EmmaFrostFiles.com

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 very rich and prestigious family located in upper class neighborhoods of Boston, Massachusetts. The Frost family, consisting of Winston (father), Hazel (mother), Christian (eldest brother), Adrienne (older sister), Emma (middle sister), and Cordelia (youngest sister), was extremely competitive in both business and personal goals. The way the Frost family was run could be considered more of a cold and ruthless business, rather than an actual warm and loving family. Winston and Hazel sent Emma to the prestigious Snow Valley School for Girls, obviously, in hopes that she would accomplish perfect grades and succeed her parents wishes, more so her father’s wishes.

Throughout Emma’s childhood, she stressed greatly over receiving perfect grades while trying to maintain an acceptance of her father. She believed the only way to receive approval of her father was to receive the perfect grades he consistently demanded and expected of her. However, Emma was typically a B student, which led verbal abuse and scolding of her father.

While Emma’s father was a generally negative male role model to Emma, she did have her older brother, Christian Frost, to look for emotional support and frequent backup. Christian and Emma, both in their father’s disapproval, could easily relate to their strong dislike of their father.

During adolescence, Emma began to receive the typical side effects of a soon-to-be telepath, which consisted of extremely painful headaches, disturbing dreams, and hearing the voices and thoughts of others. Of course this worried Emma to a great degree, however, she decided to keep her telepathic manifestations a secret to herself, in fear she would be sent to a psychiatric ward or even receive more disapproval of her father. But through this time, Emma, of course, took advantage of her newly developing powers and used them to perfect her grades and her knowledge.

Emma’s smarts and intelligence caught the attention of her art teacher, Mr. Ian Kendell. Ian recognized Emma’s potential as a student and encouraged her to further excel in her education. The two developed a very close relationship, which led Emma to believe Ian wanted something more out of their relationship. She attempted to kiss him, however, he was shocked and horrified and claimed he and Emma were nothing more than a student-teacher relationship. However, through Winston’s deceptive tactics, he quickly found out about Emma and Ian’s relationship and paid the school administration to have Ian fired. This event caused Emma even more bitterness towards her father.

Finally, Emma graduated from high school at an early age. However, Emma found out that Christian, Cordelia, and her mother were all fleeing to substance abuse. Christian usually provided emotional support for Emma, but because he was a drug addict, this grew the two siblings apart from each other. When Emma had found Christian attempting suicide, she seriously considered if she should tell their father of his problem. She eventually gave into her suspicion of her father and finally informed him of Christian’s drug problem. Winston praised Emma for informing him of Christian’s problem and promised he would be sent to a rehabilitation center to receive help. However, Winston hated Christian for being a drug addict, homosexual, and non-business savvy, so he sent him away to a psychiatric ward instead.

At the same day, Winston offered Emma his inheritance, much to Adrienne’s shock, who was usually the star daughter of the family. Emma was disgusted by the offer and quickly rejected her father’s inheritance. She believed she did not need her father’s inheritance to make it through the world – she had had enough of her spiteful family and father’s tactics. Emma looked Winston in the eye and told him she would make it 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.

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