Who he is: John Garrett, a.k.a. The Clairvoyant
His power: In addition to the general action hero skills that every good S.H.I.E.L.D. agent has, Garrett also (secretly) has superstrength and a healing factor thanks to the Centipede Serum, as well as (also secret) arm-mounted rocket launchers and cybernetic legs. Like most Bill Paxton characters, he’s just straight-up awesome.
His story: As seen on Marvel’s Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D., Garrett is a longtime S.H.I.E.L.D. agent who actually serves under Nick Fury for a while alongside Phil Coulson. After getting injured during a mission, though, he realizes that S.H.I.E.L.D. doesn’t actually care about him and he secretly joins Hydra. Since he has access to all of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s personnel files and intelligence, he calls himself The Clairvoyant and uses that information to help Hydra’s gradual S.H.I.E.L.D. takeover.
Garrett is also a much-needed father figure for S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Grant Ward, at least in the sense that he teaches Ward how to be secretly evil while coming across as cool and charming—though Ward is significantly less skilled at the “cool and charming” part than Garrett is. Together they both work to undermine S.H.I.E.L.D. in the name of Hydra, with Garrett sending Raina to do his dirty work while personally getting closer to Coulson’s team.
When Hydra makes its play to fully take over S.H.I.E.L.D. (as seen in Captain America: The Winter Soldier), Garrett reveals himself as both a Hydra agent and the mysterious Clairvoyant, but Ward helps him escape before he can be captured. With his old injuries causing his organs to fail, Garrett is desperate for some kind of fix and tries to use the same alien blood-based serum that helped save Coulson’s life. Unfortunately, the side effects of the drug make him even more unhinged, which allows Coulson’s team to eventually catch up with him. Severely injured in a battle with what is left of S.H.I.E.L.D., Garrett tries to upgrade himself into the ultimate cyborg badass, but before he can show off his awesome new robot powers, he is vaporized by Coulson with an old weapon based on the cosmic power of the Tesseract.
Played by: Bill Paxton
Currently, Garrett is: Dead
Where will we see him next? We won’t. (Rest in peace, Bill Paxton.)