The portions of across answers contained in blocks added to the grid are items obtained from blocks in the game Super Mario Bros: mushroom, star, coin, flower and one-up. Omitted letters in the wordplay form the protagonist MARIO.
Clues
Across
COMPLEX (involved) + SENTENCE (judgement)
9 Odd bits of tissue — tissue Maud used for fancy wrapping TSUTSUMU
Letters in odd positions of "tissue — tissue Maud"
10 Heads to shop, hearing it's raining, put on dry clothing T-SHIRT
Head letters of "shop, hearing it's raining" 'put on' TT (dry)
11 It might give you visions of children's character with charming sentimentality MAGIC MUSHROOM
ROO (children's character) with MAGIC (charming) + MUSH (sentimentality)
12 Thrills with TV wheeler-dealer 'misplacing' books and getting new source of funds KICKSTARTER
KICKS (thrills) with TROTTER (TV wheeler-dealer) misplacing OT (Old Testament, books)
13 Swindle police and hospital departments at the same time COINCIDENT
CON (swindle) + CID, ENT (police and hospital departments)
14 In the Middle East, not starting to drink Bacardi rum ARABIC
Anagram of BACARDI without first letter of 'drink'
15 Pride wounded by small animal found scary SPIDER
Anagram of PRIDE by S (small)
16 Light seen when futuristic computer has gone awry HALOGEN
HAL (futuristic computer) + anagram of GONE
17 Religious observance sees 200-fold increase moving to simpler duties? DEMOTION
DEVOTION (religious observance) with V (5 as a roman numeral) increased 200-fold to M (1000)
18 Stream record, one indebted to 60s movement FLOWER POWER
FLOW (stream) + EP (record) + OWER (one indebted)
19 Like modern electronics available in white/chrome HI-TECH
Hidden in "white/chrome"
20 Human spine damaged by pressure of constantly trying to reach higher? ONEUPMANSHIP
Anagram of HUMAN SPINE + P (pressure)
21 For model of short-term climate change see chart of water WEATHER FORECAST
Change (ie rearrange) SEE CHART OF WATER
Down
2 Liking a page with dainty / one narrating poems from Twycross I anthologised APPETITE/OSSIAN
A + P (page) + PETITE (dainty) / hidden in "Twycross I anthologised"
3 Unusual trees, fortified with a bit of permineralization? PETRIFIED FOREST
Anagram of TREES FORTIFIED and P ('a bit of' permineralization)
4 To bewilder wingless birds, / mammal and I show patience EMUS/BEAR WITH ME
BEMUSE (to bewilder) without its 'wings' / literal description of phrase
5 Providing poem, / poet snuck his works into charity enterprises IF/SOUP KITCHENS
Two definitions ('providing', 'poem') / anagram of POET SNUCK HIS (the set of letters 'works [itself] into' the answer)
6 Musical's hard song / evident murder when covered by celebrity HAIR/NOTICEABLE
H (hard) + AIR (song) / ICE (as a verb, murder) 'covered by' NOTABLE (celebrity, both have roughly synonymous noun and adjective senses)
7 Over-optimistic annotation found in terror / E-copy? PANGLOSSIC/ECHO
GLOSS (annotation) inside PANIC (terror) / two definitions ('E' as a Nato phonetic alphabet letter, 'copy')
8 Active genetic material I place back in vehicles for science demos? CARTESIAN DEVILS
LIVE DNA I SET (active genetic material I place) backwards inside CARS
Notes
Certainly the biggest problem with this puzzle was that initially I didn't include word counts in the clues, as I couldn't see a way of clearly providing them for down clues without giving away the locations of the double-clue splits. Hopefully the system I've now implemented is clear. It is certainly indefensible not to indicate multi-word answers without an exceptionally good reason. Solvers will quite reasonably (consciously or not) assume a single-word answer unless there is an indication to the contrary.
The '?' blocks appear in the online grid in roughly the colours from the original Super Mario Bros game, from which the selection of items is taken. I think that 1-up mushrooms and stars mostly if not exclusively appear in hidden blocks disguised as bricks or thin air rather than visible '?' blocks, but I choose to assume that behind their disguises these are 'really' just normal '?' blocks, legitimising the use of the symbol for all five blocks.
At his best recollection, the setter has in his lifetime owned six distinct copies of the game Super Mario Bros.
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