Emma Frost
| Emma Frost | |
|---|---|
| File:Emmaf165.png Emma Frost Salvador Larroca, artist | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Uncanny X-Men #129 (January 1980) |
| Created by | Chris Claremont John Byrne |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Emma Grace Frost |
| Species | Human Mutant |
| Team affiliations | Hellfire Club, X-Men, Xavier Institute, The 198, Frost International Hellions, Generation X, Hellions Squad |
| Notable aliases | White Queen |
| Abilities | Telepathy, Ability to morph into indestructible organic diamond, Superhuman strength in diamond form |
Emma Grace[1] Frost, also known as the White Queen, is a fictional character appearing in the
. 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 revealing 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.
Publication history
From her initial appearance as the White Queen, Frost appeared in a few major storylines over the years and frequently appeared in Uncanny X-Men and the first series of the New Mutants alongside her Hellions. Some of these storylines include the Dark Phoenix Saga and the death of the Hellions by Trevor Fitzroy rendering her into her coma.
In March 1986, Tom Defalco, Mary Wilshire and Stevie Leialoha were the creative team for the four issue Firestar mini-series, where Emma predominantly appeared alongside her Hellions. This series showed the conniving side of her personality as she attempted to turn Angelica Jones into her own personal weapon.
In 1994, after recovering from her coma and aiming to redeem herself upon the knowledge her former students had been slaughtered, Frost played a pivotal role in the Phalanx Covenant which saw her team up with Banshee, Jubilee and Sabretooth in an attempt to save the next generation of mutants. This lead to her becoming a main character of the spin-off series Generation X which began in November 1994 under the creative eyes of Scott Lobdell, Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham. The series ended after 75 issues and a minus one issue with Brian Wood, Ron Lim, Sandu Florea and Randy Elliott ending the series. During the -1 issue, it is revealed that Emma was homeless and had met Banshee, who was working for the NYPD and a amnesiac Dark Beast from the Age of Apocalypse. After the series ended and all the X-Titles were revamped, Emma appears in the first series of New X-Men where she started an affair with Cyclops.
In August 2003, under Karl Bollers and Randy Green, with covers by Greg Horn, a Emma Frost on-going series was created. The series showed Emma's life as a teenage girl whose powers had just developed. It also introduced her parents especially her father, Winston and her older brother Christian as well as reintroducing her sisters Adrienne and Cordelia. The series lasted for 18 issues.
From July 2004, under Joss Whedon and John Cassaday, Emma became a main character in the third series of Astonishing X-Men. She has had major storylines in the series including the "return" of the "new" Hellfire Club. She can also be seen in most current X-Titles, especially the second series of New X-Men.
Fictional character biography
White Queen of the Hellfire Club
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 Phoenix in a psychic battle, lost badly, but later 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 super-villain team known as 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
When 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. One of the Hellions, Tarot, somehow returned to life several months later. The two Hellions that managed to survive were Warpath and Empath.
It was also during this period (behind the scenes) that Emma's egg cells were harvested by John Sublime.
The X-Men cared for the comatose Frost at the Xavier Academy. Later, she awoke and possessed the body of the X-Man Iceman (Bobby Drake). In Drake's body, Frost made use of his ice powers in ways he had never dreamed and pushed the limits of his powers to escape the X-Mansion. When she discovered the deaths of her students, Xavier was able to coax the devastated Frost back into her own body.
Generation X
After being disrupted from her comatose state while the Phalanx invaded the mansion and replaced several X-Men, Frost teamed up with the X-Man Banshee (Sean Cassidy) and with Jubilee, Sabretooth and future superhero Synch. They battled the techno-organic lifeforms in order to rescue a select group of teenage mutants known as 'Generation X'. Emma agreed, after resolving that the Hellions might have survived Fitzroy's Sentinel siege had they been exposed to Xavier's teachings as well as her own.
The group of students became a superhero team known as Generation X and studied at Frost's Massachusetts Academy. Cassidy'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. Slowly, the headmistress earned their trust. Around this time, Frost also worked to earn back Firestar's trust.
Emma became involved with many other young mutants besides her initial charges, including Marrow, Artie, Leech and even Franklin Richards for a time.
Frost seemingly enjoyed flirting with Banshee, though this may have been for pure fun.
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 Generation X member Synch. Frost 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 and shortly thereafter dropped her "White Queen" codename. She also started to look after and train a group of telepathic quintuplets known as the Stepford Cuckoos, who quickly became her prized pupils. Frost and the Cuckoos proved themselves when they helped fight against the entity known as Cassandra Nova. As a member of the X-Men, Frost began a psychic, quasi-sexual relationship with the X-Man Cyclops (Scott Summers), who had become distant from his wife Jean Grey as a result of his temporary physical and mental merger with the mutant immortal, Apocalypse. At first the psychic meetings had been a form of therapy, but soon de-evolved into much more.
While quelling a riot at the school, one of the Cuckoos was killed and the others left Frost, blaming her for the death. In the aftermath of the riot, Jean Grey discovered Frost and Summers' affair, became enraged and confronted Frost. Unleashing her re-ignited Phoenix abilities, Grey tore through Frost's mental defenses and forced her to face the self-denials of her past (including the fact she had breast-enhancement surgery). Frost was traumatized after the attack, the experience left her humiliated and emotionally shattered. She ended up confessing to Wolverine that she truly loved Scott Summers.
Soon afterwards, fellow X-Man Beast found her physically shattered in her diamond form. While other members of the school investigated the murder, Beast and Jean Grey successfully reassembled and fused Frost's body back together. Alive again, Frost was able to name her murderer - Esme of the Stepford Cuckoos. Esme had shot Frost in her single flaw with a diamond bullet, under the direction of Xorn/Magneto. Esme fled, and after her subsequent murder by Xorn/Magneto, the three remaining Cuckoos returned to Frost.
Leading Xavier's
Art by Clayton Henry
Frost did not remain in such a state for long. Following Jean Grey's apparent death, Cyclops and Frost 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. Frost developed a very antagonistic relationship with fellow advisor Danielle Moonstar, who, despite Emma's past record with the X-Men, did not trust her.
Due to Frost's refined telepathic abilities, she beat the 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.
In X-Men: Phoenix - Endsong the X-Men found themselves facing off against the Phoenix again. The Phoenix Force returned to Earth and resurrected Jean Grey from her grave. In a plan to trap the Phoenix Force, Frost offered her body as vessel. Frost is temporarily possessed by the Phoenix, though she is unable to host it without being overwhelmed by it, as she's not an Omega-level mutant. The Phoenix refuses to leave Frost's body until Jean Grey removes it.
Following Decimation the student population has gone drastically down. Frost and Cyclops decide to have one team of students to train as New X-Men. To pick who is on this team they put all the students in the danger room to fight each other. Frost chooses six students, four from her Hellions squad, to be New X-Men. Cyclops lets X-23 join the New X-Men squad which Frost greatly opposes because X-23 is too dangerous. At this time the racist preacher William Stryker causes the subsequent deaths of most of the depowered students and tries to eliminate mutant kind. Once again Frost feels responsible for the loss of young lives.
House of M and Civil War
Frost 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. Frost 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.
Frost announced to Iron Man that the Xavier Institute and the X-Men would not support the Superhuman Registration Act and remain neutral (see Civil War) as she fears that the registration of mutants would put them in more danger. Ms. Marvel's visit to the Institute in order to convince the X-Men to support the pro-registration heroes caused Frost to harshly criticize the Avengers for not showing any kind of support following the Genoshan genocide, which she had already done with Iron Man, and the mass deaths of the depowered students while showing her psychic images to illustrate her point.
A New Hellfire Club
Art by John Cassaday.
An ongoing subplot in Astonishing X-Men depicts Frost'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 Frost's "true loyalties" are brought into focus as Frost 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 Frost's, who apparently died in Genosha), and a cloaked figure called Perfection, who discuss among themselves Frost's impending betrayal of the team.
Art by John Cassaday.
In Astonishing X-Men #13 (February, 2006), it was revealed that Frost's survival of the destruction of Genosha in New X-Men #115 was due to Cassandra Nova creating Frost's secondary mutation, while in exchange, she was to assist Nova 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). This occurred when Emma allowed a part of Nova to escape into her brain while she was trapping Nova into the Alien form Stuff during the X-men's last battle with Nova. She then played up on Emma's survivors guilt at surviving Genosha while her students died, her suppressed fear of her being evil while still seeking redemption, while trying to reconcile her real love for Cyclops and that she could possibly betray him by turning back to her roots. Using this and other elements of Emma's consciousness, she created physical manifestations of Cassandra in her human form, Sebastian Shaw, Emma's younger evil self in the Hellfire club calling itself "Perfection", and Negasonic Teenage Warhead, a former student of hers that was killed in Genosha. First, she 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 Frost, Scott revisits that moment in his life and reverses the decision, leaving him comatose. With Cyclops out of the way Frost/Nova, and the physical manifestations calling themselves the "Hellfire Club", assault the X-Mansion, incapacitating every X-Man, with the exception of Shadowcat, who manages to elude capture, but was eventually tricked by Nova/Emma Frost into helping Emma/Nova retrieve the "Stuff" body containing the rest of Nova. A depowered Cyclops with the help of Blindfold, and Hisako Ichiki, were able to defeat the "Hellfire Club" by figuring out they were fake, while Emma herself tried to get Kitty to shoot her in order to block Cassandra's escape, but was stopped by Cyclops. Undeterred, Nova then attempted to transfer her mind into Hisako, but Emma tells her to go to hell. The ending was interrupted as everyone present was teleported away by S.W.O.R.D. to the Breakworld.
"Mother" of the Stepford Cuckoos
The third issue of X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong reveals that Emma's ova were the genetic templates used to clone thousands of identical female telepaths, five of which would become the Stepford Cuckoos. At the issue's conclusion, the encapsulated offspring, as well as Celeste Cuckoo, begin to refer to Frost as "mother"-- a title whose usage she later accepts. At the end of the Warsong Series, Emma and the Cuckoos manage to destroy the thousands of additional clones, and seal a frament on the Phoenix Force within the three remaining girls. Emma, pained by the loss of her cloned children, declares revenge against the Phoenix, whether its form be that of the Force or Jean Grey. Template:Endspoilers
Art by Greg Horn.
Background explored
In a flashback story told by Frost herself in Generation X #24, Frost details a time she spent in a mental institution after being sent there by her parents. However, an Emma Frost ongoing series depicted Frost's early years, and seems to refute this. The series was supposed to cover Frost's life from high school until her first appearance as the White Queen, however, it was cancelled at issue #18.
Generation X #-1, a part of the "Flashback" event which showed the first meeting of Emma Frost and the Dark Beast, seems to take place after the series.
In X-Men: Deadly Genesis, Frost is shown after the events of her series and Generation X #-1. As a stripper at the Hellfire Club, Frost was approached by Professor X and Moira MacTaggart to join a new team of X-Men along with other characters introduced in the series. When she refused Professor X erased her memory of the encounter.
Powers and abilities
Emma Frost is a transmorph capable of accessing both a human form with telepathic abilities, or an organic diamond form with enhanced strength and durability.
Since her introduction, Frost has displayed the telepathic standards of broadcasting and receiving thoughts, mind control, altering perceptions and memories, astral projection, etc... all honed to brutal precision. She is highly skilled at creating electronic devices that amplify/block/engage psionic powers, as well as exploiting flaws in most electronic equipment.
Frost 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, activation of sexual response, stimulation or retardation of growth and aging, etc). This is an unusual feat for even the most powerful of telepaths, but one that Frost is keen to utilize whenever the occasion suits her.
Upon their meeting in the rainforests of Ecuador, Cassandra Nova labeled Frost's psychic abilities as 'bush league' in comparison to herself. Regardless of that statement, Frost can formidably hold her own even against those of more considerable might. An example of this was her victory over Rachel Grey (Marvel Girl) on the Astral Plane; while Rachel may have had significantly more raw power, Frost's refined skills enabled her to claim victory over the relatively inexperienced Rachel. In contrast to Cassandra Nova's claim, Frost has been cited as a "Psi of High Order", capable of extraordinary telepathic feats.
During the massacre of over 16 million mutants in Genosha, Frost 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. Frost 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. Recently, it has been revealed that Cassandra Nova was responsible for somehow catalyzing Frost's secondary mutation.
Frost's full range of abilities between her diamond state and regular form have also been inconsistent; while some occurrences would have some readers believe that due to a genetic flaw Frost cannot access her telepathy in diamond form, later stories have contradicted this. However, recent clarifications in X-Men #190 and Astonishing X-Men have shown that Morrison's initial depiction of her powers was correct: that Frost cannot access her psychic powers in diamond form and vice versa. Her mind's condition when in diamond form has also been inconsistent. Phoenix: Warsong #3 however confirms that Emma's mind is completely immune to telepathy (both communication and assault) while diamond. Also, Emma has no need for water or food while she stays in her diamond form.
Throughout the years, it has been strongly hinted that Frost is also a latent telekinetic. In a battle with the Phoenix Force, Frost channeled her mental energy into a "psi-bolt" that affected the physical realm, causing the building around her to collapse. To save herself from Trevor Fitzroy, Jean Grey's displaced psyche was able to use Frost's brain to generate a strong telekinetic force-field and fly while it inhabited the White Queen's body.[2] Generation X #19 takes this even further, wherein an unconscious Frost 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. X-Man #28 offers a suggestion however: within which Hank McCoy explains to Nate Grey that there exists a "thin line between telekinesis and telepathy", one composed of "artificially defined distinctions" which quite possibly are subconsciously put in place by a psi (within his or her own mind) for any number of reasons. This theory is well-supported throughout the history of the X-Men; as various psi-talents have indeed "switched" mental powers, or utilized various forms of psionic energies which they typically were not able to wield, particularly in times of extreme stress/duress.
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 nor of Apocalypse's forces. Instead, she was a member of the Human High Council, despite being a mutant. The AoA Frost 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
First appearing in Ultimate X-Men #42, the Emma Frost of the Ultimate Universe is a former student of Professor Charles Xavier. The two became romantically involved, but they eventually split over ideological differences: Whereas Xavier believes in aggressive action and in protecting his students from society, Frost believes in an integrated approach to mutant/human relations. Frost believes Xavier to be too violent.
Frost returned to Chicago and became a teacher, giving mutant education seminars. The governor supported her cause and introduced her to the White House chief of staff. Through him, she meets the American president and organizes the New Mutants program, designed to educate humans about mutants and to cut the government's ties to Charles Xavier, whose reputation has been tarnished. During the group's first media appearance, they and the president are attacked by Sentinels and must be rescued by the X-Men. Xavier tries to convince Frost to stay with the X-Men, but she returns to her own school in Chicago. Her new program, the Academy of Tomorrow, accepts all talented students, regardless of genetic status.
In the Ultimate X-Men comics, Frost can transform her skin into an organic diamond form, like her secondary mutation in the Marvel Universe; however, she does not display telepathic abilities, although, in her initial display to the President, she appears as though she is going on to mention other powers before she is cut of, so it remains to be seen whether there will be any similarities between the Ultimate and 616 Versions.
She dresses much more conservatively than her 616 counterpart; generally wearing buttoned up skirts and knee length skirts, as opposed to the main continuities' very revealing costumes. Even when appearing in a costume reminiscent of the original's outfit for a press conference, she still manages to show far less skin.
Exiles
In a reality where the Legacy virus became the black plague of mutantkind, Warlock bonded with Cypher in order to save him. However, the legacy virus mutated into a non-lethal techno-organic plague that infected mutants and humans alike, transforming them into Vi-locks, with Forge as its central consciousness. A crippled Emma is a member of the Avengers, the only superhero group remaining and that gathers all the non-infected superhumans of the reality.
In another reality (Earth-27538), Emma is still a member of the Hellfire Club, alongside Donald Pierce, Sebastian Shaw and Harry Leland. The Exiles fight them to prevent the crashing of that reality. Emma senses the presence of something powerful (Proteus) in the mind of Morph and tries to unleash it, though she's stopped by Longshot, who throws a dagger in her head. Thanks to his luck powers, Emma, whose survival is vital for the fate of her native reality, survives the wound. However, the damage Morph/Proteus' conditioning causes a fragment of Proteus' mind to manifest, causing Morph to speak with Proteus' Scottish accent.
Appearances in other media
As White Queen
- She appears in the X-Men game for NES, in 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.
- In the 1989 animated television pilot, Pryde of the X-Men, she was portrayed as a member of Magneto's Brotherhood of Evil Mutants, with no mention of the Hellfire Club. Susan Silo provided her voice.
- She is the mid-boss of stage five in Konami's X-Men arcade game, which was largely based on Pryde of the X-Men series. Susan Silo added her voice talents to the game with such infamous engrish quotes as, "The White Queen welcomes you to die!" In the final stage Frost returns as the third boss of five (after Wendigo and before Master Mold) inside of Magneto's base in Asteroid M.
- Frost made appearances in the 1992 X-Men animated series as the White Queen of the Inner Circle Club (the name used for the Hellfire Club in the series). Frost appears in the first three parts of the series' adaptation of the Dark Phoenix Saga; and is shown briefly among a group of telepaths in the episode, Beyond Good and Evil Part 4: End and Beginning.
- 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.
As Emma Frost
- Emma Frost is a playable character in the role playing game X-Men Legends and returns as a non-player character in the sequel X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.
- In Marvel: Ultimate Alliance, Frost appears as a NPC. She is seen unconscious alongside other X-Men in Dr. Doom's castle.
- After the success of the X-Men trilogy of movies, there has been talk that an Emma Frost film being done by David O. Russell is being considered by 20th Century Fox.[1]
Emma Frost would have attended Empire State University around the same time that Peter Parker attended. There is no indication that the two met.
References
External links
- MarvelDatabase:Emma Frost
- MarvelDatabase:Character Gallery Emma Frost
- MarvelDatabase:Emma Frost (Ultimate)
- UncannyXmen.net, Spotlight feature on Emma Frost
- IGN Votes for Hottest Comic Book Babe - Winner: Emma Frost
- Emma Frost on the Marvel Universe Character Bio Wiki
- Emma Frost Comic Book Babe 2006 Bio Wiki- Comic Book IGN Babe 2006