wonder if you could also make this idea work with eight of the JLA superheroes. As I recall from my youth, there was MARTIAN MANHUNTER. Hmm … Less one letter — as, say, MARTINMANHUNTER — that could, I suppose, be your center entry. If you could figure out a fair way to clue it. (“Simpsons character who changed his last name to honor his favorite movie, the 1986 thriller that introduced Hannibal Lecter to the screen.” Yuck.)

Tricky. Thanks

We had fun with this but no way we could have done this without the Internet... Although Alex got 5 of them without help. Who knew so many justices have similar names?

In retrospect, I realized and liked the many little hints in clues. Especially like the way SCALiA (my way in, as I recall) segued into ARIA. (RBG would approve:))

Finally got to the finish line - saw the SCALA/SCALIA notion immediately, and thought maaaaybe he's not talking superheroes, but didn't see another quickly enough so I abandoned that rabbit hole. Dumb, dumb, dumb.

More promising was 44A, whose answer I thought was BOW. It was AFT, but BOW was elsewhere in the puzzle... AHA! Jersey word: TWINS?? One who argues for you to do the right thing? LAMA?? But that petered out quickly...

But after solving, it was interesting to go back and see the very subtle signposts in the clueing amidst the trademarked DrTom cleverness. Nicely constructed, DrTom!

Thanks for a nice aha moment. The misdirection was strong, but the hints at what the puzzle was really about were there and fair.

Gotta say though, I still can't figure out where the S comes from. The rest of the letters I got and the answer seemed clear.

A fun and funny one as always. Thanks Tom!

Finally off the couch with the nudges. Which is embarrassing because I'm a lawyer who avidly follows the Supreme Court. Can't believe I didn't see Scalia staring me plain in the face. Oh well, onto the next one!

Definitely took some thinking outside of the (jury) box. Thanks, DrTom!

Fun as always! Thank you for sharing

Wow! That was tough and I needed a couple of the nudges, along with Google. Thanks

Needed the nudges but finally got it! Thanks, Dr Tom

It was tough! The only US justices I know by name are crosswordese to me. Thanks for the puzzle (and the nudges)!

I went in a wrong direction at first, but got it after the hints! Thx for the puzzle!