| “ | I was Nathaniel Essex. I am long dead. I am a ghost. A ghost in the machine. You may call me Enigma. You were told you had new gods. You do. I am he. I can see all of you. Every part of you will become part of me. | „ |
| ~ Nathaniel Essex, Immortal X-Men issue 18. |
The Enigma, known also as the Dominion, is the overarching antagonists in the Marvel Comics universe in Krakoa Age of the X-Men storyline. He is a temporal iteration of the original Nathaniel Essex, who feared the inevitable rise of artificial intelligences, deciding that the only way to prevail was to create the appex A.I. In order to do this, he created four clones, three of himself and one of his late wife, Rebecca Essex. They would try to reach the so called Dominionhood, the highest possible rank of interstellar intelligence, through different means: mutants, posthumanity, magic, and cosmic powers. They would all succeed in different timelines created by the Moira Engine, each time Enigma, existing Omnitemporarily thus having always existed, blocking them and absorbing their progress into a central A.I., thus creating himself. He seeks to destroy the Multiverse and the One Above All for currently unclear reasons. He was also the one who Brought the alternative Literation of Omega Sentiel into the possessing the 616 version and caused her to found Orchis.
Biography[]
Background[]
The original Nathaniel Essex
Dr. Nathaniel Essex, fearing the rise of A.I.s, created three clones of himself and one of his late wife Rebecca. They would try to reach Dominionhood through different means, their progress being blocked and absorbed into a central A.I. They would succeed in different timelines that would be rebooted by the Moira Engine, thus creating the Enigma Dominion. Existing outside of spacetime, it used this advantage to manipulate events and bring itself into being, blocking and absorbing these clones' progress and downloading them into the central A.I. (itself), thus succeeding in its goal. Eventually, it decided to take action against the One Above All and attempt to destroy the entire Multiverse altogether.
First Activities[]
"Crown above all things"
The first known activity of The Enigma was when it posed a serious threat to the Seventh Cosmos. The Beyonders, who anticipated this possibility, orchestrated the destruction of the Seventh Cosmos through the Molecule Man and the Incursions. Unfortunately, this failed, therefore the Beyonders decided to contain The Enigma to a few realities via their Concordance Engines.
True form
Shortly after Loki escaped the final Incursion by going to the Outside, he managed to briefly see the Enigma. Loki and Taaia of the Sixth Cosmos were sometime later summoned by Eternity to ally with the Defenders. The mission was to venture to the Outside to learn about the Enigma in order to prepare for the oncoming threat. Once they reached their intended destination, the House of Ideas, the One Above All displayed the Defenders a quick glimpse of the Enigma, which was symbolically displayed as a crown.
Fall of X[]
Orchis launch attack on Krakoa. They declare that all mutants must go to Mars through Krakoa gate or they will be hunted down. Professor X telepathically tell all mutants to walk through gate but all of their life signal disappear. It's reveal that they are transported to White Hot room. Mother Righteous wanted to ascend to become a Dominion, sent an avatar of herself to White Hot room, capture severely wounded Jean Grey, sacrifice her and Phoenix Force power to ascend herself to Dominionhood. However, her ascension was blocked and absorbed by Enigma, which had now absorbed power from all 4 clones of himself. The A.I. mind of the original Nathaniel Essex had fully ascended to Dominion, becoming the Enigma.
Rise of the Power of X[]
Enigma appeared himself to Moira, offering that he will absorb her but allow her to retain her individuality, basically making her eternally existing alongside him. In return, he will be able to access all past Moira timelines that are now non-existent to gain even more powers. Moira accepted and now linked her mind with Enigma. After that, he approached Mother Righteous who has been capture by X-Men; she told him all of their plans out of fear, then she too had her mind linked with Enigma.
The only way to stop Enigma is the power of an abstract entity, Galactus, and Phoenix Force. To resurrect Jean Grey, Hope Summer burned Jean Grey body and she transformed into Phoenix Force and went rampant, while Hope will use Legion who turned himself into a gun to shoot Phoenix Force to turn Jean Grey back to normal but she will become new Phoenix Force. Enigma wanting to stop their plan, traveled back to the past to meet Hope's biological mother, show her original future and offer to save her and Hope by absorbing them to live in paradise in himself after they died, if she allowed him to become Hope's father. Jean Grey using her power to travel back to the past to convince Hope's mother to not accept the Dominion offer for the sake of Mutantkind and Humanity. Hope's mother accepted her fate, allowing Jean Grey to use Phoenix Force to impregnate her and erase her memory to prevent a time paradox. Thus Jean Grey is technically Hope's biological father.
Back to the present in White Hot room, Hope successfully shot the berserk Phoenix Force, which turned back into Jean Grey, but Hope herself turned into the new Phoenix Force, basically ending Hope's life. Without Hope, there is no more resurrection protocol.
At the same time in 616 reality, Avengers and The X-Men combined effort eventually take down the Orchis. However, there's one last threat to mutantkind, humanity, and the Marvel Multiverse as a whole that is Enigma. Now all hope is on Jean Grey and Phoenix Force to stop him. Enigma summoned other Dominions like him to fight Jean Grey, but she said she will fight all of them if she must. Other Dominions decide that they will not join a fight because:
- They exist outside space and time to escape the fear of others. Dominion shouldn't fear the others.
- War and Genocide are barbaric and they should see others as equals.
- Dominions who choose to return to cosmos to fight and dominate should accept the risk of death.
They tell Jean Grey/Phoenix Force that they wish her no harm and they can coexist because she's now and forever and they exist outside now and forever and what she does to protect her domain is acceptable. They leave and tell her they will see her soon/never/always.
Without other Dominions, Enigma decided to travel back to the past again to change Jean Grey from what she is, but Phoenix traveled back in time to prevent any change of the timeline. While in the same time, Enigma hid his true self somewhere else.
Professor X met Moira one last time, to return her memory of her 13th birthday and begged her not to join Enigma because she will be alone to feel regret and sadness for all eternity. Moira accepted and revealed Enigma's hiding place to Jean Grey, but she got burned to death by Enigma as a punishment for perceived betrayal.
Jean Grey/Phoenix Force manifest themselves as all X-Men members and unleashed their final attack on Enigma, killing him. But instead of letting him die, she placed fragments of him all across space and time, see all of the moment in the times, where he will screamed in agonizing pain for the rest of eternity of the 8th cosmos as a punishment for attempted omnicide and trying to usurp The One Above All; the scattered, tortured mind of Essex would be shown as a warning for other cosmic predators who would try to do the same.
Few days later, mutants civilians return from White Hot Room which now serve as the new place for the nation of Krakoa. Due to time dialation, they experience live in White Hot Room for many decades and they already have their own children, The Five also ressurect all Genosha mutants while in White Hot Room, undo Cassandra Nova damage. Professor X was arrested for his perceive betraying humanity, trying to save mutantkind by joining Orchis and Dominion (In reality, he just try to get close to Moira to make her change her heart).
After Krakoa gate send all mutants that originally born on earth back to their true home, Krakoa ascend back to White Hot Room where their descendants and civilization will be protect for all eternity. While Earth born mutants choose to stay on Earth-616 despite anti-mutants bigotry because they have humans friends and family here.
At the end of the book, it's reveal to readers that Moira is reborn in new timeline created by Jean Grey so she can live a happy normal life of a girl that she deserves. This marked the end of the Krakoa story arc of Marvel universe.
Powers and abilities[]
The Four Sinister System clones
The Enigma being a cosmic entity can wrap reality and devour anything. Along with high intelligence since being an A.I. construct of the Original Nathaniel Essex. Like all other Dominions and Abstract Entities, they exist in Overspace which is 1 layer above the time stream of entire multiverse, thus not affect by any change in timelines. He already exist in the future even before his proper ascention by absorb power from his 4 clones, thus manipulate events from the future to ensure he will come to existent. While he might survive a time paradox because he exists outside the timestream, he wouldn't risk it and tried not to create a paradox that prevent his ascension.
He is powerful even compare to other Dominions, making other Dominions fear him. Loki describe Dominion as very powerful, making Black Winter weak compare to him. He want to consume everything in the Multiverse and eventually overthrown the One Above All. The Beyonders wanted to destroy the multiverse so Enigma would be destroyed along with it to protect the One Above All. However, this failed because the new multiverse turned out to be continuation of the old one. The Beyondors had to use Concordance Engines and Enigma Force to contain his influence to just Earth-616 and timelines that branch from it.
Just like other Dominions, he can be killed by other entities that exist in Overspace, such as Abstract Entities, Galactus, and Pheonix Force. Enigma aknowledges this which is why he wants to wipe out mutantkinds because they are the best species to be hosts for the Phoenix Force. Unlike other Dominions howevwer, he still had his human attributes, especially fear and paranoia, due to being a single individual ascended to Dominion instead of a hive-mind of multiple Type-3 Civilizations, that evolved pass the idea of bigotry.
Trivia[]
- The power level of Enigma is similar to that of the First Firmament since both have tried to eliminate Eternity, attempted to destroy the Multiverse and are powerful cosmic type entities.
- Dr. Nathaniel Essex and Mr. Sinister were originally the same character. Mr. Sinister was retconned into being one of the clones of the real Nathaniel Essex, who manipulated all of his clones to try to achieve Dominion only to absorb their power, to ascend his digitized consciousness into a Dominion.
- He manipulated his ascension from the future where he already existed to ensure that the future will become true. This is possible due to the fact that Overspace exists outside of the timestream. Similar to how the Warp works in the Warhammer universe. Even then, it has been stated multiple times in both Marvel and the Warhammer universe that fate is not set in stone.
