Immortal X-Men #18 - Review/Spoilers

[Sutekh]

Personally, this whole Dominion status thing is starting to lose my attention because so far none of it is living up to all the hype it's received.

Also See: Order of Dominions

Yeah, never really got or cared about this whole Dominion thing. It does not sound like a status that I would even want, let alone work for.

It's like worrying about time travel changing the past.

Time travel either exists, and therefore someone has discovered it, either in my past, or in my future, or halfway across the observable universe from me, and already made all sorts of changes I know nothing about and can't do a thing to have changed anyway, or it doesn't exist. Either way, irrelevant to me.

Either Dominions exist, and in the last 5 million years someone in the vast unknowable universe has already become one and is writing my story anyway, and I can't even tell, let alone do nuffin' about it, or Dominions don't exist. So, whatever. Pass the milk.

I'd be amused to find out that 'Dominion' is just a buzzword invented by the various cosmic entities like the Stranger, In-Betweener, Eon, etc. to keep little people busy trying to reach some sort of informational singularity where they are filled with infinite knowledge, and just too damn overwhelmed by it all to serve as anything other than vast informational repositories for the Elders.

Ding! You have reached Dominion status! Galactus checks oven, "Oh good, another Dominion has finished baking. I look forward to browsing this new archive and then putting it on the shelf with the last 2,483 issues of Dominion Millenially to arrive..."

[king of hybrids]

One thing to keep in mind is that for Hickman’s original take; the various types of machine gods are… just dudes. Machine gods yes, but they squabble with each other for turf and parts like standard marvel gods and are explicitly vulnerable to entities like Galactus and Phoenix if their constituent black holes are destroyed. notably their main offensive actions were their respective phalanxes scavenging the universe like carrion birds. Their scavengers, not predators.

Enigma is the result of a sociopathic Victorian solipsist looking at that and thinking that he wants in in that (don’t believe the yarn he spun to Destiny and Mystique*, he wasn’t worried about machine gods destroying the universe, he only cared about not being on what he perceived as the winning team)

*until proven otherwise I’m going to pretend Mystique was the post-Reichenbach Holmes, it seems a bit more original than Gillen copying Steven Moffat nearly a decade after the fact

[Rev9]

This Enigma reveal, makes Sinister procuring Apoth hardware in FA#6 less of a random plot point.

[Nicoclaws]

This Enigma reveal, makes Sinister procuring Apoth hardware in FA#6 less of a random plot point.

YES I'm actually excited Apoth could be mentionned even as a passing mention.

[Micabe]

This Enigma reveal, makes Sinister procuring Apoth hardware in FA#6 less of a random plot point.

What book is FA#6?

[davetvs]

Fallen Angels.

[lefthanded]

There is so much I hate about this issue. It kind of closes the door on my waning interest in Fall of X, and now with Ewing leaving there is nothing to look forward to.

Destiny tried to explain away her horrible behavior by saying she was fighting Dominion and couldnt tell anyone… yet the very same issue has Xavier and Sinister say they are okay because they are telepathically communicating. Did Destiny not realize she was literally surrounded by telepaths that she could have had strategic sessions with? Its Gillen trying to retcon her evil behavior by saying she was always working towards the greater good.

And, the only reason we are given to care about Dominion (outside of fan theorizing) is simply because Sinister cares about it. And why do we care that Sinister cares? Defenders can say we should care because it ultimately affects the good guys, but that same argument can be used for any antagonist (For example, Orchis, which we still don’t care about). So there is no intrinsic reason for your average reader to care about this villain of the week, as none of the protagonists we root for has any connection to the antagonist.

[bandoogiemanz]

A Dominion is an entity that lives outside of time. They control a small area of space, which I assume is determined from where they are created. When HoX/PoX started the explanation was that machine empires gobble up the essence of organic civiliations until they reach a threshold and become one. But now we're at the point that Gillen has expanded that idea to be that is one way to achieve Dominion but not the only way. It was the only method that Moira witnessed and a lot of their information was coming from her.

Essex created the four Sinisters and each of them researched and achieved Dominion status their own way. Krakoa Sinister did it using mutants, Orbis used a mysterium/M'kraan crystal construct and Statis did something terrible to the sun and Mother Righteous just used mutants and magic. But it seems that Essex was using them to research all the various ways to achieve it and activate his Enigma AI in order to take all that knowledge and have it be the one that achieves Dominion status.

Even though in the timeline currently Engima hasn't activated yet. Because it is supposed to activate sometime in the future it always has and will exist and has been guiding things to make sure that it's creation is complete. Which is why the other Sinister's also failed in achieving Dominion, because the space around the Earth, which is where they were attempting to ascend, was already occupied. I'm guessing had they gone somewhere else that was outside of the 'space' of the Enigma Dominion then they would have ascended successfully.

I imagine they'll explain at some point they'll explain why Essex decided it needed to be a 5th creation that reached it rather than one of the other 4.

Maybe cuz he didn't have a way to know which, if any of them would be successful?

[Master of Sound]

So the one being Emigma, will that be yet another clone, of who might have been amongst the X-Men for a while, without us realizing it?

Or does that mean the actual real Sinister has not died and is he the one Emigma?

[MythicalChicken]

I've loved every phase of the Krakoa era, and I dig FoX so much because I don't think too hard about Dominion, which I've always chalked up to pretentious Hickman nonsense.

[JB]

So the one being Emigma, will that be yet another clone, of who might have been amongst the X-Men for a while, without us realizing it?

Or does that mean the actual real Sinister has not died and is he the one Emigma?

Enigma is AI so it seems like it doesn't have a form outside of the giant crown shown in Defenders Beyond.

[PhoenixStudies]

Just some panels from past issues where Jean met the cosmic construction worker...

[ARkadelphia]

Just some panels from past issues where Jean met the cosmic construction worker...

Fred from Scooby Doo is Death?

[PhoenixStudies]

Fred from Scooby Doo is Death?

Yeah, haven't you watched the recent Velma series?

Anyways, some more panels...

[Omega_DCD]

Yeah, haven't you watched the recent Velma series?

Anyways, some more panels...

We've seen some superficial callbacks to this construction/tower over the years...I would love if somehow...somehow...the souls we've seen Jean bring there, primarily the D'Bari, but also the Termids in Here Comes Tomorrow...and maybe any other planet/species that has run it's course and to "terrain" society looks evil and like wanton destruction...I wish it could all be used for an important purpose in the WHR sense