Emma Frost
Emma Grace Frost / White Queen
Other Ranks: Queen of Crystal Heart, Black Queen, Black King IV
Species: Human mutant
Debut: Uncanny X-Men #129 (1980)
Emma began her role in the Marvel Universe as an X-Men supervillainess under the title of the White Queen of the Hellfire Club. She first appeared in the storyline The Dark Phoenix Saga, and later becomes the primary villain in the original run of New Mutants with her own team from Massachussets Academy, the Hellions.
After she's recovered from a coma and learns that her Hellions has been slaughtered by the Sentinels led by the supervillain Trevor Fitzroy during The Phalanx Covenant crossover, her guilt over her students' deaths led to her eventual reform. Her first role as The Atoner is in Generation X (1994) where she, along with Sean Cassidy a.k.a. Banshee, becomes the mentor for the team.
In the miniseries X-Men: Phoenix - Warsong, it's revealed that during her coma, her egg cells were used as genetic templates to clone several identical telepath mutant girls, five of which would later known as the Stepford Cuckoos. The clones refer to Emma as their "mother", a title she later accepts. She also personally acts as their tutor.
She's also one of the main characters in New X-Men where her infamous Mental Affair with Scott Summers happened, endangering Scott's marriage to Jean Grey. In New X-Men: Academy X (2004), she becomes the leader of a new Hellions Squad, this time associated with the Xavier Institute. Her team is also the rival of a second New Mutants team, echoing the rivalry between the two original groups of the similar names. During M-Day, most of her team members retain their powers, with the exception of Tag (Brian Cruz) and Specter (Dallas Gibson). Around this time, one of the Cuckoos, Sophie, made a Heroic Sacrifice to stop Quentin Quire and his Omega Gang. This prompted another Cuckoo, Esme, to leave, but she later returned to personally try to kill Emma. Emma was shattered while in her organic diamond form by Esme who shot her with a diamond bullet, but Jean managed to repair Emma at the molecular level. Esme herself is later killed by Xorn, who also killed Jean.
Later in Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 (2004-2013), she co-leads the X-Men alongside Cyclops after Jean Grey's death. In this series, she also has an antagonistic relationship with Kitty Pryde, who is reluctant to accept Emma as a leader and teacher.
During a conversation with Iron Man in Civil War (2006), Emma announces that the Xavier Institute and the X-Men will not support the Superhuman Registration Act and remain neutral, as she fears that the registration of mutants would put them in more danger.
After Secret Invasion (2008) and during Dark Reign, she's introduced as a member of Norman Osborn's Cabal and X-Men (Dark X-Men), only to later betray the team during a confrontation with X-Force. She took Namor, Cloak, and Dagger along with her and rejoined the rest of the mutants. An enraged Osborn sent the Dark Avengers and Dark X-Men to kill her and Namor, but failed spectacularly.
In Avengers vs. X-Men, she's one of five mutants who are possessed by the Phoenix Force and becomes one of the Phoenix Five. Under its influence, she does several terrible things which she later regrets. She lost her portion of the Phoenix Force power after Cyclops, who became more corrupted by the Phoenix Force, forcibly took it from her. She's later placed in the custody of New Avengers members Luke Cage, Mockingbird, Daredevil, and The Thing. There, she survives an assassination attempt by the Purifiers.
She's later freed by Cyclops, Magneto, and Magik. Although she was still furious with Cyclops for what happened in the climax of Avengers vs X-Men, she agreed to join with Cyclops and Magneto once more and, along with Magik, began searching for new Mutants. She became a leader in Cyclops' new X-Men team and was present when Cyclops freed several mutants from their human captors. The New Charles Xavier School for Mutants is founded.
Later, when the time-displaced original five X-Men came to join the school, she became the tutor for teen Jean Grey in the use of her power. Again, they began with a rather strained relationship, but to everyone's surprise, they eventually settled their differences and actually began to bond, after a fashion.
Family
Winston Frost
Nationality: American
Species: Human
First Appearance: New X-Men #139 (June, 2003)
Winston Frost was the father of Adrienne, Christian, Emma and Cordelia Frost as well as having been the second richest man in the state of Massachusetts.
- Abusive Parents: He was a horrible parent to all of his children. Special mention to having his son, Christian, committed to an asylum for being homosexual.
- Asshole Victim: His son Christian killed him by accident when his mutant powers manifested. But as he was an abusive father to all his children, especially Emma and Christian, it's very hard to feel bad for him.
- Hate Sink: Winston was nothing but an abusive, homophobic nightmare of a parent.
- Politically Incorrect Villain: He doesn’t last long enough to be an actual villain, but he is still extremely homophobic and antagonistic.
Hazel Frost
Nationality: American
Species: Human
First Appearance: New X-Men #139 (June, 2003)
Hazel Frost was a millionaire who married Winston Frost. Together they had a son and three daughters. All of their children are mutants, although she and Winston are not mutants.
- Selective Obliviousness: Hazel refuses to believe her daughter's claims of Winston's infidelity even when confronted with clear evidence. Not even Emma telepathically sharing the memory of her witnessing Winston's affair is enough to convince her.
Christian Frost / White Bishop
Nationality: American
Species: Human mutant
First Appearance: New X-Men #139 (June, 2003)
The eldest sibling of the Frost family, Christian and his sister Emma were the only two members to actually get along with each other. After losing contact following Emma joining the Hellfire Club and Christian being committed by his father due to being gay, they eventually reconnected and discovered that Christian was also a mutant with the ability to create constructs of astral energy. With the founding of the mutant nation of Krakoa, Christian has joined his sister as part of the Hellfire Trading Company, serving as the organization's White Bishop.
- Abusive Parents: His father Winston was outraged upon discovering that Christian was gay and conspired to have drugs planted by dirty cops in his boyfriend's home in order to deport him to Cuba. When Christian fell into a deep depression and began using drugs and alcohol to cope, Emma went to Winston to get him help but instead his father took the opportunity to send him to a mental institution which attempted to turn him straight using conversion therapy.
- Bungled Suicide: Saved in extremis from trying to hang himself due to the abuse his father put him through. It took years for him to recover.
- Cool Big Bro: Christian was the only family member that Emma got along with.
- Cool Ship: As White Bishop of the Hellfire Trading Company he commands the Mercury, a submarine with a piano as the control interface, although Christian notes that it changes sometimes. It later turns out that it can also turn into a spaceship.
- Love Interest: He is currently dating Bobby Drake and is trying to convince him to leave Kate Pryde's crew on the Marauder and join him on the Mercury.
- No-Sell: After his mutant powers emerged he became resistant to his sister Emma's telepathy like the rest of his siblings.
- Out of Focus: Remained locked away in a psy facility for a very long time.
- Recovered Addict: Was once a drug addict, in no small part due to the actions of his faithless sister Cordelia.
- Self-Made Orphan: Killed his father on accident when his mutant powers emerged, but after years of abuse its hard to say that Winston Frost didn't deserve it.
Adrienne Frost / White Queen II
Nationality: American
Species: Human mutant
First Appearance: Generation X #48 (December, 1998)
The older sister of Emma Frost. A ruthless corporate raider willingly molded in her father's image, she joined the Hellfire Club as its White Queen after falling out with her sister and the kids of Generation X. Treacherous and conniving, she backstabbed everyone who crossed her path, including the Hellfire Club themselves. Eventually her double-dealing caught up with her, however, and after causing the death of one of Emma's students the old White Queen shot the new one dead.
- Always Second Best: Her main beef with Emma is that she always felt that she was behind her, despite being even more ruthless than Emma in her schemes. And Emma being picked over her by their father to overtake the management of his financial empire only stoked her jealousy.
- Bait-and-Switch Tyrant: Played with, as she was set up to play out Tyrant Takes the Helm when she took over as co-head of the Massachusetts Academy, only for it to appear that she was actually this. Then, no, it turned out that she really was Evil All Along.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: She put up a good front of caring what the kids of Generation X thought during her time as their headmistress and they liked her up to the point where she revealed herself to be a murderous supervillain and tried killing them all.
- Black Widow: She had her own husband Steven killed for "crossing her".
- Brainy Brunette: She's brunette in contrast to her blond sister, and was quite brainy before the Sanity Slippage set in.
- Cain and Abel: She's very nearly the perfect Cain, being the firstborn daughter who broke her back trying to please her parents only to come up short to her younger sibling and became murderously resentful of them. Ironically, she was the one who was eventually killed by her sister.
- Character Tics: She has a tic for taking off and biting the tips of her glasses.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: She joined Emma Frost's academy as co-headmistress, only to betray her and almost get her students killed. From there she signed on with the Hellfire Club, but it turned out that was only a ruse and she stole millions from their London branch. Then she forced Emma to take her back by threatening to expose her school to the public, only to try and kill her students again. Emma finally had enough with that, and shot Adrienne through the heart.
- Combat Stilettos: Much like Emma she wears high-heels.
- Corrupt Corporate Executive: She ran her own company, Meridian Enterprises, for several years before crossing paths with Emma again.
- Creepy Souvenir: She tasks the Gen X kids with retrieving a beat-up old spear without telling them why. Turns out it was actually the weapon that was used to murder Adrienne's husband, and she wanted it so could relive the moment of his death for her own pleasure over and over again.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Unsurprisingly, the horrible bitch is the daughter of a shameless douchebag.
- Deadly Training Area: She used the X-Men's Danger Room to trap the Generation X students in a simulation recreating Trevor Fitzroy's attack on the Hellions.
- Green-Eyed Monster: She was extremely jealous of Emma having their father's favour, despite being by far the cruelest and most unscrupulous of the four siblings, mostly in order to take over Winston's business empire.
- Ice Queen: While Emma was a Defrosting Ice Queen by the time she met up with Adrienne again, her older sister was cold to the core.
- Immune to Mind Control: To Emma's mind control (and her telepathy in general), as like Cyclops and Havok the Frost sisters are immune to each other's powers.
- Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: Signing up with the Hellfire Club was the end of Adrienne as a three-dimensional character and the start of her just being a crazy cackling badguy, but betraying Emma again and causing Synch's death was when she really jumped off the slope with no going back.
- Kicking Ass in All Her Finery: Adrienne's White Queen costume is unnecessarily ornate, sporting a gaudy headdress and a hardly practical belt-skirt, underlining her lack of experience on the field.
- Killed Off for Real: Emma shot her dead as revenge for her actions causing the murder of Gen X student Synch. Notably, she is one of the few mutants who is not resurrected by the House of X in X-Men (2019), suggesting she was too evil for them to give a second chance (or Emma used her influence on the Quiet Council to keep Adrienne dead).
- Lack of Empathy: Even by the standards of her family Adrienne is about as heartless as they come, to the point of being called just that by her own father to describer her personality and abilities.
- Navel-Deep Neckline: She and her sister share a penchant for plunging necklines.
- Manipulative Bitch: Adrienne twisted Emma's arm into appointing her co-head of Massachusetts Academy by making it a condition of providing her funding, tricked the Gen X kids into doing her bidding, and even after sinking into cackling supervillainy was still able to manipulate Emma into taking her back.
- Pragmatic Villainy: She initially turns down Emma's request for funding for her school, but changes her mind when she discovers that said school is actually a budding mutant academy.
- Psychometry: Adrienne can read "psychic imprints" that people leave on objects that they have handled and sometimes can even look into the future of the person or object she touches.
- Sanity Slippage: Honestly, Adrienne had a pretty good deal going with Emma and the Academy the first go-round. She was in a position of authority Emma couldn't dismiss her from easily, was winding the kids of Gen X around her little fingers, and wasn't hurting for money to the point that she had to join the Hellfire Club and go full cackling supervillain. The only explanation for burning everything she'd built for a dozen issues is this. Later her sanity slipped further and she just went full scorched earth (almost literally even, as she went so far as to plant bombs around the Academy).
- Smug Snake: Adrienne doesn't know self-doubt. Thus, there's no end to her willingness to demonstrate just how much of a bitch she is.
- Strong Family Resemblance: When she dyed her hair blonde, it was very easy to notice her relationship with Emma.
- Tyrant Takes the Helm: Of the Massachusetts Academy, but only briefly.
- Weak, but Skilled: Compared to her little sister Adrienne is very weak in terms of mutant powers, having only the power of psychometry, a passive ability of no real use in combat. She was very ruthless and cunning mentally, though, and stretched what power she did have to the fullest of its uses. She also used technology to compensate for her lack of native power, using both an illusion-generating device and a teleporting device during her time as the White Queen.
- "Well Done, Daughter!" Girl: And yet, for all of her cruelty and plain amoral ways, Adrienne's biggest wish was to be acknowledged by her father as his rightful heir. Which she achieved, but only because Emma refused the position, which is something Adrienne never forgave Emma.
- White-Collar Crime: She stole millions from the London branch of the Hellfire Club.
Cordelia Frost
Nationality: American
Species: Human mutant
First Appearance: Generation X #3 (January, 1995)
Cordelia Frost is the younger sister of Emma Frost and Adrienne Frost, as well as being the youngest of the four Frost siblings. She was regarded by her parents as being the "lost" one in the family, and as such she rebelled by dressing in black, having sullen, sulky moods, indulging in drugs and being argumentative, although she was only a teenager.
- Addled Addict: Averted. She was on drugs during her teenage years but she somehow always remained clear of the nastier stuff, only indulging in substances that wouldn't affect her permanently. Doesn't mean she wouldn't give some to her older brother though.
- Annoying Younger Sibling: To Emma, who would rather ignore her, but also to Adrienne who looks down on her just as much as she does anybody else.
- Attention Whore: Her biggest character trait is how desperate for attention she is at all times, to the point that it's the only thing Emma ever mentions when she talks about her younger sister.
- Black Bra and Panties: When she was a teenager. Switched out for a red set as an adult, but they serve the same purpose.
- Black Sheep: That's saying something with her Big, Screwed-Up Family but that's indeed how she was seen by her parents, mostly because of her flippant use of recreational drugs, her cheap Goth style and other smalltime shady activities she was known for back then.
- Bratty Teenage Daughter: A textbook example. A self-centered and brassy Drama Queen, ready to do anything to be given attention. Justified however since both her parents have deemed her a lost cause very early on in her childhood which certainly didn't help her mental stability.
- Bus Crash: At the end of Generation X, Emma sent her packing and ordered her to never return, which Cordelia apparently heeded. However, in Krakoa, Cordelia has been confirmed deceased from unknown causes. Emma made it sure by using her position in Krakoa that Cordelia wouldn't be resurrected anytime soon.
- The Corrupter: Emma's biggest beef with her is that she provided Christian with drugs during their younger years, despite Cordelia knowing of Christian's fragility back then.
- Dirty Coward: In sharp contrast with Emma who is tough-as-nails and pragmatic and with Adrienne who is cruel and domineering, Cordelia is just a petty, shallow and attention-starved troublemaker who will easily panic and flee if a situation turns even slightly at her disadvantage.
- The Empath: Described as the "Professor X of empaths" by her sister Emma but it's an Informed Attribute since she has never been seen using that power.
- Fille Fatale: Invoked. She tries to be a younger version of her sisters, but just can't seem to pull it off as well as them.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: A three-way version with Adrienne and Emma, with the difference that Emma has a bit less animosity towards Cordelia than towards Adrienne if only because Adrienne is a complete and utter bitch, whereas Cordelia is more of a nosy Drama Queen than anything else, even though she is by no means a positive force in the family.
- Goth: Was one in her teenage years.
- Immune to Mind Control: Immune to her sister's telepathy.
- Lady in Red: After joining the Hellfire Club, she ditched the black dresses for red lingerie. Still very shy and aloof (at least compared to her sisters) and it didn't last long since she's not mature enough to deal with big names like Shaw or Selene.
- Psychic Powers: Is immune to them, but does not seem to have any herself, despite being described as an empath by Emma, completing Emma's Telepathy and Adrienne's Psychometry.
- Smug Snake: Again, she tries to act and sound confident and in control but she lacks Emma's fortitude, Adrienne's imperiousness and Christian's patience so she comes off as ridiculously pretentious and self-aggrandizing.
- Spoiled Brat: While she wasn't as bad as her sisters, she is more this than a Rich Bitch like Emma and Adrienne, mostly because she's too incompetent in her bitchiness to pull it off.
- Useless Superpowers: Apart from an immunity to Emma's Telepathy, she has no confirmed powers.
Other
Ian Kendall
Nationality: American
Species: Human
First Appearance: Emma Frost #1 (August, 2003)
Ian Kendall was Emma Frost's high school teacher and her first love.Christine McDermott
Nationality: American
Species: Human
First Appearance: Emma Frost #13 (September, 2004)
Astrid Bloom
Nationality: British
Species: Human mutant
First Appearance: Emma Frost #14 (October, 2004)
Astrid Bloom is a telepath that helped Emma Frost better control her abilities in her early years, but betrayed her trust and was subsequently defeated by Frost. But despite her downfall, Bloom's influence on Frost on how Mutants were treated ultimately made her into the kind but ruthless, cunning, manipulative woman she is today.- Evil Brit: She's British and very evil.
- Evil Mentor: She appears benevolent but over time it is made clear she wants to corrupt Emma.
- Predecessor Villain: Her personality, Telepathy, and habit of referring to people as "darling" are obvious in-universe Call Forwards to how Emma acts as the evil White Queen.
- Telepathy: Just like Emma, she's a telepath.
- You Don't Look Like You: Illustrated with a tank-top that shows her flat stomach and navel piercing. In the actual comic she dresses more modestly.
