Warning: contains spoilers for Rise of the Powers of X #2!As the X-Men face a godlike enemy beyond anything they’ve fought before, the franchise is introducing its darkest and grossest Sentinels ever. Created by Bolivar Trask, the Sentinels are a type of robot designed to kill mutants. While the originals were towering humanoids, the franchise has introduced progressively more disturbing versions over the decades, with the latest iteration taking things further than ever.
In Rise of the Powers of X, the X-Men battle against Enigma – a newly risen godlike being which exists outside time and space. The result of Nathaniel Essex’s centuries-long endgame, Enigma is programmed with thousands of years of data that have allowed it to transcend linear reality. The one advantage the X-Men have is their ‘No Place’ – a base that likewise exists outside reality and is therefore invisible to Enigma. Knowing the X-Men will try to prevent its creation using time travel, the Enigma deploys new “Arachno-Sentinels” – cosmic spiders whose time-web will detect the X-Men once they make their move.
Described as submarines nestling underneath reality, the Arachno-Sentinels are a terrifying species, each bearing the marking of Enigma’s crown logo. They’re a million miles away from the Sentinels fans are used to, but looking at their legs, it’s clear they’re still some kind of robotic life, albeit incredibly advanced.
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X-Men Showcases a Founding Member’s New Powers, As They Permanently Become a Villain
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The 2019-2024 Krakoan Era has all been leading up to the birth of Enigma, which has been playing both mutants and AI all along. A machine consciousness which has downloaded the memories of four villains who tried to ascend to godhood – including classic X-foe Mister Sinister – Enigma is seemingly unbeatable. Now that it exists outside space and time, there’s seemingly nothing that can beat it – even preventing its creation should no longer be able to destroy it.
And yet as Xavier’s X-Men note, Enigma is still bothering to play defense, meaning that for some mysterious reason, there’s is something in the universe it fears. They’re betting that because it only recently ascended, it’s still possible to cancel out Enigma via time travel – specifically, Xavier plans to kill Moira MacTaggert, erasing the last five years of X-Men stories. The problem is that Enigma has its Arachno-Sentinels laying in wait all across the timeline. Xavier’s team believe they’re capable of one jump without triggering the Arachno-Sentinels’ webbing, but that will be their only chance to change time and potentially prevent Enigma’s creation.
Enigma’s perception of time is almost unfathomable to humans, but the concept of a vast web stretched across the timeline, just waiting for the X-Men to brush against a single thread, is the perfect illustration of what Xavier’s team are up against. While they don’t look anything like their robotic forebears, the Arachno-Sentinels reflect the perfection of the idea by a being which has infinite time and power to bring to bear – viscerally disturbing, inherently predatory, and deeply disdainful of mutant life.
The Arachno-Sentinels are a scary new threat showing just how high the stakes are in the X-Men’s most recent mission, but far more terrifying is that they’re simply a weapon of convenience for Enigma, who has a whole universe of such monstrosities to level against the X-Men.
Rise of the Powers of X #2 is available now from Marvel Comics.
