It's a smidge weirder than that.
Gale and Tinker Oddcog were both originally sample superheroes from our 2002 book Four-Color to Fantasy, which was one of the early swarm of d20 superpowers products. One of our sample settings was Steampunk Fantasy London, and Gale was the misunderstood hero hated by the public, while Tinker was the inventor gone mad. Gale, sure, was a Storm analogue, but I also just like lightning.
Then in maybe 2003 EN World was in the habit of hosting Ceramic DM competitions, where pairs of writers would have to take the same set of weird images and work them into a story. For one of my stories I basically wrote the backstory of what went on during the construction of the colossus (who I don't think had a name yet). I pulled Tinker out of my pocket as a quirky side character who helped the protagonist Alexander Grappa (inspired by the idea of Professor Xavier, but only telepathic with constructs) trying to escape Leone (directly inspired by Magneto) and free Kasvarina (no superhero affiliation) from a subterranean complex.
In 2004 I ran a game that would be the inspiration for ZEITGEIST, where I took that backstory and spooled it out into a whole plot with a global conspiracy called the Obscurati. One of the PCs was Wolfgang von Recklinghausen, and his 'son' (who I don't think had a name at the time) was just Frankenstein's monster, basically, not Wolverine. Tinker came back as a villain.
Things from that game that did not make it into ZEITGEIST: a crappy Island of Doctor Moreau rip-off, which was my excuse to play out a gag from Adult Swim about who would win in a fight between a crocodile with wings and a shark with a jet pack; also, the bad idea of starting the PCs as deserters from the military, so they fled all drama and danger instead of actually caring about their country.
Things that did get in: Asrabey Varal and all his gear (which in that game the party totally stole when they deserted); also one PC was basically a 'Hammer Brother' from Super Mario, working for a dragon crime boss, which got split into Lorcan Kell and the Beran dragon tyrants.
