I would like to think that anyone would empathize with Jerry Siegel, the writer who, with partner Joe Shuster, had exactly one big idea, and then spent the rest of his life trying to come up with something even half as popular and profitable. But as a self identified comic writer who has never been able to quite make a living at it, I really feel for the guy. But he did have quite a few interesting failures and unfortunately Gadgetman and Gimmick-Kid was one of them. It ran in my beloved Lion starting in the May 4th, 1968 (which frankly was a little late if the editors were hoping to get on the rapidly moving superhero bandwagon) and it only lasted until the following October but it was, well, interesting. For one thing the characters were completely without context; as far as I can tell they had no secret identities and were always ”a team of gadget-masters who used their unique gadget-wizardry to combat super-crime and ultra-villainy”. And while not exactly as camp as Siegel’s work for Archie’s Mighty Heroes it was definitely over the edge of outre when it came to the bad guys, like the Taunting Titan, a giant waterskiing robot.

Sadly so far I’ve only been able to find these three installments, but the first one here is the first: