Background

This section covers Emma Frost’s childhood up to her college years.

Q: Where can I find these issues?
A: You can find these issues in Generation X Minus 1, New X-Men #139 (first series), Emma Frost #1 – #18.

Q: Why do these scans look much newer than the Emma’s Hellfire Club background?
A: Emma Frost first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #129, which was released in January 1980. When Grant Morrison introduced Emma into the X-Men team in 2001, Emma became more popular and Marvel needed to write her background story. Grant Morrison set the stage for Emma’s background story here, which is New X-Men #139 (first series):

Then, Karl Bollers proceeded to write Emma’s background.

This section covers Emma Frost #1 – #6, and a portion of the New X-Men #139 (first series) flashback.

Emma Frost grew up in the home of a rich family located in the upper class neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. The Frost family – which consisted of Winston (father), Hazel (mother), Christian (older brother), Adrienne (oldest sister), Emma (middle sister), and Cordelia (youngest sister) – was extremely competitive. Winston ran the family like a business, and backstabbing was second nature to them.

Emma went to the Snow Valley School for Girls, where she stressed over perfecting her grades to win approval from her father. However, she was a B student, so her father scolded her through mental abuse. She and her brother went to each other for support, where they related to their strong dislike of their father. (Emma Frost #1)

During adolescence, Emma received typical headaches of an emerging telepath. She also had disturbing dreams and heard the voices and thoughts of others. Although Emma was unaware that she was a mutant with developing powers, she kept her problems a secret in fear that she would be removed from the house.

After Emma’s powers balanced, she used her telepathic powers to perfect her grades. Her father finally approved of her report cards and kept on an eye on her for future use. Emma’s intelligence caught the attention of her art teacher, Ian Kendell. He recognized her potential as a teacher and encouraged her to excel in her future. They had a close relationship, but it was broken off when Emma wanted a more romantic relationship, but he was horrified when she tried to kiss him. Her father caught the scene on tape and had the teacher fired from the school. Emma was angry at her father but also learned of his deceptive methods.

Emma Frost graduated high school at an early age. When the Frost family went on vacation, Emma discovered juicy secrets about her family – her father had a near affair, and Adrienne posed for a magazine without her father’s permission. Emma exposed this to the entire family – much to her father’s horror. However, he was intrigued by her tactics and would offer his inheritance to her later on. She kept in contact with Christian, who left the household to live with his same-sex lover. He faced discrimination from his father and was depressed, even though Emma supported him. However, she discovered that Christian, Cordelia, and her mother fled to substance abuse and felt she needed to address this problem to her father, who she thought could help. Throughout her life, her brother provided emotional support, but his addictions got in the way of their relationship. When she found her brother had attempted suicide, she informed her father of his drug problems. Her father praised her for the information and promised that Christian would be sent to a safe place.

Winston called the family to a meeting and shockingly chose Emma as the heir of his inheritance and not Adrienne, who was the oldest sister. At the same time, he sent Christian to a mental institution, not a rehab center where Emma thought he would go. She was disgusted at her entire family, except for her brother, and rejected her father’s inheritance. Instead, she left the household and made it on her own way.

Bonus Scans

This section covers Generation X Minus 1

Around this time when Emma was poor and lived on the streets, she attended an annual gala to find confidential information on the recent stock exchanges. Along the way, she met Harry Leland from the Hellfire Club, Dark Beast from an alternate dimension, and Sean Cassidy (Banshee). This issue revealed Emma was 16, a year after her parents disinherited her. It is true that Emma was 16 during this issue, but it is not true it was a year after her parents “disinherited” her. In this sense, Generation X Minus 1 was moderately retconned. There are some disputes with continuity in this issue. Because further information on Emma’s background was released years later after this issue came out, some revelations of this issue do not adhere to Emma’s current background information.

You can see some scans of this issue here:

This section covers Emma Frost #7 – #12.

Emma left her family with only four hundred dollars. She became poor and lived on the streets and realized she would need a job to survive. She was hired at places but often fired due to her lack of experience with the outside world. However, she found another job as a dishwasher and met Troy Killkelly, a fellow dishwasher. However, this was short-lived as Troy owed money to a local gang who constantly pressured him using violent means. Troy decided to raise the money through gambling in which Emma took part of too and used her telepathic powers to win the gambles. They soon made a handful of money but unwisely used it and ran out by the time the gang was out to collect the money from Troy. The gang kidnapped the young couple, but Troy blurted out a “brilliant” way to get the money quickly – through Emma Frost’s rich father. They pretended to hold Emma Frost for ransom in hopes that Frost’s father would fall for the trap and give them the desired amount of money.

The Frost family received the video of Emma, caged and handcuffed, however, her father did not care and stated that Emma was not worth his money. The leader of the gang, Lucien, became angry that Winston rejected the offer; he decided to hold Emma ransom for real. Lucien carelessly killed Troy, who attempted to defend Emma from being held ransom.

Meanwhile, Adrienne wanted revenge on her father, who accused his own daughter of stealing money from his company. She took the video of Emma held hostage and sold it to the media – this way, Winston would look bad upon the public for doing nothing about his daughter Emma. Infuriated, Winston had no choice but to send the ransom money to Lucien, to save his public image from being hurt. The gang successfully received Winston’s money, however, Emma used her telepathy to confuse the gang into killing each other. She took her father’s money of 160,000 dollars and left Boston, Massachusetts to head for New York City, New York.

This section covers Emma Frost #13 – #18.

Emma Frost easily enrolled into the Empire State University. Emma’s telepathy became a great tool in her success, as she excelled in every subject and quickly climbed her way to the school’s top ranking students.

She also met fellow roommate, Christie McDermott, who had a very extroverted personality, much to Emma’s annoyance. They became friends, however, through coincidence, Emma’s old high school teacher, Ian Kendell, was dating Christie and also a professor of ESU. Emma and Ian immediately bonded again and caught up with each other’s lives while slowly becoming very close with each other.

Emma also met Astrid Bloom, another mutant telepath who taught Emma the general skills of telepathy. Astrid claimed she had moral standards using telepathy, although her actions proved she did not have moral standards using telepathy. Astrid’s bitter thoughts towards humans influenced Emma, who was initially scared of being a mutant considering the anti-mutant protests frequently heard throughout the school.

Ian and Emma finally had time alone together and finally expressed their romantic feelings for each other. Ian decided to break up with Christie, much to her very hurt feelings. She felt Emma had stolen her boyfriend and back stabbed her, even though she never admitted that she and Ian were actually dating. Christie wanted revenge on Emma and Ian, so she threatened Ian that she would tell the school administrators of his relationship with Emma. Ian attempted to stop Christie of ruining his job, so he suddenly choked the defenseless girl but quickly stopped, wondering what had gotten into him.

Emma and Ian had time to be back together, which prompted Emma to telepathically scan his head and see what had gotten into him, which revealed to be Astrid’s doing. Emma was infuriated and telepathically confronted Astrid, which led both of them into a battle on the astral plane. With Emma being the powerful telepath, she easily defeated Astrid and telepathically killed her in the process. Emma was extremely bitter as she thought she could trust Astrid – this further led to Emma’s mistrust in people.

Christie was still on her quest to inform the school of Emma and Ian’s relationship, however, Emma stopped Christie through mentally influencing the woman to appear as an utter basket case to the hearing committee. Emma then returned to Ian and felt she owed Ian the truth due to the drama of the recent events. She finally revealed to him that she was a mutant and that she controlled Christie’s mind. Ian was shocked, scared, and in disbelief. He then realized why Emma was always so intelligent and that she just knew everything that would go through his mind. Ian angrily told Emma to get away from him. Emma felt hurt and angry over people – she finally admitted that Astrid was really right about people.