Throughout much of his career, Jerry Siegel was a workhorse, churning out multiple stories for multiple feature — at times for multiple companies — all within the same month. In the mid 1960s, Siegel was winding down his second run with DC Comics, writing for a hefty amount of the super-hero line for Archie Comics (featuring the Mighty Crusaders), and began writing for Lion, a weekly comic published by Fleetway in the U.K.
Features written by Siegel for Lion include the British character the Spider (not to be confused with the American pulp hero of the same name) and Siegel’s own creation, Gadgetman and Gimmick-Kid.
Gadgetman was millionaire businessman and head of the Travis Corp., Burt Travis. Aided by “lab apprentice,” Gary Stewart, a.k.a. Gimmick Kid, the two used various inventions and devices of their own creation to battle crime and colorfully named villains such as King Zombie, the Mad Mummmy and the Trickster and his Brain Men.
Gadgetman first appeared in the May 4, 1968, issue of Lion, which featured the penultimate chapter of Siegel’s seventh Spider story on the cover.
They didn’t make the cover in that first appearance, but did by at least their fourth, staring down the Taunting Titan (a waterskiiing robot … seriously).
The popularity of the strip isn’t clear, but the strip lasted only until the October 26, 1968, issue of Lion. Siegel’s run on the Spider would end soon after, concluding with the end of his ninth story in the February 1, 1969, issue. (That feature ended its run in the magazine the following spring. According to some sources, the influx of American comics at the time was causing Lion’s sales to take a hit, and the magazine soon shifted its focus to non-superhero genre tales.)
The good folks over at Super I.T.C.H. have posted three Gadgetman and Gimmick-Kid installments, crediting Geoff Campion as the artist. None of Siegel’s Gadgetman stories have ever been reprinted in the U.S. that I’m aware (though I believe some were reprinted in France in the mid 1970s), so get them while you can!
Special thanks to Brad Ricca and his blog for the heads up on the Super I.T.C.H. post!
