Art by Sean Phillips
- Name: Dominikos Ioannis Petrakis
- Code Names: Avalanche
- First Appearance: Uncanny X-Men #141 (Jan 81)
- Powers: Seismic Wave Generation
- Teams Affiliation: Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, Freedom Force, Project: Wideawake, X-Corps
About
From surviving a fight with the Hulk, to destroying the Eiffel Tower, to running a bar on the west coast, Dom Petrakis has lead a life few could dream of. A constant foe of the X-Men, Avalanche is one of many mutants who fill the important, but thankless, role in the world of superheroes, being a colorful punching bag with fun powers.
Avalanche made his debut in the present day portion of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Days of Future Past story line as part of Mystique’s new Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Having not appeared since the Silver Age, this revamped Brotherhood was a great foil to the multi-national All-New All-Different X-Men. Petrakis was from Crete, Mystique from Germany, Destiny from Austria, Blob a returning Silver Ager for from Texas, and Pyro (St. John Allerdyce) the Australian born mutant who would go on to be Avalanche’s best friend and crime bro. The team attempted to assassinated Senator Robert Kelly who believed mutants were dangerous and the irresponsible use of their powers could cause serious harm. The ensuing mutant on mutant battle did not help matters.
Art by John Byrne
He was a member of The Brotherhood when they fought ROM The Space Knight in a few issue that are destined to never be reprinted. He was also around when they battled The Avengers in the infamous Annual #10 (the first appearance of Rogue). He again showed up in The Brotherhoods next fight with the X-Men, where he used his powers to throw a truck filled with liquid nitrogen at Colossus ala Terminator 2.
Art by John Romita Jr.
In between all of that he thought he could take on The Incredible Hulk alongside the aptly named Landslide. There isn’t much to say about this except to reiterate how bad of an idea this was. The panels below show why Dom is more of a team guy.
Art by Sal Buscema
Mystique decided that being a band of criminals with no well defined objective wasn’t the best career move. So with the help of Val Cooper, The Brotherhood of Evil Mutants became Freedom Force, a government sponsored mercenary task force. Avalanche got a pardon out of this and continued to get away dressing like a discount Robocop, a crime against fashion if there ever was one.They were constant antagonists for the X-Men and their sister teams, the New Mutants and X-Factor, through out the 80′s.
On a mission to Kuwait during Operation: Desert Storm, Avalanche was met with a difficult, Mass Effect style, choice. His Freedom Force teammate Crimson Commando (one of the Murder Grandpa’s as Rachel & Miles call them) was gravely injured and his only chance for survival meant leaving Blob and Pyro behind. Dom made the difficult choice the leave his best friends in a situation that could mean their death. The botched mission meant Freedom Force was no more.
Avalanche and Crimson Commando joined Project: Wideawake after the demise of Freedom Force, under the command of Henry Peter Gyrich. Their working relationship was short lived as Dom and St. John were reunited under tragic circumstances. Pyro had contacted an airborne pathogen that was killing mutants called M-Pox The Legacy Virus. Avalanche would go to great lengths to try to cure his friend, including trying to steal a potential cure from the High Evolutionary. Unfortunately nothing could save St. John and The Legacy Virus claimed another victim.
Avalanche wandered for a while before joining Banshee’s newly established mutant paramilitary squad, X-Corps. Distraught over the death of his lover, Moira McTaggart, Banshee convinced Dom and Blob to join up with some of his former Generation X students to police mutants where the X-Men were unable or unwilling to do so. It turned out that Banshee’s methods of persuasion involved using a drugged up Martinique Wyngarde, the daughter of Mastermind, to mentally manipulate the team. Mystique sneaked into X-Corps and revealed all this, causing Avalanche to just go nuts on Paris. He was eventually stopped but not before taking out the Eiffel Tower, the whole thing. This all happened in Joe Casey’s run on Uncanny X-Men which, while not amazing, doesn’t deserve to get lumped into Austen’s subsequent run (which Avalanche briefly shows up in but I am choosing to avoid that run as much as possible and you should too, it is worse than you have been told).
Art by Aaron Lopresti
After M-Day, Dom decided he was done with all of this superhero stuff and vowed to live a quiet life, opening a bar in San Francisco. Guess where the remaining 198 mutants in the world moved to? He and the X-Men quickly came to an understanding to stay out of each other’s hair but relations were strained. The riots that kicked off the Utopia event were organized at his bar, Nick’s, and he stood with the mutant community during the Second Coming event and the Juggernaut’s assault during Fear Itself. Wolverine ever offered to take Dom to the Jean Grey School after the Schism, but Dom declined saying life was good on the west coast.
After the Avengers Vs X-Men event, Red Skull got a hold of Petrakis and lobotomized him. Using his newly acquired telepathic powers from the brain of Charles Xavier, Red Skull forced Avalanche to attack New York City and increase anti-mutant sentiment. Skull’s only motivation being that Nazi’s are bad racists and would obviously hate mutants. In the ensuing battle with the Avengers, Avalanche was forced to his death, a sad end for a classic X-Men villain.
Art by John Cassidy
Must Read
The X-Corps arc in Joe Casey’s Uncanny run is actually really solid but the best version of Avalanche isn’t in print at all, it was on the small screen. X-Men: Evolution was an animated adaptation of the X-Men that took many of the characters back to high school age and had the kids attend public high school (solving the ever present problem of who is teaching Nightcrawler math). In this adaptation the Brotherhood weren’t evil teens bent on world domination, they weren’t shady government mercenaries, they were just kids who had been promised a better life if they compromised their morals. Avalanche was the de facto leader of the group (here named Lance Alvers) and unlike his leadership rival Quicksilver, he had no loyalty to Magneto or Mystique or whoever they were supposed to be reporting to, Avalanche just cared about his brothers in arms. He also had a long term romance with the X-Man Kitty Pryde and at one point tried to join the X-Men to get closer to her. In a vision of the future, this version of Avalanche even joined the X-Men. It was a different take on the character that added depth that the comics have never matched. All 4 seasons are available on Hulu Plus.
Ranking
Avalanche is just an odd character to assign a ranking to. It is like looking that just one member of the Wrecking Crew or the Royal Flush Gang. Dom has a pretty generic power set, a silly design, and a personality that is pretty nonexistent. He is a guy you enjoying seeing because he has always been there, not because he particularly makes the story any better. He has been used really well in adaptations and that’s where a lot of my good will towards the character comes.
X-Men: Evolution was the biggest entry point into the X-Men for me. I had watched The Animated Series in the 90′s and I had seen the first movie but Evolution really got me into these characters. Avalanche, more than anyone else, really showed the potential for that show. It took an underdeveloped character and gave him a arc. If that characterization had become the default in the 616 he would be much higher ranked. At this point he is going to have to go under Glob as the number 3 X-Men character in the Xavier Files.
Zachary Jenkins runs ComicsXF and is a co-host on the podcast “Battle of the Atom.” Shocking everyone, he has a full and vibrant life outside of all this.
