Crossword-Solution: MONICKER 8 letters, 5 clues 🏆 scrabble score: 16

Instead of trying to express characteristics by a name, the very opposite effect is sought, except when the character would in real life have a "monicker," or the naming of the character in the old way would serve to relate the act more closely to its form and awaken pleasing reminiscences.

One was called Milt, in honor of the Blind Poet, and the other claimed the following brief Monicker, to wit: Henry.

For all of those years, The Eel (which was his Earth monicker; elsewhere, he was known by names indicating equally squirmy and slimy life-forms) had been gayly going his way, known under a dozen different aliases, turning up suddenly here, there, everywhere, committing his gigantic depredations, and disappearing as quickly and silently when his latest enterprise had succeeded.

But, in bravado, he signed his name to every job: his monicker flattered him, and after each malefaction the victim--usually a government agency, a giant corporation, or one of the clan enterprises of the smaller planets--would receive a message consisting merely of the impudent depiction of a large wriggling eel.