Family Background

Emma Grace Frost was a leading member of an oldBoston mercantile family, which arrived from England in the 1600s. The second of three daughters, Emma also had an older brother, namedChristian Frost, who had turned to substance abuse as an escape from the drudgery of his life. Unknown to their family or themselves, the three Frost sisters were mutants, whose telepathic abilities matured upon reaching their puberty. Deemed unfit in her father's eyes, Emma produced low grade point averages and was a social outcast while attending the Snow Valley School for Girls. Emma also suffered from intensely painful migraines and, while attending class, began to hear other people's thoughts and collapsed. After the emergence of her powers, Emma used them to excel in all aspects of her life. Due to a crush that Emma had over a teacher of hers, Ian Kendall, Emma decided a future in teaching, much to her father's disapproval, but, after being seen kissing Mr. Kendall in front of the Frost estate, Emma's father blackmailed her to give up her idea of teaching. After her brother's homosexuality was revealed to the family, Winston Frost began to alienate Christian, resulting in his drug abuse and attempted suicide. When it came time for their father to choose a worthy heir to the family fortune, Christian was automatically dismissed due to his drug problem and because he was gay. While the older sister, Adrienne Frost, seemed the most obvious choice, their father chose Emma. At that moment, Christian was picked up by a mental institution, and, surprisingly, Emma refused to be her father's heir, choosing to make her own way through life instead.                                                                                                               

Emma began to work minimum wage jobs and stayed at a hotel. After attempting to use her telepathy to pay for the meal with a newspaper instead of money, Emma was eventually caught and made to wash dishes, where she met Troy Killkelly, who she was attracted to and moved in with. Unfortunately, Troy owed money and Emma used her telepathy at a Casino to erase their financial problems, but the loan shark insisted that they owed more, for interest. Troy suggested that they pretend to kidnap Emma and have Winston pay a ransom, but Winston refused, stating that his daughter was already dead to him. After Troy was killed, Emma absorbed all of the shark's memories of business. After her sister Adrienne took Emma's kidnapping video to the news, Winston was forced to pay the ransom. However, Emma freed herself using her abilities, took the money and moved to New York.

Later, Emma found herself in a mental institution, the Essex Clinic, where she was drugged and kidnapped by theBrotherhood of Evil Mutants. Magneto took her to Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, to use Cerebro and kill all humans, while bringing together all mutants. Beast created a device that shut-off access to cosmic rays of the Evolutionaries and accidentally killed two of them. When Cyclops vowed to protect mutantkind, the remaining Evolutionary reluctantly left, but not before erasing the memory of their presence from the minds of the X-Men and Brotherhood and vowing to return one day. After the Evolutionaries returned Emma to the clinic, her head was clear and the drugs were out of her system.

Emma dyed her hair blonde and enrolled into Empire State University, where she was reunited with Mr. Kendall. While attending class, Emma met her first fellow telepath, Astrid Bloom, and Astrid began to train Emma in the use of her abilities. After learning that Mr. Kendall was dating her roommate, Christine McDermott, Emma confessed her love for him and he pursued a relationship with Emma. Christine threatened to expose Mr. Kendall's relationship with students if he did not leave Emma, but Astrid influenced him to choke her. Upon learning the truth, Emma mentally defeated Astrid, absorbing her knowledge of telepathy, and saved Mr. Kendall's job, revealing her mutation to him. Unexpectedly, Mr. Kendall left Emma in disgust. These events led Emma to view humans beneath mutants and she began believing that there was no reason to use restraint in her powers. Emma inherited a good deal of wealth, but most of her large fortune was the result of her business successes. Emma rose rapidly through the world of business, thanks to her intelligence, drive, personal charm, and her secret use of her psionic abilities. Also, at some point, the Dark Beast met Emma and helped her rise to wealth and power.[5]

Frost International

White Queen of the Hellfire Club

Emma's beauty and talents brought her an invitation to join the Hellfire Club, an elite social organization of the world's wealthy and powerful figures, as a stripper. As a dancer/stripper at the Hellfire Club, Frost was approached byProfessor Charles Xavier and Dr. Moira MacTaggart to join a new team of X-Men.[6] When Emma refused, Professor X erased her memory of the encounter, against Kid Vulcan's judgment that Professor Xavier should have forcibly changed her mind.[7] Frost became the ally of Sebastian Shaw, who was a member of the Club's Council of the Chosen, a group which secretly conspired to achieve world domination through economic and political means. Like Frost, Shaw was a mutant. The Leaders of the Club and Council, its foremost Lords Cardinal, were the White King, Edward Buckman, and the White Queen, Paris Seville. The Lords Cardinal were given titles corresponding to the names of chess pieces. Buckman threw the Council's support behind Project Armageddon, which was scientist Steven Lang's program to build Sentinel robots and have them hunt down superhuman mutants. Knowing Shaw was, himself, a mutant, Buckman told him that the Project was intended to capture superhuman mutants for use by the council in seeking power. However, Frost, through her psionic powers, learned that the Project was actually intended as a means of destroying all superhuman mutants. After Shaw chose Emma over two other women, and brutally murdered them in front of her, their union was undoubtedly official. Together, Shaw and Frost staged a coup that gave them control of the Council of the Chosen, which they renamed the Inner Circle. Shaw took the title of Black King and Frost became the new White Queen.

Under Shaw and Frost, the Inner Circle was dominated by superhuman mutants. Frost recruited young superhuman mutants and trained them in the use of their powers at her school, so that they might use those powers on the Inner Circle's behalf. Most of these mutant students were members of a team called the Hellions.

Later, when Shaw was in search for a new person for the title of the White King, he threw ​​a party to which he invited the most influential men in the world and tried to decide who was most fit for this position. Rejecting the candidacy of Tony Stark, he chose Prince Namor of Atlantis, and invited him to join the Club. But Namor contemptuously rejected the proposal, saying that if Sebastian ever again dared to waste his time with such a minor thing, he would kill him. This led Shaw into a frenzy, so he ordered Emma to force Namor to join the Club, no matter what the cost. A few days later, she acted out a suicide by jumping overboard from a yacht to attract Namor's attention. He rescued her and they spent together two weeks in Atlantis. Shaw, however, tired of waiting for news from Emma, ​​and thinking that Namor had killed or captured her, decided to send the Sentinels for her. Sentinels attacked Namor and Emma, and caused damage to Atlantis, and Namor took this as a declaration of war. Finding out where the Sentinels came from, Namor, along with Emma, went there and clashed with Shaw, Pierce and Selene. Selene mind-wiped Emma to erase the memories of her betrayal and make her loyal to the Club again. Surrounded by two telepaths, Shaw explained to Namor that he would never get close enough to kill him. Namor left, but vowed to take revenge one day.[8]

Frost again encountered the X-Men when she attempted to recruit young mutant Kitty Pryde for her school. The Hellfire Club had hired the mercenary, Warhawk, to battle the X-Men, while leaving a device that enabled the Inner Circle of the Hellfire Club to monitor the activities of Cerebro, a mutant-detecting machine Professor X built. Prof. Xavier and Frost would each approach Pryde and her parents as the heads of private schools seeking to recruit her as a talented student. Neither Prof. Xavier nor Frost intended to reveal to Kitty's parents that their daughter was a mutant. Emma left after making her pitch to Carmen and Theresa Pryde, noting that whilst Carmen was in favour of her school, Terri wasn't. As Emma was leaving Professor Xavier arrived accompanied by Storm, Wolverine and Collosus. While Kitty and the X-Men were at a malt shop, Frost ordered their capture and, while Kitty got away, Frost took the captured X-Men to Frost International. After Kitty phoned the rest of the X-Men, Emma was defeated by the X-Men and Dazzler, another mutant the Hellfire Club was attempting to acquire.

After building the Mindtap Mechanism, a device that allowed Mastermind to beam his illusions directly intoPhoenix's mind, the Phoenix fell under Mastermind and the Hellfire Club's control and transformed into the Black Queen. After the X-Men battled the Hellfire Club's Inner Circle, Phoenix underwent another transformation into the almighty Dark Phoenix and soared through the universe.

Later, Kitty's parents reconsidered allowing her to join Xavier's School and enrolled her into the Massachusetts Academy. Emma used that opportunity to switch bodies with Storm, who had driven Kitty there, while Shaw attacked the X-Men and with a new design of Sentinels. After using Emma’s telepathy, Storm was able to gain her body back and the X-Men destroyed the Sentinels.

Later, while attempting to give Shaw an important message, Frost collapsed into a catatonic schizophrenia and remained in a coma, due to Mastermind. Emma awoke from her coma and invited Doug Ramsey to her school, bringing her back into contact with Kitty. After capturing Kitty and Doug, Emma was unaware that Kitty andMagik shared a rapport, and the New Mutants came to their rescue. After having the New Mutants battle the Hellions, Kitty caused enough chaos for Magik to teleport them all away. Emma continued to have problems with Empath, her best and most reckless student, and gained a leader for her Hellions in Thunderbird, a powerful Native American who blamed Professor Xavier for the death of his brother.

While battling with the virtually omnipotent Beyonder, the New Mutants were killed, then obliterated from existence by the Beyonder and then recreated by him. In being recreated, the New Mutants somehow lost much of the proficiency in using their superhuman powers that they had learned at Prof. Xavier's school and seemed detached. Emma used this opportunity and sent her astral form to speak with the new headmaster, Magneto, and offered her services with rehabilitating the children. Emma also had Empath effect Magneto's emotions of fears, insecurities, paranoia, and temperament, until he transferred all of the New Mutants, except Mirage andWarlock, to the Massachusetts Academy. The New Mutants, with the exception of Magik, adjusted surprisingly well and Emma made a lot of progress in their mental therapy. Upon realizing the manipulation, Magneto raced to rescue the children and Emma placed an anonymous call to the Avengers. After the New Mutants left to rescue Magneto, Emma and Magneto worked together to cure the children of their trauma at the hands of the Beyonder and they returned to Professor Xavier's. Emma later met with Magneto, as Shaw had offered him a position in the Inner Circle.

After the New Mutant, Magma, received a letter from her father, stating that she had learned enough from the outside world and it was time to return home and marry, she fantasized about life among the Hellions, at the Massachusetts Academy again. After hearing of an animal creature that was being mistreated after capture, Emma allowed the Hellions to participate in a contest with the New Mutants to abduct Bird Brain, where Magma and Empath revealed their mutual attraction to each other, and, after returning home victorious, Magma decided to return to the Massachusetts Academy. While picking-up Magma, Emma suggested to Magneto that Magma was better suited for the Massachusetts Academy and possibly some of her students were better accustomed to Xavier's School. While living with the Hellions, Magma was ordered by her father to return home, to her arranged marriage, and Emma suggested she comply. Emma also ordered Empath to accompany Magma.

After sensing the psychic distress of a mutant Moloid, Val-Or, Emma received a message from Empath, stating that Magma had been kidnapped. After arguing with Magma's father, Emma contacted the Hellfire Club and Magneto. Emma, Magneto, and the Inner Circle left to rescue Magma, unaware that the New Mutants had already rescued her. Later, Emma contacted Magneto about a coming danger and the recklessness of his students, suggesting that he accompany her to the Hellfire Club. During the meeting, Shaw berated Magneto for his students' rash acts and Emma came to his defense. The Inner Circle battled a rain of demons that descended upon Manhattan from a portal in Times Square. After the portal was closed, the Inner Circle was approached by the demon N'Astirh, who offered a truce with the Hellfire Club and proposed that if they would allow him Manhattan, he would give them the rest of the world.

Returning to Xavier's School, the Inner Circle and Magneto arrived just in time to save the New Mutants from the Marauder Sabretooth, who explained that Mr. Sinister had destroyed the mansion. A battle between the Inner Circle and the New Mutants began, until Magneto trapped all of the New Mutants in a metal ball. Shaw accused Magneto of having lost all of the control the Hellfire Club petitioned his membership for, and the two battled. After he defeated Shaw, Shaw stated to the other Inner Circle members that if Magneto stayed, then he would not, and Emma stated that his funding of the Sentinels inadvertently created Nimrod and killed Harry Leland and Friedrich von Roehm, weakening the Hellfire Club, and so Shaw was voted out of the Inner Circle. It is also possible that the White Queen was telepathically manipulating Magneto.

Coma

Later, the X-Men joined with the Hellions in order to protect the White Queen from a time-traveling attacker known as Trevor Fitzroy, but not before Fitzroy's brutal assault plunged Frost into a deep coma and brought about the untimely demise of the majority of the Hellions. Frost's consciousness was apparently still active on the material plane and her body was kept in the Med-lab at the X-Men's mansion.