Domino is a powerful mutant with the ability to influence the laws of probability to shift odds in her favor. She is also a weapons expert, able to use her staff to fire projectiles. Able to speak several languages, a superb athlete and martial artist, a skilled linguist, and a natural telepath, she is an extremely talented mercenary. Domino first appeared in the pages of Marvel Comics in #1 (December 1983) and has become an ally of the time-traveling mutant Cable. The real name of Domino is Neena Thurman, whose mutant powers surfaced at age 13 when she was a victim of government experiments known as Project Armageddon. The experiment was designed to genetically engineer the perfect weapon using a precognitive mutant surrogate. The experiments failed, but Neena remained isolated until she was saved by the cult of the Beatus (from Latin beatus, meaning “lucky”). The name Domino came from her luck powers, which manifested as the ability to create favorable outcomes for those around her.
Domino uses her skills to provide mercenary work for anyone who will pay her. She has been a bodyguard for the genius Milo Thurman, and has worked with the Hong Kong branch of X-Corporation, as well as the mutant black ops team X-Men. She fought alongside the X-Men on one occasion, during which her abilities helped foil John Sublime’s attempts to harvest mutant body parts to create his Third Species.
More recently, Domino teamed with X-Force and Shatterstar to liberate mutants sequestered by ULTIMATUM, including the telepathic telepath named Xorn. When the telepathic savant teleported her into the future, she was confronted by an older version of herself, who warned her of the impending mutant Genocide and urged her to stop it.
Aside from her work as a mercenary, Domino has acted as a mentor to the young mutants in the Six Pack. She has a strong aversion to violence and prefers diplomacy, but when the situation calls for it she is capable of brutally defeating her opponents.
When it comes to writing, domino is a useful metaphor for scenes that advance a plot or argument. Each scene domino has the potential to trigger other scenes, much like the pips on a domino piece. The key is to choose the right scene dominoes, ones that can have a dramatic impact on the story. For pantsers who do not plan out their narratives in detail before they start, it may be easy to write scenes that are at the wrong angle or don’t make logical sense with those that come before them. For example, if the heroine of your mystery reveals an important clue to the case but in the following scene the opposition doesn’t respond adequately, this is a problem.