Domino's personality has almost always been that of a professional mercenary, one who did the job she was paid for and who would occasionally make the odd sarcastic remark, either to anger an opponent or to comment on a teammate. She had a hard time forging personal bonds due to her lifestyle and how her powers worked, so she tended to keep people at arms length. For the longest time, Cable was the only person who was able to maintain any kind of relationship with her, and even when he flat out told her that he appreciated her and cared a great deal about her, Domino's automatic reaction was to act like Cable was joking, even though she knew he wasn't. Because acknowledging that he was being serious would mean acknowledging her own feelings about him, and it was safer for her to pretend to not know what he was talking about and hurt his feelings now. But she eventually did approach him, and with great difficulty slowly make it clear she felt the same way.greycrusader wrote: ↑Sun Nov 01, 2020 1:46 am Ares, what did you see as a break from character in the Gail Simone book? I ask because I honestly had very little familiarity with the characters, except for Diamondback. I pretty much avoided all of Liefeld's X-Men work, and while I've enjoyed the odd Deadpool issue or three, I don't know much about Outlaw either. And its honestly been so long since the old Cap days that I couldn't really say how much different Diamondback is supposed to be from her time as Steve's girlfriend (it doesn't help that she's popped up so rarely since then).
This was a serious, professional woman used to keeping her emotional distance with people, to the point that when the only man she really cared for let his own guard down and opened up to her about his feelings, her first impulse was to push him away by pretending ignorance.
Part of it was due to how her powers worked. Her luck powers are either a probability altering field similar to the Scarlet Witch or the Black Cat, or it's actually a subconscious, mild telekinetic field that 'feels' things around her, and it detects something that could harm her, the field slightly nudges things to save her, giving her the appearance of having good luck. Either way, her powers protected her, often at the cost of not protecting her allies, or even putting them in danger. She's been in missions where she was the only one that survived due to her powers, so she stopped getting attached to people in order to spare herself the constant heartache when they passed.
So to see that character basically act like Harley Quinn, being instantly smitten with Shang Chi, buying a replica of his old outfit from a cosplay site, talking at length about cosplay and how the other Shang outfit would have required pasties, or fangirling about the Black Widow, or talking to a puppy for an overly long gag, it's just really, really jarring.
Outlaw gets a pass because Gail created her.
Diamondback is constantly referred to as "a snob", and throws a lot of "darlings" and acts like she's some wealthy upperclass twit. Diamondback is a lot of things, but she was NEVER a snob. She was born in Texas, grew up poor, wanted to join the same criminal gang as her brothers, watched one brother die and was abused by the man who would be Crossbones, later worked at a local retail store to try and live a normal life before finally deciding to get back into crime. This time by training with Taskmaster and getting a gimmick, becoming Diamondback.
Rachel initially wanted wealth solely to give her comfort and security. She chose diamonds as her weapons (even though they were fake diamonds) as a reminder of what her long term goals were, how everything was a process to get rich and so she could enjoy herself. Part of her character growth after meeting Cap was realizing that Steve gave her that same level of comfort and security, not because he was rich, but because he cared for her and made her want to be a better person. Once she decided to get out of crime, she was willing to work retail again, or even join the Avengers support staff.
She was a lot of things. She was not a snob. And she definitely didn't go around calling everyone "DARLING" like she was frickin Edna Mode.
The sad, sad thing is that the personality Gail gave Domino would have fit a lot more closely with Diamondback. Rachel being gobsmacked over a hot hero and putting her foot in her mouth? Totally in character for her. Kicking ass while also complaining about the lousy turn of events? Also in character for her. Being very snarky and sarcastic, making combat quips and the like? All her as well. Even forming her own all girl squad is completely in keeping with Rachel's personality.
In much the same way that the Thor in Thor 3 and Endgame would have worked better as Hercules, the Domino book Gail wrote would have worked a lot better if Dominio were replaced with Diamondback.