Hey guys! As you all have probably noticed, like, 10 years ago, I have pretty much stopped blogging at all because of constant lack of time. But, since nothing really changed since 2010 and there are still no active Emma Frost fan pages/blogs, I wonder if someone would be interested in running this blog, update the news and post interesting stuff? I don't think that I will have time to post much, so I'll just be around and do what I can, but the blog will essentially be yours. If someone is interested, please just leave a comment. Same goes for my other blog - Killig Perfection - X-23 fan page.
I love you all! =)

Preview: A+X #13

Story by Gerry Duggan, Howard Chaykin
Art by David Yardin, Howard Chaykin
Colors by Andres Mossa, Edgar Delgado
Letters by VC - Clayton Cowles
Cover by David Yardin
Publisher Marvel Comics
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date Wed, October 16th, 2013

• A+X= something altogether different starting this month!
• Half of this issue kicks off a 6-part story by GERRY DUGGAN (DEADPOOL) and DAVID YARDIN (ASTONISHING X-MEN, Injustice: Gods Among Us) bringing A and X to a collision course with Captain America and Cyclops running in A+X #13-18!
• The other half of the issue sees industry legend HOWARD CHAYKIN writing and drawing the sexiest story in A+X history with Emma Frost and Black Widow!

Terry Dodson's Comic Con '11 Sketch - Emma Frost

 

 

A Moulin Rouge inspired Emma Frost Comic Con International in San Diego, July 2011. I think Dodson can draw a pretty amazing, strong and yet very elegant Emma Frost.

THE OUTER BEAUTY Part 1 + Welcome back!

Hello again, dear friends!
First of all I would like to thank everybody who stayed on this blog even when I didn't. I had a lot of personal stuff to deal with, so I had to cut short some of my activities in order to not get crazy. But I'm back now, all fresh and inspired =)
Some changes will be made around here - this blog will be less about quantity and more about quality of Emma-related news.
I will also do my best to write more on the subject. I'm happy to present my first article after the break! I planned on doing it for a long time and now I finally started. I give you:

EMMA FROST: THE OUTER BEAUTY

Let me be the first to say that Emma Frost is one of the most interesting, flawed, inspiring and complicated people in the comics so far and that her appearance is by far not her only aspect worth discovering. But! We all know why we landed here in the first place. She caught our eye first. Or at least that's what happened to me. It actually was like falling in love – I started noticing her inner beauty after noticing her looks. So let's talk about them and see if I can somehow rationalize my being a superficial jerk by comparing her costumes to her way of thinking at the given time.

I want to add that I am a woman myself and I absolutely realise that a lot of Emma's costumes would look ridiculous on a real woman. In my opinion it is insulting to suggest that the only way a woman can be sexy is by dressing up like a stripper. But for me Emma is the only person who can pull this off. And you know why? She teases men, she angers women, and It. Is. Fun! =)

PART ONE: The Hellfire Club

Emma started out as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club in her teens. She wore the same clothes for pole dancing and villainous plotting. A corset and tiny panties, high boots and gloves still represent her most recognisable look. One should never forget the cape, an aсcessory that returned only many years later. Being a young adult, Emma actually looked much older in her HC-era, maybe because of the artists, maybe because her story was a little retconned later to make her younger. Or maybe she just wanted to look older to gain more respect and fear. She also had some plastic surgery she openly admits to and is ever proud of. She wanted to be perfect. So she got perfect.

Possible reasons for dressing up like that:

Every woman in the HC was most likely forced or inclined to wear laundry, no matter her status. In the Classic X-Men #34 we can see Emma talking to a servant girl who wears just as little clothes. By the way, this amazing issue is beautifully reviewed by Ken Kneisel and you just have to check it out if you didn't already! Emma tells the girl that she is not ashamed of her look and that she, in fact, sees it as her asset against men who think they are the ones with power. Where, actually, the power is all hers. 'You wear that outfit and men look at you and it cheapens you. But when I wear it - it cheapens them.' Emma knew that she was a valuable asset in the HC and she had both the intelligence and mutant powers to back up her assertiveness. So she could wear whatever the hell she wanted and men still respected her enough to try not to stare. I imagine it humoured her a lot.

This costume radiated a deadly amount of sex appeal, but it is not the most important thing about it. All women who were unfortunate enough to get into a fight wearing high heels, a décolleté dress or maybe, God forbid, only panties, will know what I mean when I say that fighting ANY sort of enemy in this dress is next to impossible. But Emma still pulled that off. You can certainly call yourself a hero when you manage to work as a villain while maintaining a perfect hair, not falling out of your tight corset (and breathing in it!) and not breaking a heel. Well done, Emma! It's about self-control, too. She made herself an armour that forced her to always look her best, to be her best. She could never relax. She could never be nice and caring. She could never forget to epilate, for God's sake! There was no going back from this, you could never go soft again. It is very funny that the only man she actually loved created the same restrains for himself. Yes, Cyclops and his visor, as seen in AXM 14. Notice the similitude?

I should remind everyone that Frost was still almost a teenager when she first joined the Club. It is very possible that she overcompensated for her silent childhood by dressing up like a stripper and craving attention. This look, paradoxically enough, is the most uncertain. It is like a twisted cry for attention and love. The Hellfire taught her what they taught her and Emma followed the only advice that seemed to help, and it actually made her love herself and feel important. It gave her power she never had before. It made her someone no one could forget. I think the main reason why Emma stayed on top while being on the edge of falling is that Emma was always intelligent enough to not go too far with men. It was never about men. It was about causing chaos. Men fantasised about her, women envied and hated her. It was pure power of mischief and misdirection. And it forged the woman we know and love out of a problem teenager.

I hope you liked the first part of this article! See next: Generation X

Emma Frost Sketches by Terry Dodson

Emma Frost by Terry Dodson

One of the drawings from the new sketchbook collection of Terry Dodson named "Bombshells Book 1". It will debut in San Diego soon. Amazing!

Comparing Emma Frost to Doctor Nemesis

Ok, It's been a long time coming. There is just certain similitude between James Nicola Bradley a.k.a. Dr. Nemesis and Emma Frost that I can't ignore. I have to note, that both this characters are very capable of standing on their own and are not connected to each other, even being in the same book - "Uncanny X-Men". Bradley first appeared in "UXM" in the issue #504, a very long time after Emma Frost did, but it should be noted that Dr. Nemesis had been in the comics since the forties, so nobody is a ripoff. I want to thank Mr. Hellfire for the whole concept of comparing characters, it was always fun to read and it made me want to actually write my thoughts down myself.

I like Dr. Nemesis mostly for his comments and because he has no crazy oh-my-god-he's-so-smart-he's-my-idol-because-well-i'm-a-scientist-too-respect for Reed Richards, which is VERY rare and beautiful, but he's also good at other things, too. First of all - James Bradley happens to be one of a few characters that Matt Fraction can write without making me suicidal. Like Frost, Bradley is a pet of Fraction, however, unlike her, Nemesis actually IS allowed to be an asshole just for the hell of it, and Emma is damned to behave like an old woman and only be a bitch in her diamond form. After reading "X-Men Revelations: Blind Science" I was surprised even more - the guy made me laugh almost every time he opened his mouth.

Reasons to love the man:

So - shall we begin?

APPEARANCE (duh)

Well, obviously they both wear white (thank you for you attention, goodbye, lol), which is their trend mark, are blond and wear white gloves all the time. Aside from that they both are very fixed on how they look (losing a hat is a tragedy for James ("Blind Science") and he also needs his surgical mask for no good reason), it resembles Emma's corsets and cape - accessories that are meaningless and not helping in a fight, either). Our heroes are very sensitive of people touching their clothes and other additions to their looks. (In the "UXM #504" Doctor threatened to spay Beast if he grabs his jacket again, in "New X-Men v1 #120" Emma flipped out and spread pain and suffering around because her nose was broken, in "X-Women" one-shot she kicked a helpless woman's ass, broke a nail and kicked her some more and kept whining the whole day after that).
Surprisingly, this article doesn't stop on that =) I know, right?

ORIGINS / JOINING THE X-MEN

The way they became part of the famous mutant team is very similar, too. Both Ms. Frost and Dr. Nemesis were asked to stay but refused to join the X-Men with a lot of insulting remarks ("UXM #504" and "New X-Men 116", and yet they still agreed to stay because without them the team would be screwed. The funny (well, not for the mutants anyway) part is - they both joined after a horrible genocide has happened to the mutant race. Emma - after Cassandra Nova destroyed Genosha and Dr. Nemesis - after the M-Day). They have a connection to the Hellfire Club - Emma was a White Queen and his father was hired by the Club ("UXM #512"). And they annoyed the hell out of the team with their presence (Nemesis made Angel very angry with his rants the first second they met and Emma angered Jean, Scott, Wolverine and pretty much everyone else in other comic books). Oh, and by the way, being a freak about this comparison and all - the joining involved holding Beast's paw in both cases =)

PERSONALITY / KNOWLEDGE

Both Emma and Dr. Nemesis are underestimated very often - he is a nerd and she is blond and a telepath, so people are not expecting them to be good at hand-to-hand combat, which they pretty much are. ("Invaders" mini, "Generation X #43"). Their appearance is mischievous, but only as long as you don't try to see what happens if you screw with them. However - most of the time, Emma and James do not take part in a rough fist-fights, they prefer to act from a distance and with their dignity intact - she uses her telepathy and he uses his crazy guns. By the way - during her time as the White Queen of the Hellfire Club Emma invented some guns of her own.

Well, and there also are their wittiness and humor that mostly makes other people get angry and that people try very hard just to ignore because they don't have the guts and words to answer. Plus - they don't give a crap if someone likes them or not and make absolutely no effort in gaining someone's love, but they can admit their mistakes in an unfriendly way.

And they have problems in personal life because there's nobody good enough (well, Emma was single until she really fell in love for the first time and James is still trying not to pull Dr. Rao's hair to show her that he likes her a bit, like a man-child he is). By the way - when Emma liked Iceman for a short time in the "Generation X" she teased him a lot, she kicked Banshee's ass on a daily basis and insulted him, of course, one can argue forever if there was some romantic involved in this two cases, but personally I think there was a tension. So, when Bradley rants about stupidity of Dr. Rao or even threatens her with a gun ("Blind Science") it totally resembles the relationships between Emma and Banshee and Iceman. It all the cases, both Emma and Nemesis manged (with a big amount of suffering and creepiness) to somehow apologize afterwards.

Also, even if they both aren't the nicest adults in the world if this concerns the children (being a teacher does not stop Emma from being a real bitch towards the kids sometimes), they do have their favourites. In Emma's case it's the Stepford Cuckoos and Hellion, she also sees Armor and Pixie as her pets, in the "New X-Men" she bought clothes for a rebel girl named Angel. Nemesis is not that nice, yet sometimes he doesn't insult some children, like X-23 in "Necrosha" one-shot where he tells that he likes her because she surgically removed her own claws.

James and Emma are also good team leaders if they are motivated and put their minds to it, but they don't get a chance to play boss very often, because there is always someone to steal their show. Nemesis is actually a leader of the X-Club now, but he wasn't one "on paper" when Beast was still an X-Man, even if he should've been. Emma lead a find-and-rescue team in "X-Men: Pixie Strikes Back" and kicked ass doing it. And yet they both don't get to lead. To be completely fair I have to say that our white heroes are bad with people (they are, however, good at them), and have a history of making huge mistakes (Nemesis not noticing a trap in "Blind Science", Emma losing her children over and over again), so it's probably for the best.

I'm happy to say, that it's always nice to have two people in the same franchise and even in the same comic book that are so incredibly alike, and yet to never even notice the likeness for a long time. These two characters have a lot in common, but still have many differences and little things that make them unique and very fun to read. All the colors and habits aside, Emma Frost and Doctor Nemesis still are completely independent and interesting on their own and that is a cool thing.

So, that would be it) Some of the points are a little overdone, but still, it was fun writing it, far more fan than I thought it would be! I hope you enjoyed reading it, too. And, as a little bonus I would love to include this pictures =) 'Till next time!