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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 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. Character history 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 Jean Grey (as 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. She was later by a girl called Maggie Webster and she became the ruler of the Hellfire club which thwarted the X-men many times. 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. 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, Frost teamed up with the X-Man Banshee (Sean Cassidy) in order to stop the techno-organic lifeforms from capturing a select group of teenage mutants they referred to as "Generation X." After their success, Xavier asked Frost and Cassidy to mentor the young mutants. 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. 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. As a member of the X-Men, Frost began a 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. 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. Frost was traumatized after the attack, the experience left her humiliated and emotionally shattered. 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 death, the three remaining Cuckoos returned to Frost. Leading Xaviers 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. Due to Frost'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. 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. 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. 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. 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. Loyalties
"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. Emma Frost series
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, 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. 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, 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 II) 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 is 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 Her mind's condition while in diamond form has also been inconsistent. Some say that Frost's mind is 'mirrored' and impossible to read, while others say that her mind is vulnerable in such a state. 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. Generation X As Emma's mutant abilities are her telepathy and diamond form, it is still unclear as to how these feats were accomplished. X-Man 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 High Human 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 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. As White Queen As Emma Frost | |||||||||||
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