Emma Frost #1

[history79]

9 pages of 27

Comments

[scorntx]

So, how did the thought process behind that cover come around, anyhow?

"Okay, we've got a series about how a young, isolated woman from a rich but emotionally absent family gains superpowers, and after numerous traumas becomes a supervillain, which we're intending to sell to young women (for reasons which escape me, 'cuz girls are icky).
... what's the worst possible cover we could put on this thing? Something that would ensure no-one in the target audience would ever look at this thing twice?"

[owlbrigade1]

I was thinking the same. No wonder some sections of comicbook fandom have such a bad reputation, the publishers are doing their best to live down to the worst stereotypes of readers.

[donnblake]

Yeah... I sell pornographic magazines with more tasteful covers.

Less tasteful ones, too, but still, I'm not sure that's the bar you want to set.

[beyondthefringe]

Tell me more about the pornographic magazines...

I mean huh? :)

[donnblake]

I mean, I work at a newsstand, so it's pretty standard stuff. Playboy, (yes, they're porn again), Penthouse, whichever half-dozen magazines Hustler is putting out any given month...

[beyondthefringe]

Yeah, the disconnect between the story and cover is truly amazing.

Honestly, the disconnect between the story as presented here, and the Emma Frost we all came to know and love, is also kind of amazing. Vaguely plausible, but still startling.

[every_spiegel]

Maaaaybe, this was aimed at stupid horny teenagers who get lured by this kind of covers and then get the actual story that teaches them that girls are, like, I dunno, real persons too? Guileful, I know!

We need such illusions to get through life, folks.

[balbanes]

Perhaps, but the equally stupid, way-too-tired-to-think-about-sex-all-the-time middle-aged dads (cough) gave this series a hard pass based on its absurd covers. Sure, Covers Always Lie, but they are generally pretty accurate in conveying who the target audience is. :/

[lilacsigil]

See, I think it's perfectly reasonable to call up Greg Horn and say, "Hey, we want covers for an Emma Frost series," and he makes these covers. That's 100% a Greg Horn Emma Frost cover, no doubt about it. Of course, the series is actually an interesting and nuanced look at the character *in her teens*, but obviously no-one told Horn this until much later in proceedings, at which time he proceeded to draw some totally appropriate covers. So this is one time where I absolutely don't blame the artist, but the editors are completely on the hook.

[liliaeth]

pretty much, if I hadn't seen scans of this on the previous scans daily, I never would have given this series a second look, exactly because of the cover.

[arilou_skiff]

Not a bad series, but OH MY GOD THE COVERS ARE AWFUL.

[janegray]

Reminds me of this...

https://amydentata.tumblr.com/post/76159550815/cynixy-snarksonomy-mquester

[lilacsigil]

That's hilarious!

[shadur]

Complete and uncensored, the reason many people take issue with the comics world (and other media dominated by homogenous culture). Straight from the horse’s mouth, unintentionally.

Well, straight from one end of the horse, at least.

[tripodeca113]

Oh, I thought this would just be thinly disguised fan-service and posing.
But no there's an actual plot.

[thatnickguy]

Huh. I never even cracked open this book when it was on stands because of the cover. I had no idea the interior art and story was actually decent.

[katefan]

In my opinion this series and Grant Morrison's run wrecked Emma Frost as a character, not to mention the confusing re-writing of her origin in Generation X. She was no longer this evil person but a victim of circumstance, a woman who suffered at the hands of an evil man and drug abuse to be manipulated by people around her. Making her a stripper in the Hellfire Club made things even worse.

To me it was all about making her a sympathetic character and I hated it. Frost was fine as she was; strong, confident, self centered and self serving, who ultimately was brought to the side of the angels by Xavier and the X-Men like Magneto had been.

[donnblake]

Well, given that Grant Morrison seemed to believe the Hellfire Club was basically just a mutant strip club...

[katefan]

Did Grant think that though because of the Generation X comic? Because Emma becoming a dancer there happened via flashback before his run on X-Men.

[donnblake]

I couldn't say- I haven't red the Generation X comic. I could see a story where a telepath working as a dancer in the outer circle of the Hellfire Club (where it generally seems to function as a debauched social club for the wealthy and powerful) could scheme and manipulate and gather enough power and information to make her way into the Inner Circle, but as it appeared in Morrison's run, the Inner Circle *also* appeared to just be a strip club.

[starwolf_oakley]

Does this mesh with GENERATION X MINUS 1? That had Emma sneaking into the Hellfire Club and quickly reading minds to get stock tips. Her parents disinherited her. Scott Lobdell and James Robinson did a lot of "You think Emma is bad? Her family is ten times worse!"

http://media.emmafrostfiles.com/images/scans/genxminus1-01.jpg
http://media.emmafrostfiles.com/images/scans/genxminus1-02.jpg

I thought that scene had a "Trask got a prototype working" line, as a reference to Sentinels. Either that's from something else or a line my own fanboy imagination came up with.

[bradygirl_12]

Agreeing with the posters here: what a skeevy cover! I was surprised it was a story about Emma as a teen. The sexualizing of girls continues.

[arilou_skiff]

This one is almost a decade old at this point.

[bradygirl_12]

This one is almost a decade old at this point.

Sadly, has much really changed?

[liliaeth]

I really really despised the cover art on these.

[rfmcdonald]

The character, as always, deserve better. Someone who could be ready as a more assertive and honest genderswapped version of Xavier could be fascinating. Instead, this.

[indy2012]

This series wasn't the best, but I have a soft spot for it. My friends and I actually swapped these with each other in junior high. I was the only gay one in our group and picked up the seroes out if genuine love and admiration of the character. My straight teenage male friends were of course drawn in by the covers, but ended up legit being interested in the actual storyline and the emotional development of its central female character. I remember long and in-depth discussions about the series with them, and the covers eventually became an afterthought. When first picking it up, I also interpreted the over-sexualized cover as the ultimate juxtapose: "How did the shrinking violet on the inside pages evolve into this woman on the cover who has learned to weaponize and own her sexuality?"

I ended up reading back-issues of Emma from things from Generation-X and very much prefer what I read here and in Morrison's run. I historically don't care much about continuity if a newer story is genuinely better.

[thenicochan]

I love pretty much everything you said here.