Origin

One of the seven origin bombs sent by Ex Nihilio and Abyss from Mars contained the Planetary Operational Defense System (or Pod). It landed in Norway, bonded with a young woman named Aikku Jokinen, and then cocooned itself. A search party by A.I.M. found the cocoon and brought it back to A.I.M. island. They tried multiple methods of getting through the cocoon but nothing worked. An AIM scientist was inspired by his pregnant wife, who had been playing music to get reactions from their fetus. After playing music, the Pod managed to escape.

Creation

Enigma appears for the first time in Avengers (2013) #4 by Jonathan Hickman and Adam Kubert, although she is obscured in ice.

Major Story Arcs

Time Runs Out

After Pod managed to escape, it immediately flew to Perth, Australia, where the Avengers were fighting off another subject of an origin bomb. It was able to adapt to each of its attackers without killing or causing any major injury to any of the Avengers. Superia and a team of AIM goons teleported to the battlefield and manipulated the Pod into coming with them. They, then, trapped it in the dimension that they used to teleport.

Sunspot, while a member of the Avengers, purchased A.I.M. and turned it into a force for good. This included saving Pod from the dimensional void it was trapped in. It joined Sunspot’s Avengers splinter group, which Bobby created after Captain America gave orders to hunt down the Illuminati for meddling with the multiverse.

Avengers Idea Mechanics

After the Eighth Cosmos is born in the aftermath of Secret Wars, Pod remains a member of Sunspot’s Avengers Idea Mechanics, largely in the role of his personal bodyguard. Toni Ho, head of engineering , was responsible for monitoring her diagnostics since Aikku was stuck inside the armor. The loneliness was stressful for Aikku, especially when her girlfriend broke up with her unable to have a relationship through the machine. Over the course of Toni’s care for her, Aikku eventually developed feelings for her.

When the team received a distress call from Rick Jones who was in SHIELD custody, Pod volunteered for the rescue team. The military retaliated with their special weapons program, The American Kaiju. This gave Toni the opportunity to use her newest project, Avengers Five, a large kaiju battlebot that requires five brains linked though Pod to be piloted. Toni along with Sunspot, Power Man, White Tiger, and Max Brashear volunteer to take on American Kaiju, which they defeated.

After the mind link with Pod, Toni believed she understood Pod and Aikku better than ever, however, they were attacked by The Maker and his New Revengers. They destroyed Pod, and then went after Toni. To protect herself and the remains of Pod, she put on the Rescue armor. After chasing Maker away, Aikku, who was saved by Pod, emerged from the armor and embraced Toni. The armor’s OS was gone, but Aikku was granted a suit of armor of her own.

U.S.Avengers

When Sunspot made a deal with Col. Maverick to work together and take out all of the AIM splinter cells, Aikku, now calling herself Enigma, stuck with the team, mostly to continue her relationship with Toni. This relationship was under an unfortunate amount of stress due to Toni constantly being overwhelmed by her research.

When Hydra’s Captain America starts prepping for a takeover of America, the Hydra spies within Sunspot’s organization are activated, one of which passes on Enigma’s frequency so they could make weapons that can actually harm her. Maverick gets injected with nanites that allows him to Hulk out right away but also gives Hydra full control over his body. They force him to attack the team, and to keep Aikku and Squirrel Girl safe, Toni hacks the Enigma suit and teleports them to Paris.

There, the two join the Champions of Europe to fight back against Hydra forces overseas. Their target is a Hydra helicarrier. The team steals hydramechs to make their move. Aikku takes it upon herself to take down the fortress without help. She phases the hydramech into the engine where she then increases the density, grounding it.

When the dust settles, Sunspot quits A.I.M., and Toni is voted as the new Supreme Leader.

No Surrender

When Earth is stolen to be used as a game board by The Challenger (using the Black Order) and The Grandmaster (using the Lethal Legion), the most prominent or powerful Avengers are frozen in stasis so as not to interfere, including Aikku. She and the other stasis Avengers were moved to Avengers Mansion. The remaining Avengers were forced to play by the Elders’ rules. When Red Wolf managed to beat both challengers and get taken off the gameboard, Enigma was freed from stasis, proving that the Elders could only keep a specific number of Avengers in stasis at once.

She was moved to the Auxiliary Headquarters, where Toni was running communications for those in the field. The Challenger pulled out his wild card, a resurrected Hulk, and aimed him at Toni’s auxiliary headquarters. Aikku set her suit to the highest density to hold the Hulk for as long as she could. Unfortunately, it is not enough. The Hulk rips pieces of her armor off, destroying it for good.

Thankfully, the other Avengers are able to reach Hulk and convince not to play the game. He destroys the last artifact, forcing the Challenger to come to Earth himself. Meanwhile, Living Lightning goes to Grandmaster and challenges him to a side bet, and Quicksilver tracks down the device that is keeping the other Avengers in stasis. With both off the game board, Challenger must contend with the full force of the Avengers.

Victorious, Sunspot shuts down the U.S. Avengers, and Toni decides to rebrand her version of A.I.M. as R.E.S.C.U.E., where Toni would build her a new armor, Pod-2.

Character Profile

• Eye Color: Blue
• Hair Color: Blonde
• Citizenship: Norwegian (by birth), Finnish (through her parents)
• Place of Birth: Norway
• Marital Status: Single, exclusively dating Toni Ho
• Occupation: Adventurer

Powers & Abilities

Bilingual: Aikku is fluent in both Norwegian and English.

Planetary Operational Defense: For a time, Aikku was bonded to an artifically intelligent power suit that had an energy shield and was nigh-invulnerable.

• Artillery: The Pod had a number of long range weapons including explosives and an eye beam.
• Flight: The Pod was capable of flight
• Adaptation: The artificial intelligence in the Pod was capable of making split second changes to counter any opposing force.

Operation Enigma: After being disconnected from the Pod, Aikku relied on the undersuit from inside the Pod until it was forcibly removed from her. It's primary capability was density control. Aikku could lower her density to phase through solid objects or increase her density to increase her strength or withstand incoming attacks. She could also adjust the density of people around her.

• Teleportation: Although Aikku does not know how to do it, her density control could be manually desynchronized from the rotation and orbit of the Earth, allowing her to teleport. This feat was only accomplished once by Toni, who remotely hacked the suit when they were in danger.
• Image Inducer: Aikku had an image inducer that allowed her to use holographic disguises.

Pod-2: Aikku is currently using a second generation of Pod, presumably created by Toni Ho.

Red Triangle: Sunspot taught her the "Red Triangle" trick that Professor X teaches to all his students. It allows the user to counter most forms of mind control.