Emma Frost
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Emma Grace Frost, also known as the White Queen, is a Marvel Comics character, a member of the X-Men. Created by writer Chris Claremont and artist/co-writer John Byrne, she first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980).
An urbane, mutant telepath, known for her sexy, white attire, Frost has been both friend and foe of the X-Men. She was originally one of the wealthy, mutant elites who comprised the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club. She has had a lifelong interest in teaching the next generation and led the club’s junior team the Hellions.
After her students’ deaths, she joined Charles Xavier’s cause, mentoring the X-Men junior team Generation X. She later joined the X-Men and became headmistress of the Xavier Institute, although her ethics and loyalty remain in question.
Character history
Hellfire Club and Massachusetts Academy
Emma Frost first appeared as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club, a group of superhumans who dressed in 18th century clothing and plotted world domination. Frost and the Club's agents captured several members of the X-Men. Frost engaged the Phoenix in a psychic battle, which she lost badly, but from which she recovered.During her time with the Hellfire Club, Frost also ran the Massachusetts Academy, a school for mutants which served as a counterpoint to that of X-Men founder Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. Frost's trainees became the supervillain team the Hellions and fought Xavier's young students the New Mutants. At one point, Frost began privately training a young mutant named Angelica Jones to be her personal bodyguard and assassin in reaction to political in-fighting among the Hellfire Club. Jones eventually discovered Frost was manipulating her and broke free from her control to later become the super-heroine Firestar.
Death of the Hellions
In Uncanny X-Men #281 (1991), the time traveling mutant Trevor Fitzroy unleashed the mutant-hunting robots called the Sentinels on Frost and the Hellions. Frost was left in a coma by the attack and nearly all of her students were killed, although one of the Hellions, Tarot, somehow returned to life several months later. The two Hellions that managed to survive were Warpath and Empath.The X-Men cared for the comatose Frost at their headquarters. Later, she awoke and possessed the body of the X-Man Iceman.In Bobby's body, Emma did many things with his ice powers that Bobby would never have even dreamed of and pushed his powers to the max. She escaped the X-Men, but she was devastated when she discovered the deaths of her students and Xavier was able to coax her back into her own body.
Generation X
Xavier paired Frost with the X-Man Banshee to mentor the teenage mutant team Generation X at Frost's Massachusetts Academy after the two had teamed up to stop the Phalanx. Banshee's trust of Frost was intermittent — at times he was suspicious of her, and at others he trusted her implicitly. Her students were also initially skeptical of her. However, they soon came to trust their headmistress. She also made her peace with Firestar around this time.After Frost's business ventures took a bad turn, she turned to her estranged sister Adrienne for help. Adrienne, a psychometrist, offered financial assistance but demanded to be co-headmistress of the school in return. Adrienne secretly plotted against Emma and planted a bomb at the school, which killed Synch, one of Emma's students. Emma tracked down and murdered Adrienne and then returned to the Academy, growing increasingly distant from her students in an effort to hide her crime. This, combined with Banshee's increasing depression and drunkenness following the death of his long-time lover Moira MacTaggert, led the students to leave, disbanding Generation X.
Joining the X-Men
Afterwards, Frost traveled to the mutant haven island of Genosha. There, Frost ran and taught at a mutant school until a genocidal Sentinel attack killed most of the island's population. Frost survived only due to the sudden manifestation of her secondary mutation: the power to transform herself into a flexible, diamond-like substance that provides her near-invulnerability.Frost then joined the X-Men and taught at Xavier's newly-reopened school. She also started to look after and train a group of telepathic quintuplets known as the Stepford Cuckoos, who quickly became her prized pupils.
During a riot at the school, one of the Cuckoos was killed and the others left Emma, blaming her for the death. Soon afterward, she was found, by her fellow X-Man Beast, in her diamond shape, totally shattered. It was soon revealed that one of the Cuckoos, Esme, was responsible. She had been working behind the scenes with Magneto (who would later be revealed to be impersonated by a mutant named Xorn). After Esme attempted to mentally attack "Magneto" when he rejected her advances, she was killed by him. The three remaining Cuckoos have since returned to Emma.
Emma began to have a sexual telepathic relationship with the X-Man Cyclops who had become distant from his wife Jean Grey, due to his temporary physical and mental merger with the mutant immortal, Apocalypse. Emma claimed that her intentions were to help him with his failing marriage. Upon discovering the affair, an enraged (and far more powerful) Jean Grey, who had recently begun manifesting her Phoenix powers again, confronted Emma and unleashed the full might of her psi-powers, which tore through Emma's mental defenses and forced her to face the self-denials of her past. Having their own minds manipulated is extremely traumatizing for telepaths, much more so than for a non-psi. The experience was particularly hard for a telepath as powerful and skilled as Emma, and it left her humilated and emotionally shattered.
Leading Xavier's
Emma did not remain in such a state for long. Following Jean Grey's apparent death, Cyclops and Emma became lovers, despite the criticism from their teammates. The two took over the school after Professor Xavier stepped down. Frost became co-headmaster with Cyclops and advisor to a new team of Hellions.
Due to Emma's refined telepathic abilities, she beat the alternate future daughter of Jean Grey and Cyclops, Rachel Grey, in a contest on the astral plane. Frost then rather peacefully offered Rachel the chance to help her hone her telepathic skills. Rachel, though still wary, accepted the proposal.
Emma was pivotal to the plot of the House of M event. In this reality, she was married to Scott and the pair had three children. Emma was the first X-Man Wolverine contacted for help after the Scarlet Witch altered reality. She was the only other reawoken individual to side with Wolverine in a controversial opinion to kill the Scarlet Witch in order to return to the world to normal.
Loyalties
An ongoing subplot in Astonishing X-Men depicts Emma's unusually antagonistic relationship with Kitty Pryde and possible domination of Scott Summers as possible evidence of disloyalty. Her secretive relationship with the surviving Stepford Cuckoos has also been presented as "evidence," and accusations are frequently made by other characters having reason to distrust her motives. In issue #12 (August 2005), the question of Emma's "true loyalties" are brought into focus as Emma abandons the team during a fight to confer with a shadowy figure, revealed on the final page to be one of a group of four individuals watching from the shadows. The group contains Sebastian Shaw, Cassandra Nova, Negasonic Teenage Warhead (a young telepath and former student of Emma's, who apparently died in Genosha), and a cloaked figure called Perfection, who discuss among themselves Emma's impending betrayal of the team.
In Astonishing X-Men #13 (February, 2006), it was revealed that Emma's survival of the destruction of Genosha in New X-Men #115 was due to Cassandra Nova creating Emma's secondary mutation as part of a scheme to infiltrate the X-Men as a sleeper agent (Nova having erased the memory of their encounter and only restoring it recently). Perfection noted that Emma's feelings for Summers were genuine, however. Related, in "Astonishing X-Men" #13, Cassandra noted that Emma is a "predator," that Emma will "do what's best for" Emma, which will mean, "in the long run...planting yourself where you can be of use to me, and, in the short run, surviving [the attack on Genosha]." In Astonishing X-Men #14, Emma began using her telepathy on Cyclops to appear as Phoenix, trying to reveal the lack of control he had over his optic blasts. It was revealed that shortly after he fell out of a plane with his younger brother Havok, Scott placed a deep mental block in his mind which prevented the controlled use of his powers. Encouraged by Emma, Scott revisits that moment in his life and reverses the decision. On the final page, Scott is shown without his ruby glasses on, revealing his newfound control of his abilities, apparently comatose.
Emma Frost series
Following the success of some of the newer X-Men titles such as the New Mutants (Vol.2) and X-Treme X-Men, staff at Marvel considered a new title centered around the former White Queen. Marvel launched an Emma Frost ongoing series in 2003. It was cancelled in 2004. This series detailed Emma's early years, and was written by Karl Bollers. The earlier issues were drawn by Randy Green, who left after #6. He was replaced with Carlo Pagulayan for the remaining issues up until the series was cancelled. The series was supposed to cover Emma's life from high school until her first appearance as the White Queen, however, it was cancelled at issue #18.
Emma Frost was reprinted in three digest-sized collections (the first of which released under the Marvel Age imprint).
- Emma Frost Vol. 1: Higher Learning collects issues #1-6 and revolves around Emma's conflicts with her family, especially her father.
- Emma Frost Vol. 2: Mind Games collects issues #7-12 and features Emma's first forays into criminal activity.
- Emma Frost Vol. 3: Bloom collects issues #13-18, in which Emma goes to college and befriends another telepath, Astrid Bloom, and learns to use her powers. This was the last trade, as Marvel cancelled Emma Frost at #18.
Powers and abilities
Since her introduction, Emma has displayed the telepathic standards of broadcasting and receiving thoughts, mind control, altering perceptions and memories, creating concentrated blasts of mental energy called 'psi bolts', astral projection, etc. She is highly skilled at creating electronic devices that amplify/block/engage psionic powers, as well as exploiting flaws in most electronic equipment.Emma is also very adept at performing 'psychic surgery': the utilization of pin-pointed psionic energy to exert absolute control over individual brain functions such that the physical form can be manipulated (i.e., injuries healed, disabilities repaired, stimulation or retardation of growth and aging, etc). This an unusual feat for even the most powerful of telepaths, but one that Emma is keen to utilize whenever the occasion suits her.
Upon their meeting in the rainforests of Ecuador, Cassandra Nova labeled Emma's psychic abilities as 'bush league' in comparison to herself. Regardless of that statement, Emma can formidably hold her own even against those of more considerable might. An example of this was her victory over Rachel Grey (Marvel Girl II) on the Astral Plane; while Rachel may have had significantly more raw power, Emma's refined skills enabled her to claim victory over the relatively inexperienced Rachel. Also in contrast to Cassandra Nova's claim, other characters in the comics and canon writers label Emma as a "high-order telepath," capable of extraordinary telepathic feats.
During the massacre of over 16 million mutants in Genosha, Emma developed a secondary mutation: the ability to transform herself into a perfectly smooth, flexible, translucent diamond-like substance. Her abilities have been inconsistent in this form. Although initially only her skin turns into diamond, she was shattered by a diamond bullet, indicating that her entire body turns into organic diamond. Emma is virtually impervious to all forms of physical damage and can use her indestructible body to support incredible amounts of weight, though different writers have shown varying accounts of her strength. The Official X-Men Handbook 2004 clearly states that Emma does gain strength in her diamond form enabling her to lift 50 tons. The interactions between her diamond form and her telepathy have also been inconsistent; while some reports say that due to a genetic flaw Emma cannot access her telepathy in diamond form, later stories have contradicted this. Furthermore, reports vary on her mind's condition while in diamond form - some say that her mind is mirrored and impossible to read, while others say that her mind is vulnerable in such a state. Recently, it has been revealed that Cassandra Nova 'created' Emma's secondary mutation for her, although whether this is truly Cassandra Nova or merely a figment of Emma's fragile psyche has yet to be determined.
Throughout the years, it has been strongly hinted that Emma is also a latent telekinetic. To save herself from Trevor Fitzroy, Jean Grey's displaced psyche was able to use Emma's brain to generate a strong telekinetic force-field and fly while it inhabited the White Queen's body. In Generation X #19, an unconscious Emma telekinetically levitated several kitchen utensils around her while having a bad dream. As Emma's mutant abilities are her telepathy and diamond form, it is still unclear as to how these feats were accomplished as writers have yet to elaborate on the issue.
Alternate Versions
Age of Apocalypse
In the Age of Apocalypse, Emma Frost never joined the Hellfire Club, and was part neither of the X-Men or of Apocalypse's forces. Instead, she was a member of the High Human Council, despite being a mutant. The AoA Emma had no psychic powers due to a lobotomy, which, regardless of it having been forced, saved her from Apocalypse's psychic mutants purge.
Frost was one of the HHC leaders that lead the attack against Apocalypse, alongside Mariko Yashida and Brian Braddock, whom Frost both distrusted and disliked for his extreme anti-mutant stance.
Ultimate Universe
In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Emma Frost is a Chicago High school teacher who is even more pacifistic than Professor X and appears to be older than her mainstream counterpart. Her team known as The Academy of Tomorrow has an even stronger peacekeeping slant than the X-Men. In this continuity, Emma has the power to turn into organic crystal (like her secondary mutation in the mainstream continuity), but does not seem to possesses telepathy like the mainstream version. Emma once called her group her Hellions. But in that context, it was probably meant more as an in-joke regarding the name of the villain mutant team she led in the mainstream continuity, rather than its real name. Professor X once had an affair with Emma, for whom he left Mystique. She has shown an anti-human streak when angry.
In other media
- Emma Frost (as the White Queen) appeared in the 1989 animated television pilot, Pryde of the X-Men, with Susan Silo providing her voice. Frost was portrayed as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, with no mention of the Hellfire Club.
- Finola Hughes, with the help of a white wig, portrayed Emma Frost in a 1996 live-action television movie titled Generation X. As in the Generation X series, Frost still went by the code name White Queen.
- Emma Frost briefly appeared in an episode of the Fox Kids X-Men animated series as the White Queen of the Inner Circle Club (the name used for the Hellfire Club in the animated series) during Dark Phoenix Saga.
- Emma Frost is a playable character in the computer role playing game X-Men Legends and returns as a non-player character in the sequel .
- Emma Frost is the mid-boss of Stage 5 in Konami's X-Men arcade game, which was largely based on Pryde of the X-Men. Susan Silo added her voice talents to the game with such infamous engrish quotes as, "The White Queen welcomes you to die!"
- Emma Frost (as White Queen) appears in the X-Men game for NES. She appears at the end of the fourth level, "Battle on a Living Starship." As a boss, Frost morphs into the player's chosen character and mimics their attacks, periodically returning to her normal form. Unless players were able to decipher the hidden code written on the front of the game, this was the final level of the game.
- After the success of the X-Men trilogy of movies, there has been talk that an Emma Frost film is being considered by 20th Century Fox.[link]
External links
- - Marvel Database Project
- [UncannyXmen.net, Spotlight feature on Emma Frost]
- [White Queen feature on X-Peoples Central]
- [IGN Votes for Hottest Comic Book Babe] - Winner: Emma Frost
| X-Men members |
|---|
| Archangel | Banshee | Beast | Bishop | Cable | Cannonball | Cecilia Reyes | Chamber | Changeling | Colossus | Cyclops | Dazzler | Emma Frost | Forge | Gambit | Havok | Husk | Iceman | Jean Grey | Joanna Cargill | Joseph | Jubilee | Juggernaut | Lifeguard | Longshot | Maggott | Magneto | Marrow | Mimic | Mystique | Nightcrawler | Northstar | Polaris | Professor X | Psylocke | Rachel Summers | Revanche | Rogue | Sage | Shadowcat | Slipstream | Stacy X | Storm | Sunfire | Thunderbird | Thunderbird (Neal Shaara) | Warpath | Wolverine | Xorn |
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