Domino - Phase 1

This page is about the Phase 1 incarnation of the character. For other uses, see Domino (disambiguation).

PHASE 1

Nadia Sidorova
Portrayed by Milla Jovovich
Known Aliases:	Domino
Affiliations:	Elpis

Socked By:	Socker Required
Introduction:	April 17th, 2004

A former member of The Pack and one of Nathan's first proteges, Domino now works as a researcher for Elpis.

Nadia Eleanor Sidorova was born in Moscow to a British journalist, Isabel Wellesley, and a Russian politician, Alexey Sidorov. Sidorov was a passionate reformer, and when his enemies couldn't dissuade him through other means, they had him killed. They sent his wife and daughter to business associates in Hong Kong, where Isabel was killed and Nadia, then eight years old, was sold to the owner of an underground fighting arena.

It was in that arena that Nathan saw her, six years later, and refused to leave that night without her. Purchasing her contract, he brought her back to Europe and attempted to leave her at a convent school. Domino refused to stay, following him and Bridge back to their safehouse.

When she was of age, she joined the Pack and served as a very effective member of the unit for years. She also started to take on solo jobs, her skill and her unnatural luck earning her a solid reputation in the mercenary world. Another mercenary group, Mág Ealga provided competition to the Pack and on a personal level for Dom, a rivalry with the young shapeshifter Vanessa Carlysle. At least three times a year they would run into each other somewhere in the world and it usually ended in black eyes and knife wounds. Both being the only girls in the crews and being the youngest they developed something of an unspoken rivalry to prove who was better. Their mutations gave them different advantages, but it was hard to compete with Domino's powers. That didn't mean she necessarily always came out the victor, however.

Taking advantage of Vanessa's ability and rivalry, Mág Ealga sought out the youngest of the Pack as their way into the group. Domino saw one coming, but the group of them she wasn't prepared for all alone. She didn't go down without a fight, but ultimately she was knocked unconscious. After finding out where the Pack was holed up for the moment Vanessa went in as Domino. The charade lasted for nearly four weeks until Nathan found the actual Domino unconscious where Mág Ealga were keeping her while the rest of Mág Ealga was out on business. Aleister, the leader of Mág Ealga, came back to find Domino missing and called Vanessa in time so that when Nathan came through the door with Domino she was slipping out the window and making a run for it. She just barely got away from the Pack in time to drop the mimic and pick up one from the nearest homeless man, managing to escape then only because of Nathan's lack of telepathy use at that point in his life and her ability to mimic psi-patterns as well anyway.

Left at loose ends after Nathan settled at the mansion, she drifted in and out of various situations (and sometimes predicaments), some related to him and the X-Men, some not. Deeply in love with Pete Wisdom, she was badly disillusioned by his apparent defection to the Hellfire Club and tried to find a productive outlet for her skills, eventually becoming involved in rescuing mutant children in Africa from military training camps. Her kidnapping by Gideon, though traumatic, reunited her with Pete and the two have been involved since.

When Nathan founded Elpis, Domino was one of the first of his friends to accept his job offer. She has found a great deal of personal validation on her new career path, but wishes that people would stop sending her to Central Asia.

When the Elpis office in Tel Aviv was bombed by the Preservers, Domino's powers allowed her to give her friends and fellow staff at least a couple of minutes of warning, which most likely saved a number of lives. During the explosion itself, she pushed Angelo Espinosa into a stairwell which was mysteriously untouched by the blast wave. Angelo would later suspect that she had somewhat protected him with her powers. Domino herself was buried in the debris and critically injured. Though the doctors at Ichilov Hospital saved her life, her injuries were severe and involved months of therapy and recovery time.

She returned to her job at Elpis as soon as she was able, becoming deeply involved in the organization's new initiative to assist mutant child soldiers. During a business trip to New York to help Nathan at the UN with some potentially difficult meetings, she was kidnapped by a strange sect targeting probability-altering mutants. Though she escaped, along with Wanda Maximoff and Jennie Stavros, she was considerably disgruntled by adding another kidnapping to the list.

She continued her work with Elpis in the following year, helping set up the DDR program. In June 2008, she accompanied Nathan and several of the staff from the Westchester office to Kyrgyzstan, where a simple investigative mission turned complicated when Nathan and Angelo encountered a young man who could trap people in a vision of their own personal heaven.

When Pete wound up missing, presumed dead after an attack by Sabertooth and parties unknown, Domino returned to Westchester and stayed in the boathouse for a time. She accompanied Nathan and an X-Men team to Wakanda when an assassination attempt against T'Challa was uncovered. She and Marius Laverne managed to successfully protect the Wakandan king, although Domino was injured in the process. Though she returned to the mansion with the others, she soon departed for Muir, wanting some time away.

Powers/Abilities

Domino is a probability manipulator, an ability that Moira has identified as a combination of low-level reality warping and unconscious precognition. After Gideon manipulated her ability while he held her prisoner, her powers have undergone a significant increase in strength, although they are still entirely unconscious.