Scarlet Scorpion

In order to support his mother and siblings, Mike takes a job driving a truck for the mob.  But he has an accident in New Jersey which destroys the contraband contents of the truck and severely injures him in the process.  Realizing that he is dying, microbiologist Myla Chang gambles and, telling no one, injects him with an experimental cell re-generation virus.  The following morning, mike is entirely healed and Dr. Judith Weissman, though astounded, releases him.  Learning that Mike is well, the mobsters suspect him of having tried to double cross them and, after shooting him, dump his body in Taritan Bay. 
 
Yet he recovers and, paying Dr. Weissman a visit, asks for some answers.  Having since learned what happened, she tells him about the injection, then tests Mike’s abilities.  Not only is he capable of healing wounds at 5,000 times the normal rate, but all of his senses and reflexes are vastly improved.  He can lift a car over his head, read a book from 100 feet away, splinter a baseball bat by squeezing it, and so on.  

Meanwhile, knowing nothing about her patient, Judith had asked Inspector Richard Trent to look into Mike’s past and they confront him with their findings.  Mike doesn’t deny his connection to the mob, though he insists he’s going to use his abilities to fight them. Trent agrees nor to turn him in for past wrongdoing, and, though he can’t officially sanction it, slyly hints about how to trip up the mob.   
 
Thirty years before, a rookie cop lost his wife to a mob rubout.  When the killers got off due to a crooked judge, the cop made a costume to conceal his identity, calling himself the Scarlet Scorpion, and became a vigilante.  He retired after 10 years and his costume was confiscated but Trent tells Mike where at police headquarters it’s stored.  What he doesn’t tell him is that he was the Scarlet Scorpion.   
 

The young man gets the costume, continuing the tradition Trent had begun in the ’50s.  The hero is one of the new Sentinels of Justice.