Make Mine Marvel

This is not my area of knowledge, so I wasn't very confident when I read the meta prompt, but I followed the clues and found a list. Whew! Amazing job fitting all that in there!

Never mind -- found it elsewhere. I'd thought SCARLET was an easter egg for Johansson.

Loved the secret message!! It’s always good to learn things.

Neat, the clue messages flew nicely under the radar. There must be a character called (something) WITCH? I don't see "Witch" in the Wikipedia pages for Infinity War or Endgame

I got the message and Google was my buddy. Thanks!

I'm going to need one bit of backsolving/google to figure the very last letter E. (I figure it has to be either machinE or dadE [money's on machine] but I don't know why).

I got a little concerned when I took the last letter of all terms when I got KKK in a row.

Great puzzle. Fun. But there are so much potential. "Attention grabbing headline", "ocular perception", etc.

Great!

Love the callback to MMM (Make Mine Marvel); perfect for the MMM thread. I actually remember this campaign (along with "Face Front!" and "'Nuff Said!") when Stan Lee used to write the back pages Ah, memories...

Luckily, or unluckily, I am a comics/DC/Marvel fan ( I had all those first issues of the various characters until my nephews raided my comics trove while I was overseas with my family - DRAT!). It almost worked to my disadvantage since there are characters called ANTON (Vanko) and NOVA (Prime). I was torn first trying to include the last latters from BOTH names (LOTS of Y's an K's that way) and then when I got to using one name the above two were problematic because the whole name (i.e. just STRANGE, not Stephen or Doctor) was not always used and some of the answers were clearly clued as part of the Mx., but some were not. As I arranged them I saw HWK YE and then thought the REDACTED clue was meant to have me fill in. I finally worked out the mechanism to give me a hawk eye towards HAWKEYE. Very "Captainesque" with all that fill Darth, NICE job!!! Thanks for the puzzle - of course now I have to go watch Avengers: Endgame (or Infinity War Part -2 depending on your preference)

Would imagine this is going to be a little sloggy for the non-Marvel fans, but I found all of them without google (though I double checked wiki to make sure I didn't miss any). Spent some time trying to find a mechanism in the clues, given 42A, then eventually parsed 38A properly. Took a little longer to realize it was just the ends of the full names, which I eventually did by realizing that the leftovers after taking out HAWKEYE were gibberish. Finally, spent some time trying to figure out the order rules, which I guess is the two acrosses followed by the downs in order of either word (so that WIDOW gets in front of TONY even though TONY is in front of BLACK). Overall fun stuff for those of us that know the MCU. :) Thanks

Solved first, then went back to find the message! Actually, researched first, solved second.

Very nice puzzle!

I must have missed the secret message? Where was it, or are we talking about the "nudge" to use the "end"?

Funny, I was an avid comic book reader when young, so I know all these characters, but today I have absolutely zero interest in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and in fact my only remaining interest is in the Superman family of comics from the late ‘50s through the mid ‘60s, which were absolutely bonkers (Fortress of Solitude, Bottle City of Kandor, Beppo the Super Monkey, Streaky the Super Cat, yellow suns vs. red suns, etc., etc., etc.) and which are, by the way, still delightfully silly to read today. Plus I continue to have Super Crushes on Lana Lang and Kara Zor-El (Supergirl)! Lynne knows and has learned to live with it.

Cool! I'm not a Marvel guy, so it took me quite a while to find all the characters. Turns out there are a LOT of characters in the MCU! They don't even fit on one Wikipedia page.

this puzzle really gave me the runaround... i figured from the themer at 38a to use the last letters, but that didnt give me anything, so i kept searching, and i chanced upon the initial secret message... which led to another secret message!... which told me to use the dang last letters and sent me back to square one!!!... i then realized which last letters i should be using (not from the first parts) and had to backsolve for widow (i was convinced that black had to match with panther somehow... though i found that black matches with a lot of marvel characters)... no worries, im laughing at it looking back

thanks for the puzzle, it was groot (i had hoped it would have been more of a snap, but that might have been disastrous)

nice puzzle... you sure crammed in a lot there... thank you google!... was "strange" meant to be by itself? I couldn't find doctor or stephen in the grid... that threw me off ever so slightly whether to consider him or not... my first go around i was listing the actors that played the characters i found and taking the last letters of their last names VAGUELY spelled out renner (RENNNN)... so i was thinking hmmm i'll just guess jeremy renner's character if i can't find anything else to do with the answers...

A lot of fun-I'm a novice at solving a meta.

Marvelous

I JUST saw the message - you are GOOD Darth! What a superb "easter egg". Oh, and the MMM was also a very nice touch.

I had no idea about the secret messages until reading the comments. Amazing! How did you do that?!!!

Phew! Finally figured it out. Didn’t know any of the characters though. Thank you Google!

Using alter egos for the five two-word characters the first names were WANDA, IRON, NATASHA, NICHOLAS and RUPERT. That gave me ANAST so I was sure that the answer HAD to be ANASTASIA KRAVINOFF. Enough that I submitted it twice thinking maybe I had made a typo!!

Wow - well done!! I was lucky to spot the messages but still stumbled due to my unfamiliarity with the genre. I was one of those looking for SCARLET Johansson et al. Thanks for the assistance and a well-crafted puzzle!

Finally got it, but only with the nudges. Had no idea about the 2 secret messages in the clues until reading the comments here. Quite a feat of construction! Well done, Darth, and thanks for the fun puzzle!

I had all the names right from the start, but I wasn't using the correct letters to get to the answer. Should have caught on to the "message" sooner. Great puzzle, Darth -- even for those of us who don't follow the Marvel Universe.

Have never seen a single movie, so I needed every single nudge and character list I could find! Although sometimes what with all the double aliases I had too many! The two 35 letter long messages were very impressively camouflaged! Thanks, Darth!

Nice! Was confused for a bit about not using the last letters of the first names, but I got there eventually!

Better late than never... Thanks for the workout, Darth!

Thank you for constructing

Got to the puzzle late...no nudges needed. Thanks Darth!