The Merc With A Mouth is back on everyones' minds after fans were treated to a Deadpool 2 teaser before the latest R-Rated X-Men movie, Logan. The teaser, featuring Ryan Reynolds naked in a phonebooth, has now been followed up with some exciting new casting announcements for the upcoming film. We already knew that Cable will be appearing in the next Deadpool movie (although he has yet to be officially cast), but today we learned that Domino has also been confirmed for the project, and will be played by Atlanta star Zazie Beetz.
The news came via Reynolds' social media, and was quickly followed by the creation of fan art to show what this X-Force character might look like as portrayed by the actress. It wasn't a casting free from criticism, however, as the usual faction of comic book purists expressed their displeasure with the choice not to cast a white actress in the role. Despite the naysayers, however, the general response to Beetz's casting is positive, with the majority of fans trusting Reynolds and the Deadpool 2 team to create the kind of epic sequel that Deadpool deserves.
For some movie fans who haven't read X-Force, however, this casting news might bring more confusion than anything. Deadpool 2 will be Domino's first appearance in live-action, so for fans of the films who don't know who this is, we've got you covered.
The Origin Story
Domino may be a mutant, but she wasn't born naturally. Instead, Neena Thurman was created by a government breeding program called Project: Armageddon. The Project bred children in the attempt to create a perfect weapon, but failed in their goal. Domino was the only subject who survived, and her power (luck) is incredibly useful, it was still considered a failure as it is difficult to predict, control, and weaponize. She might have been terminated by the Project, but her biological mother was able to smuggle her out to live with a cult, where she stayed until she was able to escape at thirteen.
After such a horrific childhood, Neena made the decision to become a mercenary. At first, she worked for any government organization that would pay her, including the NSA. It was on a job for this agency that she got the name 'Domino', from the man she was hired to protect (and who she fell in love with). After this, she joined Cable's mercenary group, the Wild Pack (aka the Six Pack), forming a relationship that would last throughout her comic history. The Six Pack breaks up, however, when Cable callously leads the team to be targeted by their employer, and they are almost killed.
Domino And X-Force
After the Six Pack went their separate ways, Domino went on to join the team that she has stayed with consistently since: X-Force. Although this is the mutant group that she is best known for being a part of, her position on the team hasn't always been straightforward.
The first Domino to join X-Force wasn't actually Domino herself. Instead, it was the shapeshifting mutant Copycat posing as the lucky mutant, while the real Domino was kidnapped by Tolliver. Eventually, the truth came out, but it took some time for X-Force to truly trust Domino after this. She stayed with X-Force for some time, developing a deeper relationship with Cable (which nearly became a romantic one), earning the trust of her teammates, and fighting alongside her friends. It wasn't always easy, though. At one point, she was forced to shoot and kill Grizzly, one of her oldest friends. Later, her powers were blocked, and she left the team as a result. She briefly joined X-Corporation, a search and rescue for mutants, and has also taken work from the Assassin's Guild, as well as re-joining X-Force under Wolverine's command (another mutant that she has a fling with).
Most recently, Domino joined yet another incarnation of the X-Force team, Cable's X-Force.
Powers And Abilities
This mutant's primary ability is 'luck' - or, to get a little more technical, the ability to manipulate probabilities within her line of sight. This means that she is able to make an opponent's gun jam, to dodge falling debris, and generally to get through battles with moves and shots that aren't technically impossible, but incredibly improbable. However, Domino is unable to fully control this ability, and uses it subconsciously when in high stress situations. That makes it incredibly useful for getting out of a fight, but not too helpful in day to day life.
In addition, Domino is highly trained and can use a huge range of weaponry. She is strong, fast, and agile, although not significantly more than any normal human. She is also very capable of disguising herself (with a little help from her power), and has used a huge range of aliases in her work. She's also highly intelligent, an excellent strategist, and can speak several languages. In short, she is the perfect mercenary spy.
Where Does Domino Fit Into Deadpool 2?
So how does Domino fit into Deadpool 2? It's difficult to speculate without knowing anything about the plot of the X-Men sequel, but there are a few things that we are probably going to see.
Domino's relationship with Cable is a huge part of her character's story, and this is presumably going to be explored in the upcoming film. We also know that Deadpool 2 is going to be doing a lot of the set-up for an X-Force movie, and with Colossus in the mix and Wolverine out of the franchise, it's fairly certain that this X-Force will be Cable's version of the team. Because of that, we're guessing that Domino and Cable are going to be in the process of bringing their X-Force together during Deadpool 2.
As for how these two will meet Deadpool himself, there are several possibilities. Domino has previously run afoul of the Merc with a Mouth when a hit was taken out on her, so perhaps we will see a version of this storyline play out on the big screen. As mercenaries, it's also highly likely that Deadpool and Domino will end up working together for some reason, although there's no telling what that reason might be.
Another very interesting possibility involves Deadpool's love interest, Vanessa (Morena Baccarin). In Deadpool, we didn't see Vanessa gain any powers, but we may well see her become Copycat in Deadpool 2 - and that could mean working as a mercenary with Domino, or pretending to be Domino, which is how she first appeared in comics.
There's certainly room to play with this character, and while we know that the X-Men universe is building toward X-Force, we also know that they are not afraid to go off-book when it comes to storytelling. We'll have to wait until 2018 to find out, but in the meantime, we'll be looking out for the next big casting news for the Deadpool sequel - who will be playing Cable!
