Emma Frost (Earth-616)

From Marvel Database

Contents 1 History 1.1 Family Background 1.2 Frost International 1.3 White Queen of the Hellfire Club 1.4 Generation X 1.5 Joining the X-Men 1.6 House of M 1.7 The New Hellfire Club 1.8 Messiah Complex 1.9 Dark Reign 1.10 Sisterhood of Mutants 2 Powers and Abilities 2.1 Powers 2.2 Abilities 2.3 Weaknesses 3 Paraphernalia 3.1 Equipment 3.2 Transportation 3.3 Weapons 4 Trivia 5 Links 5.1 Discover and Discuss 6 References

History

I remember what death tastes like. Trust me. They're alive.

-- Emma Frost

Family Background

Emma Frost was a leading member of an old Boston mercantile family which arrived from England in the 1600s. The second of three daughters, Emma also had an older brother named Christian who had turned to substance abuse as an escape from the drudgery of his life. Unknown to their family or themselves, the three Frost sisters were mutants whose telepathic abilities matured upon reaching puberty. When it came time for their father to choose a worthy heir to the family fortune, Christian was automatically dismissed due to his drug problem and because of being gay. While the older sister Adrienne seemed the most obvious choice, their father chose Emma. Surprisingly, she refused, choosing to make her own way through life. She inherited a good deal of wealth, but most of her large fortune was the result of her business successes. She rose rapidly through the world of business thanks to her intelligence, drive, personal charm, and her secret use of her psionic abilities. Also, at some point, the Dark Beast met Emma, and helped her rise to wealth and power.^[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. When she refused Professor X erased her memory of the encounter, against Vulcan's judgement that Xavier should have forcible changed her mind.^[2]

Frost International

She eventually became the majority stockholder of a multi-billion dollar conglomerate, which was been renamed Frost International after herself. Despite her youth, she became a chairperson of the board of Frost International and its chief executive officer. Frost International was principally involved in transportation (both the building of ships and aircraft and their use for freight and passenger transport) and electronics. Emma Frost also became chairperson of the board of trustees of the Massachusetts Academy, a college preparatory school for grades seven through twelve located in the Berkshire Mountains in Snow Valley, Massachusetts. Frost served as the academy's headmistress and spent a great deal of her time there.

White Queen of the Hellfire Club

Emma Frost's beauty and talents brought her an invitation to join the Hellfire Club, an elite social organization of the world's wealthy and powerful figures. Frost became the ally of Sebastian Shaw who was a member of the Club's Council of the Chosen, a group which secretly conspired to achieve world domination through economic and political means. Like Frost, Shaw was a mutant. The Leaders of the Club and Council, its foremost Lords Cardinal, were Edward Buckman and the Paris Seville. The Lords Cardinal were given titles corresponding to the names of chess pieces. Buckman threw the Council's support behind Project Armageddon which was scientist Steven Lang's program to build Sentinel robots and have them hunt down superhuman mutants). Knowing Shaw was himself a mutant Buckman told him that the Project was intended to capture superhuman mutants for use by the council in seeking power. However, Frost, through her psionic powers, learned that the Project was actually intended as a means of destroying all superhuman mutants. Together Shaw and Frost staged a coup that gave them control of the Council of the Chosen, which they renamed the Inner Circle. Shaw took the title of Black King and Frost became the new White Queen.

Under Shaw and Frost, the Inner Circle was dominated by superhuman mutants. Frost recruited young superhuman mutants and trained them in the use of their powers at her school so that they might use those powers on the Inner Circle's behalf. Most of these mutant students were members of a team called the Hellions.

Frost first encountered the team of mutants called the X-Men when she attempted to recruit young mutant Katherine "Kitty" Pryde for her school and captured a number of X-Men. She was defeated by Phoenix and disappeared for several months. Since then, Frost crossed paths with the X-Men and their associates, the New Mutants, many times, often as their adversary.

Later, the X-Men joined with the Hellions in order to protect the White Queen from a time-traveling attacker known as Trevor Fitzroy, but not before Fitzroy's brutal assault plunged Frost into a deep coma and brought about the untimely demise of the majority of the Hellions. Frost's consciousness was apparently still active on the material plane and her body was kept in the Med-lab at the X-Men's mansion.

Generation X

Seeking to insure the welfare of her students and the future of the school, Frost foresightedly willed the care of the Academy to Professor Charles Xavier. It was during her psychic incapacitation that The Massachusetts Academy was legally added to the rapidly expanding Xavier Institute. While in the Med-lab an accident caused Emma Frost to possess the body of the X-Man Iceman, and likewise, his mind was transferred into her body. Emma believed herself to be a prisoner of the X-Men and tried to escape, using Iceman's powers in ways even he never imagined. When she discovered the fate of her Hellions, she broke down. She began to realize that her training had been insufficient and Xavier’s may have been the right approach.

Emma Frost returned to her own body and when she fully recovered she resumed her role as headmistress of the academy. Together with Banshee, they trained the new class of mutants, Generation X.

During a battle with Post, Iceman received a massive chest wound so severe that he dared not to transform back to flesh, fearing that he would die. Bobby demanded to know how Emma would use his powers to repair such damage, but Emma refused to help him. She knew that Bobby would have to do it himself, so she confronted him with his own innermost insecurities in the forms of ex-girlfriend Opal and his father until Bobby realized that he himself had been holding back all this time. He managed to transform back with his chest fully intact.^[3]

The Massachusetts Academy closed its doors following a bold revenge plan by Adrienne Frost that ended in Synch's death and Emma murdering her sister. Emma began teaching in Genosha, and became one of a handful of survivors of the Sentinel massacre due to her Secondary Mutation.

Joining the X-Men

Emma once again returned to the Xavier Institute to teach. She immediately took the quintuplet psychic sisters, the Stepford Cuckoos (Now Three-In-One), under her wing. Emma and Henry McCoy struck up a friendship, while many others resented her presence at the school. During a riot at the school by Quentin Quire and his Omega Gang the Cuckoo Sophie died when using the drug Kick and Cerebra to subdue Quentin. Blaming Emma's emphasis on heroism for Sophie's death the Cuckoos abandoned her.

Meanwhile, with a void growing between Scott Summers and Jean Grey, Emma began to have a psychic affair with Scott. The Cuckoos took out their anger by tipping off Jean. When Jean discovered the two together on the astral plane she brutally tore through Emma's memories, forcing her to remember all the things she repressed in her past including her failure to keep the Hellions alive. Breaking down, Emma admitted to Wolverine that she had fallen in love with Scott.

Phoenix was killed by the Magneto impostor, Kuan-Yin Xorn, and she encouraged Cyclops from the White Hot Room to begin a new chapter of his life with Emma. Presently, the couple acts as headmaster and headmistress of the Xavier Institute and are active members on the X-Men squad. Emma also acts as supervisor to a new set of Hellions, as all students that attend the school were assigned to squads.

Due to Emma's extremely refined telepathic abilities, she beat the alternate future daughter of Phoenix and Cyclops, Rachel Grey, in a contest on the astral plane, despite Rachel's vastly superior power. However, she then rather peacefully offered Rachel the chance to help her hone her telepathic skills since there was now no one else to do so. Rachel, though still wary, accepted the proposal.

House of M

In the House of M reality, caused the reality warp by Quicksilver and the Scarlet Witch, Emma was married to Scott and the pair had three children. Also notably, she was the first X-Man Wolverine contacted for help. She was the only other reawakened individual to side with Wolverine in a controversial opinion to kill the Scarlet Witch in order to return to the world to normal. Emma was among the relative few mutants to retain her powers following M-Day.

The New Hellfire Club

Emma's unusually antagonistic relationship with Kitty Pryde and possible domination of Scott Summers were given as possible evidence of disloyalty. Her secretive relationship with the surviving Stepford Cuckoos was also been presented as "evidence," and accusations were frequently made by others having reason to distrust her motives.

The question of Emma's "true loyalties" were brought into focus as Emma abandoned the team during a fight to confer with a shadowy figure, revealed to be one of a group of four individuals watching from the shadows. The group containd Sebastian Shaw, Cassandra Nova, Negasonic Teenage Warhead (a girl who apparently died in Genosha), and a cloaked figure called Perfection, who discussed among themselves Emma's impending betrayal of the team.

It was later discovered that Emma's survival of the destruction of Genosha 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. Ellie, Shaw and Perfection were actually psionic projections created by Emma under Cassandra's influence. Cassandra Nova had placed a portion of her mind in Emma's before being trapped in the body of Stuff.

Emma began using her telepathy on Cyclops to appear as Phoenix, trying to reveal the lack of control he had over his optic blasts. Shortly after Scott fell out of a plane with his younger brother Havok, Scott had placed a deep mental block in his mind which prevented the controlled use of his powers. Encouraged by Emma, Scott revisited that moment in his life and reversed the decision.

For a brief time during, Emma was host to the Phoenix Force.^[4]

After following the Stepford Cuckoos, including the resurrected Sophie and Esme, to The World, Emma Frost discovered that the Cuckoos and hundreds of others had been cloned from her eggs.

During the new Marauders attack on the X-Men, Omega Sentinel was possessed by an entity known as Malice and attacked her. Later, when the new Acolytes team invaded the mansion for the books of Destiny, Shadowcat thought she had the books, but the books had no words, and Exodus realized that Emma Frost was responsible.

Messiah Complex

Due to the Decimation, no new mutants could appear. A new mysterious mutant baby was born. In Alaska, where the child was born, Emma Frost was on the X-Men team went to investigate, only to see a town on fire and the baby gone. Knowing that best choice of finding the baby was in Mr. Sinister, Scott sent a team of X-Men to attack their Antarctic base. Realizing that Mr Sinister had telepathic powers, Emma protected them as the attack began. The X-Men team learned that it was Cable who had the child. The Sentinels protecting the mansion attacked, knocking out the telepaths for an unknown reason. During the last battle on Muir Island Emma was there when Cyclops ended the X-men after Professor X was shot by Bishop.

Emma and Scott were called to San Fransisco when Warren realized someone was telepathically making everyone think they were in the 60's. It was actually Martinque tricking them. The X-Men and any remaining mutants came to San Francisco, where the mayor had offered them refuge, ignoring the Fifty State Initiative. Things got complicated as Magneto was working with the High Evolutionary and a Hellfire Cult run by Empath.

Emma felt that something was wrong with Scott and looked into his mind. She found that his psychogeography had formed itself as topsy-turny hotel, filled with projection of every woman Scott cast a furtive glance upon. She managed to locate the source, a mysterious black box that Scott claimed was a place for secrets -- not relationship secrets but tactical secrets that could result in death.

Dark Reign

Following the Secret Invasion by the Skrulls, Emma Frost apparently joined a Cabal formed by Norman Osborn, along with Doctor Doom, Loki's female form, the Hood and Namor. Her alignment should be considered in question.

When Emma was called to the Avengers' Tower, she was having nightmares where Kitty Pryde was calling her and pleading for help. Frost was requested to join the Cabal for three reasons: she was a telepath and could sense who is lying, she was the leader of the strongest mutant team on the planet, and she was formerly the leader of the Hellfire Club. Upon agreeing to join this team of evil-doers, she returned to San Francisco, still having nightmares of Kitty calling for help.

However, like many of the members of the Cabal, they began plotting behind Osborn's back, despite his warning to send the Sentry against them. Emma had already made plans with Namor, having tricked him into thinking that she decapitated Sebastian Shaw, in exchange for his services in protecting mutantkind, while at the same time shuffling Shaw away for his crimes.Emma Frost appears to have accepted her position in the Cabal, as she was shown attending a second meeting secretly and of her own free will, as well as projecting the Cabal on to a psychic plane to discuss various issues, such as the Mighty Avengers (which Osborn intends to remove), the unsuccessful (as of yet) hunt for Tony Stark, the pouring in of the Asgardians into Latveria, the reinstating of Doctor Doom as monarch, the massing mutants from San Francisco, the problem of Mister Negative, the Punisher's assault on the Hood, and various other issues.

Sisterhood of Mutants

The Red Queen along with her Sisterhood of Mutants attacked the X-Men with the goal of retrieving a lock of Jean Grey's hair in Wolverine's possession, with Lady Mastermind placing Emma under a a psychic barricade. A woman resembling Jean Grey appeared to Emma and helped her to break free by using what appeared to be a bit of the Phoenix Force. She defeated Lady Mastermind and later attacked the Sisterhood at their base along with Storm, Karma and Dazzler.^[5] Emma was later awoken in the middle of the night by Beast who stated that the secrets she and Scott had been keeping from each other were going to tear everything apart. Donning a modified black version of her costume as well as the name Black Queen, Emma Frost was appointed by the Iron Patriot to lead his new team of "Dark X-Men."

Powers and Abilities

Powers

Emma Frost possesses telepathy abilities matching those of Charles Xavier and is an Alpha Level Mutant

Telepathy: Since her introduction, Frost has displayed the telepathic standards of broadcasting and receiving thoughts, mind-control, altering perceptions and memories, projection of offensive blasts of psionic energy causing mental pain or unconsciousness, astral projection, mind switching, brain engram modification, mental sedation of unconscious victims, induction of mental pain by touch, and limited pychometry. 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, the nervous system, etc), a sub-skill of telepathy unusual for even the most powerful of telepaths, but one that Emma is keen to utilize whenever the occasion benefits her. Frost's abilities rival that of Charles Xavier, her incredible power and conniving ways are evident in her first appearance whereby she manages to capture and sedate him. Frost has been cited as a "World-class telepath" and a "Psi of the Highest Order" capable of extraordinary telepathic feats.

Secondary Mutation

Organic Diamond Form: As a result of undergoing a body-wide secondary mutation, Frost now possesses the ability to transform her body into a flexible organic diamond form. In many ways, this is similar to Colossus' organic steel form. She must transform all parts of her body, rather than selectively transforming certain areas and can remain in this form for an indetermined amount of time. If she is rendered unconscious, Frost's body will automatically transform into its normal state. This transformation also alters Frost's personality, causing her to become rather cold hearted and to lose her empathy for others.

• Superhuman Strength: In her diamond form, Frost's physical strength is increased to superhuman levels. At her peak, she is able to lift approximately 50 tons.

• Superhuman Stamina: While transformed, Frost's muscle tissue becomes infinitely more efficient than the organic musculature of normal humans, or most other organic beings for that matter. Her muscles produce almost no fatigue toxins during physical activity, granting her almost limitless superhuman stamina, or at least until or unless she is forced to resume her normal state.

• Superhuman Durability: Frost's diamond form renders her highly resistant to most forms of physical injury. She is able to resist great impact forces, such as being repeatedly struck with superhuman force, without being injured. Her body is also resistant to temperature extremes, able to withstand temperatures as cold as -320 degrees Farenheit or as hot as approximately 7,362 degrees Farenheit before her form begins to melt. Frost is also self contained while transformed, requiring no food, water or oxygen.

  Abilities

Expert Technician: Emma Frost is highly skilled in electronic theory and electronics and has learned how to build devices that can amplify psionic energy and utilize psionic energy for various effects. She devised the mechanism by which Mastermind projected his illusions directly into the mind of the Phoenix Force.

Defense Training: Emma Frost is an above average athlete and has had some training in hand-to-hand combat.

Master Astral Combatant: Emma Frost is trained and excels in astral combat.

Weaknesses

While in her normal state, Frost has all the physical frailties and vulnerabilities any ordinary human has. While she is much stronger and more durable in her diamond form, her body can be shattered if she were to be hit in a certain area that has a flaw, much as an actual diamond will. Also, while in her diamond form, Frost is unable to access her telepathic abilities.

Paraphernalia

Equipment

Mini-Cerebro.

Transportation

X-Men Blackbird.

Weapons

The White Queen has designed a gun-like device, which she once used to exchange minds for a period of time with Storm.

Trivia

• Emma is a cigarette smoker (source needed).
• She is renowned for her extremely revealing costumes.
• She is not a stranger to plastic surgery, confessing to having had it on numerous occasions.
• She is currently dating Cyclops.
• Emma once spent a extended amount of time in control of Iceman's body and used his powers in ways he never had before.
• 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.

Links

• Appearances of Emma Frost (Earth-616)
• Character Gallery: Emma Frost (Earth-616)
• Images that feature Emma Frost (Earth-616)
• Fan-Art Gallery: Emma Frost (Earth-616)
• Quotations by Emma Frost (Earth-616) 
• UncannyXmen.net, Spotlight feature on Emma Frost
• White Queen feature on X-Peoples Central
• IGN Votes for Hottest Comic Book Babe - Winner: Emma Frost
• Emma Frost at Wikipedia

Discover and Discuss

• Search News for: Emma Frost · Emma Grace Frost · Emma Frost (Earth-616)
• Search Forums for: Emma Frost · Emma Grace Frost · Emma Frost (Earth-616)
• Discuss this and other characters on the forums

References