Today's Times crossword includes our familiar friends EEL, ELAN, ELS, EMIT, ERIE and LEI. "Smallville family" is KENTS. In the Superman radio serial, Eben and Sara Kent discovered the spacecraft in which Kal-El traveled from Krypton to earth. They adopted him and named him Clark. In the Superman comic books, Clark's adoptive parents were originally named John and Mary and later became Jonathan and Martha. They both died shortly after Clark graduated from high school. Or did they? Several times over the past 50 years, the story of Superman's origin and early years has been revised. In one version, Jonathan and Martha were still alive when Clark was an adult. In another version, Jonathan died of a heart attack. In the latest storylines, neither Jonathan nor Martha is alive. And don't get me started on Clark's marriage to Lois Lane! In the current continuity, that didn't happen! How can DC comics talk about "continuity" when they keep changing the continuity?
In The NEA crosswords appearing in the Glendale News-Press. They are 13x13 and never have a theme. Ever. And the smaller grid means that each puzzle will include a very high number of overused words. Today's includes ABET, ALP, APSE, ELF, ELI, ELSE, ILL, IRA, PAL and the Roman numerals III...but it also includes the seldom-used word PELICAN. That, of course, brought to mind this limerick written in 1910 by Dixon Lanier Merritt:
A wonderful bird is the pelican.
His bill can hold more than his belican.
He can hold in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I'm damned if I know how the helican.
