BIOGRAPHY - Page 7
Perhaps because of the Weapon X-Force fiasco, Domino found she wasn’t on the best of terms with the X-Men. When Wolverine’s body went missing from his tomb, team leader Kitty Pryde 
hired Domino to fly her with Psylocke, Storm, Rogue and Jubilee down to Madripoor to chase some leads. However, she initially didn’t trust Domino enough to share what the mission was, and even put Psylocke on stand-by to wipe Neena’s mind if necessary. (Or perhaps the Kitten had some misplaced anger after leaving Domino’s ex Colossus at the altar.) [Hunt for Wolverine: Mystery in Madripoor #1-4]
Whatever the reasoning, Domino decided to stay clear of the X-Mansion for a time, but also gather a team of her own to accept mercenary work as a unit. While on a security assignment, 
she caught Diamondback performing perfect infiltration work. Instead of turning her in, Domino offered Rachel a partnership. The two of them found their third in Inez Temple, the mutant cowgirl Outlaw, while bringing down the crazy Professor Salvage. This trio became known as the Posse, becoming good friends as well as professional partners. [Domino (3rd series) #3, Annual #1]
On a job in the Pacific Northwest, the Posse walked into a trap set by a woman named Topaz. They defeated the mutant assassin Greywing (real name Adelbert) and took pity on him after his poor showing, taking him back to San Francisco for a safe haven. The girls had set Neena up with a rocking birthday party, a wild selection of guests and a new dog named Pip. Domino was coming down off of a party high when Topaz herself and a mysterious old man named Desmond crashed her room. Topaz beat Domino and neutralized her powers, throwing her to her death out the window of her apartment. Topaz restored Domino’s powers just in time for her “luck” to save her life, but Neena was traumatized by the near-death experience. Topaz and Desmond teleported away from Domino’s party guests, leaving behind more questions than answers.
While her associated friends did background on her attackers, Domino and the Posse took another job defending a Mississippi riverboat called the Painted Lady from an attempted robbery. Domino was uncomfortably suspicious about the ambush by Greywing on their last job, and asked Amadeus Cho along on this job for back-up. It turned out their client Admiral Willits was a known fraud and cheapskate who never paid anybody. The Posse defended Willits from his creditors and then took ownership of the Painted Lady as payment. As Domino was securing the riverboat,
however, Desmond and Topaz appeared again. Desmond claimed he and Neena were intrinsically linked as children such that her “luck” caused him suffering whenever it benefited her. For self-preservation and a lifetime of revenge, he and Topaz intended to reverse the process and make her suffer for his benefit. To demonstrate, they blew up the speedboat with Domino’s friends on it. [Domino (3rd series) #1-2]
Miraculously, the Posse, Cho and Adelbert survived the boat explosion. Neena was overjoyed her friends were alive, but it only made her more paranoid that someone was leaking information to Topaz about her location. Her “luck” becoming unreliable made it hard for Domino to trust anyone, even herself. Topaz was causing her abilities to surge up or down with even less control than usual. At Amadeus’s suggestion, she planned to reach out to his friend Shang-Chi for guidance on regaining her confidence in her abilities. A wedge developed between Domino and the Posse as she lied to them about where she was going and why, until she was sure who she could trust. [Domino (3rd series) #3]
In Hong Kong, Domino approached the Master of Kung-Fu about training her. Shang-Chi was SUPER hot and Neena maybe got distracted a bit trying to impress him. After she took him out dancing, Domino and Shang-Chi were attacked by a horde of his former enemies gathered by Topaz to assassinate Shang and force Neena to watch. Shang-Chi coached Domino into finding the focus to summon her power on command, rather than relying purely on instinct. Her fear and
impulses made the “luck” chaotic by nature, so he assigned her a simple, specific task on which to focus her mind: getting them both a glass of water. By honing her determination so completely on that task, Domino’s power beautifully eliminated all her assailants who tried to interfere with the goal she had in mind. She didn’t even need to acknowledge them. [Domino (3rd series) #4-5]
Domino was feeling pretty “lucky” when Topaz caught up to them. Diamondback and Outlaw had ignored Neena’s instructions and gone looking for trouble, seeking out Desmond’s origins as another subject of Project: Armageddon from Domino’s childhood. For some reason, Neena and Desmond were born on the same day and shared a link so that “bad luck” afflicted Desmond every time Neena summoned “good luck” for herself. Topaz had been his only friend, the secretly mutant daughter of Doctor Rossini. Desmond and Topaz grew to hate Domino from afar even before escaping. Outlaw had killed Desmond during their altercation, leaving Topaz fighting mad and ready to end things with Domino.
Neena, to her credit, actually reached out to Topaz after learning her story. No one else could truly appreciate how bad her childhood had been in Project: Armageddon, until now. Domino offered Topaz her hand and asked if they could bond over their shared pain. Instead, Topaz (prematurely) claimed credit for having killed Diamondback in their struggle. With no more room for sympathy, Domino and Topaz laid into one another. Topaz tried to overload Domino’s luck again, but her
training with Shang-Chi enabling Neena to focus her ability and self-regulate her luck’s effect. The fight was interrupted when Rachel and Inez crashed a shuttle down directly on top of Topaz. Domino was overwhelmed to see her friends alive, but she knew Topaz needed to be dealt with. Shang-Chi begged her not to, but Domino shot Topaz dead with Outlaw’s guns, knowing she and the people she loved would never be safe again otherwise.
Domino lost something inside herself, with the last few subjects from Armageddon now dead. Shang-Chi firmly shut the door on training Domino any further after her actions. Adelbert came clean that he knew Desmond had planted a tracker under Neena’s skin, so no one in the Posse had actually betrayed Domino’s location for the ambushes. She forgave Adelbert for not speaking up sooner and gave him a job as a chef aboard the Painted Lady. Domino was left to nurse her wounds, not completely alone, knowing she had her two “sisters” by her side. [Domino (3rd series) #6]
Aboard the Painted Lady, the Posse were approached by a Wakandan named Shoon’kwa. She possessed a gift of dire prophecy, forced to perceive events that would lead to the death of her species by her patron, the Atlas Bear. Domino and the Posse prevented Michael Morbius from being used to usher in a vampire apocalypse, but took issue with Atlas Bear withholding information from them. Neena defeated Shoon’kwa in personal combat to earn her respect, and Atlas Bear accompanied the Posse on the next assignment she hired them for: stopping the 
former X-Man Longshot from conquering Earth in the name of the Mojoverse. Shoon’kwa wanted him killed to prevent her visions, but Domino saw that Longshot was sick and fought Shoon’kwa to get him medical assistance instead of merely eliminating him as an inconvenience. Atlas Bear was humbled by Domino’s compassion and joined the Posse and Longshot in freeing Mojoworld from its latest bout of tyranny. [Domino (3rd series) #7-10]
The Posse’s next mission involved a Celestial artifact falling from space called the Creation Constellation. The powerful and dangerous artifact had bonded to a research scientist who found it, and the Black Widow wanted the Posse to help retrieve it. The mission was to destroy the Constellation as it had far too much power for one being, even one nation, to wield. Neena was
thrilled to be working with professionals like Madame Natasha (her favorite Avenger) and also White Fox from South Korean intelligence. However, she was suspicious that the Posse’s two new recruits (along with Atlas Bear) might ultimately refuse to follow through on the mission and would try to secure the Constellation for their home country. This lack of trust cast doubt over the mission, and everybody felt it.
Domino was right about her new recruits and had to assert her authority more than once to keep them in line. While hunting for the Constellation, the Posse made contact with the infected Doctor Marzarov. He touched Outlaw and transferred some of the artifact’s Celestial power into her, which she in turn accidentally passed to Domino and Diamondback. White Fox jumped in and tried to touch Neena, getting a sample of the power for her country. She was expelled from the Posse and Domino made it clear that no one, even her, had the right to this kind of power. They fought Doctor Mazarov and later his research partner, Doctor Geun. In each case the power of the Creation Constellation awakened in Domino, its Celestial might feeding her power over probability to make her capable of virtually anything. The temptation to wield that power was high, to right the 
wrongs made against mutantkind, to make sure no little girl was ever again abused in the name of science or progress. But the name “Dark Phoenix” had meaning to Domino, and she knew when power became too great and had to be refused. She defeated the doctors but then consciously rejected the power, sending the Creation Constellation fragments away from those unworthy to wield it. [Domino: Hotshots #1-5]