Jimmy Addison

Jimmy Addison is an arsonist and hired man on the run through the streets of Depression Era New York, a man being hunted by more than one party. When the private investigators Ben Reilly and Patrick Donegal corner him at a Standard Oil refinery, the desperate man reveals what he is, conjuring flame in his bare hands and setting his own body ablaze, untouched by the fire that pours off him.

The standoff ends in gunfire. As Addison turns his flames on Donegal, the frightened detective shoots him dead before he can burn them both alive, and the blast of igniting gas leaves the refinery in chaos. His death is no clean end to the matter, for his body later turns up in the morgue bearing only bullet wounds and no trace of burning, a corpse that raises more questions than it answers.

Appears in a war photograph with Flint Marko

Jimmy Addison appears within the memory Ben Reilly recounts of the Great War, one of the prisoners held in the German camp Ben's unit was sent to liberate. As the soldiers storm the cells and free the captives, Addison is among the men pulled out of the German experiments and set loose.

Once the prisoners have escaped and the compound is set to burn, Addison gathers with the other freed men for a photograph, the same image that would later tie the powered men together, while off to the side Ben collapses from the bite that is rewriting him. It is a glimpse of Addison years before his death, back when he was simply another rescued soldier carrying the seed of what the Germans had done to them all.