Tom Jackman

Real Name: Tom Jackman

Identity/Class: Human mutate

Occupation: Scientist

Affiliations: Claire Jackman, Katherine Reimer, Miranda Calender

Enemies: Ms Utterson, Benjamin Lennox, Peter Syme

Known Relatives: Claire Jackman (wife), Eddie, Harry (sons), unidentified father (deceased), Sofia Jackman (Mrs. Utterson, mother), Edward Hyde (Henry Jekyll, ancestor)

Aliases: Mr. Hyde, Uncle Billy

Base of Operations: London, UK

First Appearance: Jekyll (BBC 1, 16th June 2007)

Powers/Abilities: Hyde possesses heightened senses, sufficient to identify people by smell, and can feel his own blood moving through his veins; he can tell if a woman normally wears a certain perfume brand, even if she is wearing another perfume at the moment, and he can tell if someone is lying to him, something he does not like. His strength is superhuman, sufficient to overpower and kill a grown lion, then throw its corpse several metres, but not enough to break steel chains, and his agility is above normal, allowing him to scale buildings with casual grace. He has enhanced endurance and control over his own body; he can hold poison gas in his mouth without taking it into his lungs, stop his heart and breathing for several minutes, then exhale the gas back out his mouth, all without sustaining injury. He can also suffer being shot dozens of times and continue to move and function, albeit badly injured; he also heals faster than regular humans. He can access his own and his alter ego Tom's memories with perfect clarity, as if watching a video, complete with pause and rewind functions; he can also access his ancestor Henry Jekyll / Edward Hyde's memories in a similar fashion. His transformation between Jackman and Hyde is a genuine physical change, despite the relatively minor difference in appearances between the two personalities - his hair darkens, his hairline moves down, his eyes darken greatly, he grows a couple of inches, loses weight, and his jawline alters. He draws on external electrical energy to power the change, often resulting in fluctuations in nearby electrical lighting, and either party can, by choice, prevent injuries they have sustained from being transmitted to the other. When angered, Hyde's blackened irises expand, and he manifests fangs. Tom's change into Hyde can be triggered by conscious decision at a set time, or by anger, fear or arousal; Hyde can also come through if Tom is asleep.

History: Tom Jackman was, unknown to himself, the descendent of Edward Hyde, a powerful, amoral version of Dr. Henry Jekyll, whose love for his maid, Alice, had unwittingly triggered a transformation into Hyde, and whose brief life and demise was fictionalised by the writer Robert Louis Stevenson; a friend of Jekyll, Stevenson realised the doctor was lying when he claimed the transformation was caused a formula, but maintained that fiction in his novel. Hyde's villainy brought about his own demise, but though Jekyll died without issue, Hyde sired a child. Hyde's bloodline retained their forebear's transformative power, though it didn't normally manifest itself, and they generally remained unaware of it. Meanwhile a medical research firm, Klein and Utterson, spent the 20th century trying  unsuccessfully to recreate Jekyll's formula, hoping it would lead to lucrative medical advances. As technology improved, they focused their hopes on cloning Hyde, but the results were horribly deformed and yielded nothing useful.

One of the Hyde descendents who did transform was Sofia Jackman. In the late 1960s she abandoned her newborn son, Tom, hoping to protect him from her alter-ego. However, Sofia's "Hyde" became involved with Klein and Utterson, perhaps by marriage as she took the name Mrs. Utterson; while they were seemingly unaware of her condition, the company learned of Tom Jackman, and monitored the boy. Having figured out that Jekyll's maid was the real catalyst for his change, Klein and Utterson successfully cloned Alice; unaware of her true origins, the clone, Claire, had a relatively normal childhood. To keep Tom close, Klein and Utterson hired him once he reached adulthood, and later manipulated events so that he and Claire met. As the company intended, they swiftly became romatically involved and eventually married. Eventually Claire's presence in Tom's life triggered his transformation into Hyde, and Klein and Utterson abducted him and his family, intending to purge Tom's persona and experiment on Hyde. Instead, the normally self-serving Hyde sacrificed himself to save Tom's family, as he loved them too, despite his claims to the contrary. Tom survived, seemingly cured of his condition, and eventually tracked his mother down, only to learn the hard way that she too had an alter-ego.

Comments: Created by Steven Moffat, inspired by the Robert Louis Stevenson tale, and played by James Nesbitt.

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with

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