Emma Frost’s Relationship With Wolverine

Emma’s appearances in “Wolverine and the X-Men” and “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” have only fueled a fan’s desire to know what exactly is the relationship between Wolverine and Emma.

Recently, Joe asked me this question via the contact form:

I was wondering if you might be able to fill me in on the relationship between Wolverine and Emma. When did it start, if at all it did, and how far did it go?

And here is the (long, thought out) answer:


Emma Frost’s first clash with Wolverine started in Uncanny X-Men #129, during the famous Dark Phoenix Saga (#129-#137). Storm, Colossus, and Wolverine took Kitty to an ice cream parlor. While Emma’s HFC lackeys attacked the parlor, Emma used her telepathy to make the four mutants unconscious.

“…Captured and caged by YOU!” Kitty said to Emma in Astonishing X-Men #2. Indeed, Emma successfully captured the “great and terrifying” Wolverine until Kitty came to the rescue.

Following the Dark Phoenix Saga, Wolverine, along with the X-Men, frequently fought with Emma Frost and the Hellfire Club for brief periods (Uncanny X-Men 151-152, etc). Wolverine felt the same feelings as the X-Men did toward Emma Frost: she’s evil; we hate her.

When Grant Morrison came on board, he introduced Emma Frost to the X-Men team. Remember, she had a slightly positive/negative (polar covalent?) history with the X-Men in Generation X. In New X-Men, however, she officially joined the team.

We all know when Emma joined the X-Men, everyone on the planet had a problem with that. Fortunately, there were quite a few X-Men who were fine with it, which were Professor Xavier, Cyclops, Beast, and Wolverine!

During the New X-Men Annual 2001, the team was sent to Hong Kong to investigate John Sublime and the mutant Xorn, who later turned out to be Magneto but not Magneto but in disguise. When Emma investigated a key that had history to Xorn, she fell and turned into diamond form. And this was mostly that occasional banter between the two of them.

After Jean caught Emma and Scott having a “psychic” affair, she left Emma in tears, and Scott ran away. Wolverine felt some sympathy for Emma and gave her a nice, little hug. Ironically, this is where Emma admitted she was in love with Scott Summers – in the arms of Wolverine, hah!

Edited to add (Jan. 18, 2008): When Emma Frost was invited to a wedding of an old friend Doug, she asked Wolverine to come along with her. She didn’t want Scott to know about her tryst with Doug because of the possible perception that it was an affair between the two (and, I suppose, that’s up to the reader’s decision).

Wolverine accepted the invite and the two experience discrimination because of being mutants.

For many casual fans not in the loop, the cover of Astonishing X-Men #14 was confusing. Did Emma Frost kiss Wolverine? Did Wolverine kiss Emma Frost? Wait, what?! What is going on here?!

The cover was quite misleading – you would have to read the entire issue to see what happened, but here are some scans.



Emma was on a role – she went from Dark Phoenix to Good Phoenix to herself and changed Scott into Wolverine!

Following the end of Whedon’s Astonishing X-Men run, Emma still had left over guilt. During a dinner with the X-Men, she abruptly left the table and walked out to think about where her life was going. Wolverine interrupted and calmly talked about her past.

Since Post-Messiah CompleX, Cyclops had to take some extreme measures to protect mutantkind. In X-Men: Legacy #216, Emma and Cyclops telepathically fought Charles Xavier and left him in tears. When they returned to the mansion, Wolverine was angry that the two did not tell him about Xavier’s presence. This led to a fight among the three mutants.

In conclusion, Emma Frost and Wolverine are considered friends. Despite the occasional banter between the two (it’s the X-Men), they still carry a genuine fondness for each other.

If you have anything else to add, feel free to drop a comment.

Edited January 17 @ 6:36 PM EST.

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