The Marvel Rivals cast continues to grow with Season 2’s Hellfire Gala. The host of this suave celebration, Emma Frost, is the first addition in the second season of Marvel Rivals, but when did this powerful mutant become part of the Marvel Comics universe? Find out all about the diamond-skinned telepath and her origins here.
Related: New Marvel Rivals Characters: Who is The Thing?
Emma Frost’s First Appearance
- First appeared in Uncanny X-Men (1963) #129 on January 10, 1980.
- Debuted as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club and an antagonist in the Dark Phoenix Saga.
Emma Frost Origins
Emma Grace Frost was the second child and first daughter in a family with four. Raised in a wealthy mercantile family, she received private schooling as a result of her privilege, learning at the Snow Valley School for Girls. Emma’s powers took shape while attending this school once puberty started, and she saw academic success thanks to her telepathy and familial influence over the administration.
Though Emma always wanted to be a teacher, her father loathed the idea and had the teacher that inspired her to follow this career path fired shortly after he found out. Emma eventually grew to become dishonest, untrusting, deceitful, and fiercely independent, thanks to her abusive and vindictive father.
The young telepath eventually used her abilities to swindle a small fortune and attend Empire State University to start her own story, using whatever means necessary to get an advantage against her adversaries, going so far as to get breast implants and bleaching her hair to use her body as a tool to further that goal.
Later on, Emma Frost would team up with fellow mutant Sebastian Shaw to overthrow the leadership of the Hellfire Club to gain a foothold in the criminal underworld and secure a lasting fortune. Emma would become known as the Wite Queen, the matriarch of the organization, while Shaw took the Black King title.
Emma would use this power, money, and influence to finally follow her dreams of starting a school, founding the Massachusetts Academy, a school for “genetically gifted” youngsters. Just like Professor Charles Xavier’s school, Emma formed a team with her pupils known as the Hellions.
After a stint as a recurring villain for the X-Men, Emma Frost eventually lost the fortune and status she’d built, and as her empire crashed, she moved to aid the X-Men in several endeavors, eventually falling in love with Scott Summers (Cyclops) and having an affair with the married man.
Once Scott’s wife, Jean Grey, died, thanks to the Phoenix Force, they got together officially and became co-headmasters of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Since then, she’s swayed to the side of good, using her Omega-level telepathy to aid her students and the X-Men against the never-ending threats thrown their way.
Emma Frost Moveset
You can see the full list of Emma Frost’s abilities in Marvel Rivals below:
Abilities
- Telepathic Pulse (Attack)
- Fire a psionic beam to deal damage; the longer the beam hits, the higher the damage.
- Psychic Spear
- Seize control of an enemy’s sentience-damage dealt to the sentience cascades to the physical form and can be pierced by Telepathic Pulse. When the sentience shatters, it unleashes extra damage on its owner.
- Mind’s Aegis
- Create a levitating barrier at the designated location.
- Faceted Fury (Attack)
- In Diamond Form, deliver a crushing double-fisted strike to enemies.
- Diamond Form
- Activate Diamond Form to transform your attack style while gaining Damage Reduction and becoming unstoppable.
- Faceted Fury
- In Diamond Form, deliver a crushing double-fisted strike to enemies.
- Carbon Crush
- In Diamond Form, lunch forward to grab an enemy, then execute a back slam to inflict damage.
- Crystal Kick
- In Diamond Form, unleash a flying kick forward and knock back enemies; extra damage is dealt if they’re propelled into a wall.
- Psionic Seduction (Ultimate)
- Project a forward psychic assault that stuns foes and prevents them from unleashing their Ultimate Abilities; if the effect lingers, it gradually commandeers their mind, forcing them to move toward Emma Frost.
- Mind-Link (Team-Up)
- Emma Frost can form a mental link with Magneto and Psylocke, calling on her to create illusory projections. When together, Emma Frost will create a Mental Projection of Magneto and Psylocke, forming a Duplicate Illusion of the enemy’s perspective that confuses foes by moving and casting abilities on its own.
Emma Frost Reading List
We’ve gathered several comic runs of Emma Frost below to help familiarize you with the character, including a series dedicated to her origin from the early 2000s and the most recent X-Men run where the Hellfire queen marries Iron Man!
- Uncanny X-Men (1963)
- X-Men: Phalanx Covenant (1994)
- Generation X (1994)
- Emma Frost (2003-2004)
- House of X/Powers of X (2019)
- Dawn of X (2019)
- X-Men (2021)
- Wedding Issues: X-Men 2021 #26/Invincible Iron Man (2022) #10\
To see an extensive list breakdown of some of the most impactful Emma Frost appearances, check out the Uncanny X-Men site for a full history and breakdown.
For more on Marvel Rivals, please stick with us at Press SPACE to Jump!
