HUMAN WRECKAGE

A Monkey Brain at Work

New York Times crossword number 1105; ten-down: Marvel Comics character played multiple times by Ian McKellen: seven letters.

Did he not die recently? This year? Last year? Superhero movies aren’t my bag. He played Gandolph in Lord of the Rings. Maybe in the Harry Potter movies too? Never seen one. Doctor Doom doesn’t fit. Who’s another baddie? Red Skull? Too many letters. Hang on, wasn’t Jean-Luc Picard the good guy? What’s his name? Patrick Stewart, that’s right. He’s in those movies they filmed on Vancouver Island, that college outside of Victoria near Colwood, Royal Something. Oaks? Roads? Rhodes? We strolled around the grounds with Ann’s brother Jim and his wife Shannon. Lovely campus. Jim mentioned X-Men was set in its castle, some of it, anyways. Picard played Professor X! X-Men, never a favourite of mine back when I read comics. Give me Spider-Man and Sgt. Rock any day. McKellen was his nemesis, but not Star Trek: Nemesis. How do I know this? Did I read a review? Why have I retained the information? Was I in the middle seat for an Air Canada flight; Ann dozing against the Perspex window and me unknowingly absorbing parts of a third party’s movie? The solution is that song on McCartney’s Venus and Mars: “You was involved in a robbery that was due to happen at a quarter to three in the main street…” Lennon said he wrote music for cartoons. Bingo! “Magneto and Titanium Man!” All right! Now, what does MAGNETO cross with? Okay, time to bust this quadrant of the puzzle open.    

meGeoff has been your most unreliable, unbalanced and inaccurate alternative source of puzzling evidence since 2013. The novella Of Course You Did is my latest book. Visit www.megeoff.com for links to purchase it in your preferred format from various retailers.