Summary

• Immortal X-Men #18 reveals the dark secret of Enigma, the mutant god Dominion, setting up the X-Men's final confrontation.
• Mother Righteous fails in her bid to ascend to Dominion, ending her manipulation of the X-Men.
• The Enigma from Immortal X-Men #18 is most likely the same Enigma from Al Ewing's Defenders: Beyond.

Warning: contains spoilers for Immortal X-Men #18Since Jonathan Hickman's iconic 2019 reboot of the X-Men, House of X/Powers of X, the celestial artificial intelligence known as Dominion has been an ever-present threat against mutantkind and all of Earth. Finally, in Immortal X-Men #18, Marvel reveals the dark secret of Enigma, the entity who has ascended to become the cosmic god Dominion, setting up the X-Men's final confrontation of the Krakoan Era.

Immortal X-Men #18 - the last issue in the beloved series - from writer Kieron Gillen and artists Juan José Ryp and David Curiel sees the terrible Mother Righteous fail in her bid to ascend to Dominion, finally ending her ruthless manipulation of the X-Men.

Meanwhile, Xavier and Sinister discover the dark truth behind the four Nathaniel Essex Sinister clones... they were all created to absorb data, leading to the birth of a 5th "child" of Nathaniel Essex, an "apex AI" called Enigma, who may have already been introduced in Al Ewing's Defenders: Beyond.

Meet Enigma: Nathanial Essex's Apex AI Who Is Becoming Dominion

There have been many theories over the past few months about which Sinister would become Dominion, with many fans guessing it would either be Mother Righteous or even Xavier - with Sinister still stuck inside his head - but all these theories have been proven wrong. Immortal X-Men #18 sees Mother Righteous using Jean Grey's vessel to access the inner heart of the White Hot Room, attempting to rewrite reality and ascend to Dominion. At first, it seems like she has succeeded until, just like Sinister in Sins of Sinister, the real Dominion reveals itself and gives Righteous a brutal reality check.

It is revealed that the four Nathaniel Essex clones - Sinister, Righteous, Orbis, and Stasis - were all just "leeches," created to attempt to reach Dominion through four separate modalities, collecting data from the universe, and unknowingly sending that data back to Essex's lab. Years ago, Essex decided the only way to defeat the coming machine supremacy was to them, creating his own all-powerful artificial intelligence, which is where Enigma comes in. Enigma - using a Crown symbol similar to a card deck's King - is the 5th "child" of Essex, an AI that was able to reach Dominion outside time and space after all four clones attempted, got incredible close, and then failed to ascend.

The Crown Above All Things Is Coming For The Multiverse

While it has not been canonically confirmed, it is more than likely that Enigma from Immortal X-Men is the same Enigma from Defenders: Beyond #5, revealed to be a "Crown Above All Things," a "vast entity" coming for all of reality. The symbol for Essex's Enigma is also a crown and a Dominion is a cosmically massive entity outside of reality whose entire goal is to assimilate all of reality into itself. Kieron Gillen and Al Ewing have been major parts of the Krakoan Age, and both work within the Marvel Cosmic quite often, so it is no surprise that the ending of Gillen's Immortal X-Men would tie in so beautifully with Ewing's Defenders: Beyond.

The reveal of Enigma, the true "god" of mutantkind and the final child of Nathaniel Essex, shakes Marvel's cosmic mythos to its core, proving it will take incredible celestial powers like that of the Phoenix to destroy the Dominion before it devours all of Marvel's realities. Now that Marvel's final boss - the Enigma - has ascended to Dominion, no one in the Marvel Universe is safe, and the X-Men will need to fight harder than ever before to save their future.

Immortal X-Men #18 from Marvel Comics is available now in stores.