Latest / Vigilante Vibes Podcast / Ep. 200. Who is Emma Frost in Marvel Comics?!

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Ep. 200. Who is Emma Frost in Marvel Comics?! · Vigilante Vibes Podcast

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  Hello Marvel fans, comic geeks, and all the nerds in between.
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  My name is Megan with vigilante vibes and I'm coming to you
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  today with another character breakdown on a mutant that I
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  think should get more hype. Granted, she does get a lot of
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  hype, but she's one of my favorites and I think she should
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  get more. And she only has like one solo
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  right now and it's in between. It's like a look in the past.
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  So it's in between events. It's not new stuff.
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  So I would like to see her get her own solo of new adventures,
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  new everything. So who am I talking about?
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  I'm talking about Emma Frost, the White Queen.
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  We've all heard about the confident and cunning mutant who
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  does whatever she wants whenever she wants.
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  But who exactly is she? Emma Frost's first comic book
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  appearance was in The Uncanny X-Men #129 published in January
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  of 1980. She was created by writer Chris
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  Claremont and artist Slash Co writer John Byrne.
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  Emma Frost was born into the wealthy Frost family, a powerful
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  Boston mercantile dynasty that traced its roots back to England
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  in the 1600s, and even been involved in the American
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  Revolutionary War. So they've been around for a
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  minute. She was the second of three
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  daughters, with an older brother, Christian Frost.
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  Christian struggled horrendously.
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  He turned to drugs to cope with the sadness of his life and the
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  emotional and physical abuse from their father.
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  What none of them knew at the time was that Emma and her
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  sisters were mutants, and that all three had telepathic
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  abilities that would surface around puberty, as mutant
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  abilities do. Emma never lived up to her
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  father's expectations. He saw her as a disappointment.
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  Her grades were low, she didn't fit in socially, and she was
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  ostratized while attending Snow Valley School for the girls.
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  As her mutant powers started emerging, she began suffering
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  intense migraines. Things came to head when, during
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  a breakdown, she accidentally knocked out the entire school
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  with her telepathy. That incident caught the
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  attention of Charles Xavier. He and Myra Mctaggart approached
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  Emma's father, hoping she'd attend Xavier school, but both
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  Emma and her father flatly refused.
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  Once Emma started learning how to use her powers, her life
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  changed very, very quickly. She used her telepathy to excel
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  in everything, but her home life kept spiraling.
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  She developed a crush on her teacher, Ian Kendall, and
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  decided she wanted to become a teacher herself, something her
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  father absolutely hated. When her father caught Emma and
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  Kendall kissing outside the Frost estate, he had Kendall
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  fired and blackmailed Emma into giving up her teaching dreams.
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  Things only got worse for Christian after his sexuality
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  was revealed. Their father alienated him
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  completely, which pushed Christian deeper into addiction
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  and eventually into a suicide attempt.
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  Remember, this is Emma's brother.
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  When it came time to name an heir, Christian was immediately
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  dismissed for being gay and an addict.
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  Although their older sister Adrian seemed like the obvious
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  choice, their father chose Emma instead.
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  Christian was institutionalized, but Emma rejected the
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  inheritance outright, choosing to walk away and make her own
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  life. Emma hit rock bottom.
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  She worked minimum wage jobs, lived in a cheap Boston hotel,
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  and even tried to use her telepathy to pay for food with a
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  newspaper until she got caught and forced to wash dishes.
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  That's where she met Troy Killkelly, who she moved in with
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  when his debts caught up with them.
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  Emma used her powers to win money at a casino, but the loan
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  shark demanded more. Troy suggested faking Emma's
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  kidnapping and demanding ransom from her father, but Winston
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  Frost refused to pay, saying Emma was dead to him.
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  So he is just father of the year.
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  Troy was killed and Emma absorbed the loan shark's
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  business knowledge telepathically.
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  Troy was killed and Emma absorbed the loan shark's
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  business knowledge telepathically.
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  Adrian leaked the kidnapping tape to the media, forcing their
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  father to pay. Emma escaped on her own, took
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  the money and moved to New York. She dyed her hair blonde and
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  rolled at Empire State University and ran into Ian
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  Kendall again. She also met Astrid Bloom,
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  another telepath who trained her.
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  When Emma learned Kendall was dating her roommate Christine,
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  she confessed her feelings and started a relationship with him.
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  Christine threatened to expose him unless he left Emma, but
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  Astrid manipulated him into attacking Christine.
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  Emma uncovered the truth, defeated Astrid, physically
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  absorbed her knowledge, and saved Kendall's job.
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  But when he learned Emma was a mutant, he left her anyways.
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  So when Emma's parents found out that she was a mutant, they
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  committed her to the Essex Clinic where she was heavily
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  drugged. She was kidnapped by the
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  Brotherhood of Evil Mutants and taken to Xavier School so
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  Magneto could use her to activate Cerebro and wipe out
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  humanity. The X-Men stopped the plan and
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  the evolutionaries erased everyone's memories of the
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  event. Once back at the clinic and free
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  of the drugs, Emma forced a guard to help her escape.
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  Homeless and starving in New York, Emma became a stripper at
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  the Hellfire Club, using her powers to give customers
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  whatever fantasy they wanted. Charles Xavier and Myra tried
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  again to recruit her, but she refused.
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  Xavier erased her memory of the meeting.
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  Eventually, after snapping at Sebastian Shaw, he saw her
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  potential and brought her into the Inner Circle.
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  He offed two women to prove his commitment and made Emma his
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  partner. Together, they overthrew the
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  leadership of the Hellfire Club, and Emma became the White Queen.
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  From there, Emma's life became a constant cycle of power,
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  betrayal, loss, and reinvention. She built a massive financial
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  empire, founded the Massachusetts Academy, clashed
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  repeatedly with the X-Men, survived multiple comas, trained
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  and law students. You know the Hellions.
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  Endured manipulation by allies and enemies alike and slowly,
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  often painfully shifted from villain to anti hero to teacher
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  and leader. She Co founded Generation X,
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  lost and regained trust countless times.
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  Murdered her own sister Adrian after Adrian engineered a
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  student's death. Survived the Genosha massacre by
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  developing her diamond form. Joined the X-Men as a teacher
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  and Co headmistress. Fell in love with Cyclops, which
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  I think was his best relationship.
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  More on that later. In another episode hosted the
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  Phoenix Force, survived assassination, endured public
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  hatred, and became one of mutant kind's most powerful political
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  players. She helped found Utopia,
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  betrayed Norman Osborne, faced Celine and the resurrected
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  Hellions, ordered X Force to kill when necessary, and she
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  stood against The Avengers. And she became a part of the
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  Phoenix 5. But that's not all.
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  After that, she lost control, was imprisoned, lost her powers,
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  temporarily regained them back, and later orchestrated major
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  global events including memory wipes and political coups to
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  protect mutants. Eventually, Emma helped build
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  Krakoa and became the White Queen of the Hellfire Trading
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  Company. There she served on the Quiet
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  Council and orchestrated revenge against Sebastian Shaw and
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  hosted the Hellfire Gala. But it does not stop there.
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  Because Krakoa was a wild time for Emma Frost.
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  Because there she exposed Myra Mctaggart secrets like her
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  secret mutant abilities. And if you want to know more
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  about the wild lives of Myra Mctaggart, just check my page
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  because I have a whole video about her.
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  It's wild. She also defended mutant
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  sovereignty, survived orcas went underground, forged uneasy
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  alliances with Tony Stark, even marrying him as a cover which I
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  liked them together to be honest so helped bring orcas down.
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  Finally sought an annulment once the war was over and her time in
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  From the Ashes which is the new X-Men reboot of the comics.
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  Highly recommend checking out. She was assisting Kitty Pride
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  along with Iceman and mentoring young mutants to become the
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  X-Men they needed to become in order to combat the mutant
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  hating world around them. Most recently she was involved
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  in the X-Men Age of Revelation event where they were X years
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  into the future in the new dystopian world created by Doug
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  Ramsey AKA Revelation using an X virus.
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  The X Virus turned humans into mutants, or it just killed them.
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  It also amplified the mutant's abilities into something even
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  more, so it could also amplify to the point where it would just
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  kill them. It was a horrible, horrible
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  thing to do with Emma. She was fatally wounded with her
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  heart dying. So she transformed into her
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  diamond form to keep herself alive and sought out help from
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  her former husband Tony Stark, who was transformed in the worst
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  of ways from the X Virus. She ended up giving her life and
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  sacrifice to save others, but that's also X years into the
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  future. So like, it was a weird event.
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  I'm not. I read the entire event, like
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  the entire event and I still don't know where we stand.
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  I read the epilogue. I actually put out a a comic
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  review for the epilogue that's in X-Men #23 and I don't, I
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  still don't know if all this happens or it just, you know,
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  doesn't who knows. But either way, it was a great
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  event. Through it all, Emma Frost
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  remained exactly what she'd always been brilliant.
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  Ruthless when needed, deeply wounded, fiercely protective of
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  mutant kind, and constantly walking the line between control
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  and compassion. So there's so much about Emma
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  Frost that she's such a complex character.
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  That's why I take it so seriously when people do fan
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  casts. Like someone needs to be able to
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  handle her depth, handle her confidence without sounding
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  there's a difference between confidence and cocky.
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  And I feel like a lot of these fan casts are more cocky because
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  they're hot, not because there's a difference in knowing you're
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  the hottest 1 in the room and having to say it.
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  And I feel like that difference hasn't been.
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  I haven't seen any fan casts that I personally think would
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  justify her as a character. So through it all, this is Emma
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  Frost. She is complex, She is
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  fantastic. She is a fun character to read
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  about. And she is madding.
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  She will get on your nerves. So yeah.
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  So like always, I have comic books for you to check out if
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  you want to know more about her or get to know her yourself.
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  So starting with the Dark Phoenix Saga, that's where she
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  first appeared. Uncanny X-Men volume 1151 to
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  1:52, the Firestar miniseries, very, very slept on, very
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  underrated but very fun X-Men Phalanx, Covent and Generation
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  X. She is all up and down
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  Generation X, so you should definitely check it out.
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  So that is all I have for you today for Emma Frost.
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  I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned something.
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  I hope you like the character now that you know more about
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  her. So I will still continue to put
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  all of these out all year long. You got to start the new year,
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  right? And this felt like the perfect
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  person to start my new year of comic book breakdown, Comic book
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  character breakdowns, really. So you can't really go wrong
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  with the White Queen. So with that all being said, be
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  sure to like to subscribe and have a marvelous day.