Jack

Jackson let depression get to him. A severe inferiority complex took him to try medication, and after being unable to find the medicine right for him, he took to self-medication.  Which leads to debt which leads to a number of unfortunate situations.  Like poverty, and mob debt, and jailtime, in that order.

He did manage to get something out of his feelings of inferiority, eventually, with the advice and mandates of some government employees.  He isn't good enough.  He couldn't rely on himself to solve his problems.  He needed to rely on others.  First, in rehab, which was definitely fun, and then there was the dreaded support group.

It wasn't that bad.  The support group, that is.  Ideally he'd never have to go to a rehab clinic ever again. The word 'detox' will forever make him shudder.  But hearing other people who got past the same missteps he took was good.  It's where he met one of the most important people in his life: Anya Alston, his sobriety sponsor.  Jackson couldn't handle it on his own.  After all, he had spent a lot of time convincing himself he wasn't good enough.  So it was good to have an anchor to keep him where he needed to be.

Jackson's origin story begins with a near relapse.  He knew where to get drugs.  He had managed to save up enough money to afford it.  And he had gone through the step to actually have it on hand.  It was when he stepped near a shady alley that he managed to get a grip on what he was doing, at least enough to call Anya.  Which, I mean, there are worse times to get mugged than when there's a sort of audio witness, after you've told the person on the phone where you are.

Now, Jackson's reason for being here in the first place was still on his mind.  He had a lot of money on him.
The stupid thing that Jackson did is refuse to give it up.  Already, a headache was starting to form.

The stupid thing that the mugger did was aim to wound.

As the bullet pierced Jackson's arm, he felt an incredible amount of pain. From being shot. And then a sharp pain in his head, and his mind cleared.  With reflexes he wasn't quite sure how he was utilizing, he worked through the pain to knock the gun out of his assailant's hands, and locked him in a grapple.  From there, it was a simple matter to knock him out with a precisely aimed blow.

Jackson had never had a martial arts class in his life.  He didn't know how to keep somebody from moving with a grapple, and absolutely had no clue how to knock somebody out with his bare hands.  He did know that Anya probably heard something going on, and probably called the cops.   He knew how little the cops cared about this part of town, and shouldn't have been aware of how likely it would be that a patrol car was in the area, and, well, he was looking to make a drug deal. He knew he had time to get away before anybody arrived, possibly unless they had a Nova employed.
A nova like Quickstep, who has super speed and was pretty much there while he was still considering options.

It didn't go badly.  Things really were looking up.  Jackson couldn't feel those chemically induced compulsions any more.  The feelings of withdrawal were totally over.  The scientists over at Project Utopia said that awakening as a Nova tends to have a lot of positive side effects for little things like that.  He'd argue it was far from a little thing, but was too relieved. Strangely enough, despite having awoken as a Nova, Jackson didn't technically have any nova powers.  Instead he simply became... the best, at everything. To the maximum of Baseline human ability, he would simply be great at it.  As word got out about him, he was, well, basically the most hireable man. A true Jack of all trades.

Jack, as people tended to start calling him, took up a career largely in financial consulting.  Something respectable, that he'd have to wear a suit for.  Make his mother proud.  Send back the money he stole for shitty drugs as a kid, with 9000% interest.  Some have wondered, why, when he could do almost literally ANYTHING, why he would go into FINANCE.  Honestly, it's because there weren't many novas using their super brains to do that.

Turns out, just because you're literally the best, doesn't mean you can't still think you're the worst.  Sure, he's better than your average joe at everything.  But his new peer group was literally made up of people who are better than the best. Also he still got his ass kicked by Garry Kasparov at chess*.  So being naturally the best doesn't even mean being as good as people who have dedicated themselves to being the best.

So here we have Jack Of All Trades.  The best at thinking he's the worst.

^{_{*in 2 of 3 matches.  Kasparov lost the first and came back with the other two in a row.}}