WARNING: The following contains spoilers for Marvels Snapshots: Civil War #1 by Saladin Ahmed, Ryan Kelly, Rachelle Rosenberg, and VC's Joe Sabino, on sale now.
Marvels Snapshots has taken Marvel fans behind the scenes at some of Marvel's most iconic moments but focuses on people that few see or even know exist. In this anthology series, Scott Summers was a young child who looked up to Reed Richards and learned what a true leader looked like after seeing him in action, and a police officer and paramedic fought to save lives while battles raged overhead, and these two discovered love amidst the rubble of a town that they swore to protect.
Now Marvels Snapshots: Civil War shifts its focus to two people who watched everything they believe in crumble around them.
Taking place during the first Marvel Civil War event, it all begins with S.H.I.E.L.D. setting out to apprehend a young hero known as the Helper, who had just saved some people. When the citizens get angry, the agents threaten to arrest anyone who tries to help him, and they pull guns on everyone there. Finally, they chase down the Helper and shoot him in the back with something that knocks him out. One of these men is Clyde Dobronski, and as he said at this time, this is not the life he saw for himself when he was a kid.
All of this doesn't paint S.H.I.E.L.D. in the best light and makes Maria Hill look even worse. Clyde freezes up when they attack and try to take out Captain America when he refused to work for the government and he freezes up again when he sees the cloned Thor kill Goliath, so Hill demotes him. In his new role, he is tasked to guard two kids they locked up, one of whom was not even a vigilante. The second person arrested after the Helper was a girl who has the powers to fly but had never fought crime or tried to be a vigilante but was arrested for just having superpowers.
Like the other Marvels Snapshots, these show how the superhero battles affect other people. Cyclops' story showed how a hero could influence a child to become a great leader. The Avengers' story displayed how the people with no superpowers are just as responsible for saving lives as those in the skies, and they do it at much greater risk to their own lives in doing so. The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent most people label a fascist is just a guy doing his job, even as he realizes that he might be on the wrong side of history.
Other S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents bully Clyde, and most of his fellow officers seem to enjoy attacking superpowered children and proving their masculinity by pushing them around. Most of the S.H.I.E.L.D. agents here are despicable humans, but Clyde is the proof that not everyone who puts on the armor and takes up the cause is bad. He joined S.H.I.E.L.D. because he believed the superheroes were running rampant with no control, and he could help do something about it. He believed the Superhero Registration Act was put into place to make sure heroes followed the laws.
However, he learned it was more than that. He watched them try to take out Captain America. He watched them murder Goliath. He kept telling himself he was on the side of good, but as time passed, he knew this was not true and things were no longer black and white. The Helper told him how he met Captain America, who told him that when the law is unjust, doing good work is always more important.
When one of the other S.H.I.E.L.D. Agents threatened to "take out" the Helper, Clyde fought back and helped them escape. He knew he might go to prison for this, or worse, and called to talk to his son one more time, hoping his son would understand that his dad did one good thing in the end.