Emma Frost’s Fall
There’s a sense in which Emma Frost’s redemption has never really been accepted by X-Men fans; while other ex-villains have been embraced (Rogue being the most prominent example), every writer has enjoyed toying with the possibility that Emma could go bad once again. At heart, though, her fall from grace became inevitable as far back as the Morrison era.
You see, Grant Morrison recast Emma’s character in a fascinating way; he abandoned the idea that she was a teacher first and foremost, and instead pushed her relationship with Cyclops. Years later, during the “Schism” event, Marvel had Emma deliberately choose this relationship over and above her role as a teacher. Her identity became a matter of her relationship, not a matter of her role.
As we all know, that relationship failed. In spite of that, though, even during the Bendis run we saw that Emma was clinging on to the last vestiges of that relationship, struggling to move on. When Cyclops died, Marvel was left with a fundamental question: what do we do with Emma Frost now? How would a character like Emma Frost respond to the loss of the man who had come to define her? The answer is brutally simple, and very much character-accurate: she would lash out.
What Next?
With “ResurrXion” seeing a new focus on the ‘school’ aspect of the X-Men franchise, I can’t help wonder if Emma Frost’s future lies in a new, second generation of Hellions. I’d like to see her arc circle back to teaching once again, with Emma’s school becoming a rival for the X-Men’s, and her becoming the Magneto to Kitty Pryde’s Xavier.
Whatever the truth may be, it’s pretty clear that Emma Frost‘s time as a hero is over. She was born to be bad, she had her time in the light, but now the redemption story is over. She is a villain once again.