http://www.adventuresinpoortaste.com...ing-the-x-men/
I kind of wanted to vent about this. This is one more writer who has not read one issue of X-Men between the Phalanx Covenant and IvX, not one story. Because Emma has been a hero since the Phalanx Covenant and the formation of Generation X with Sean. Emma has been a hero longer than she ever was a villain in comics. But once again this is a writer who has never read anything between Phalanx Covenant and IvX. He wanted to use Emma as a villain because that is how she was back in the 80's so just forget 30 years of development and revert her back to the original Emma Frost of the Hellfire Club as if she never once did anything heroic in her life or that she was ever an ongoing ally of the X-Men for years.Bunn: There were a few things I didn’t think people would be really into–a super-violent Magneto. I didn’t think people would be into a hinted romance between Sabretooth and Monet and they were. I mean, I still get questions about that all the time.
And there were some things like Emma Frost, for instance, appeared in sort of a villainous role at some points in my book, and I really got a lot of heat for that, even though I felt like I had to go with what was established. I wasn’t going to turn her into a hero again after IVX, so I felt like I had to follow what was set up. But boy, people really don’t like Emma Frost as a villain, and here’s the thing. I love Emma Frost, but I was introduced to her as a villain, and I followed her as a villain for all those years, so I don’t like thinking about her as a hero too much, even though in X-Men Blue she basically takes that heroic role again, or an anti-hero role, but I still like thinking of her as a villain.
Even in the tail end of her days with the Hellfire Club before the Hellions were attacked she was actually working with the X-Men on a recurring basis by working with Magneto and Storm who co-held the White King position in the Hellfire Club together.
I am so tired of writers who just want to pretend like Emma Frost was never in Generation X and never an ongoing member of the X-Men, they just want to pretend that Emma never left the Hellfire Club and that she should always remain an X-villain with no growth or development.
We are MUTANT..Krakoa, FOREVER!!! “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”
House of X already being in the planning when Secret Wars was going on is obviously BS.
Cullen Bunn seems like a lovely man with some nice ideas but outside of some of Magneto every book of his I have read was merely serviceable. The kooky UXM run in the Savage Land base with Betsy and Magneto seeming days away from fucking was kind of interesting, but not very. That's about it. His comic book with Captain Rachel could've been neat, I guess.
And yes, what he did to Emma was beyond the pale.
We are MUTANT..Krakoa, FOREVER!!! “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”
To me I think they always felt they could pull her back, because it was clear reading that era that Emma was unstable and on the brink grieving a man she loved, and that many X-Men have been there and done worse than her. That was my take on her headspace at that time, anyway. But that doesn't make the writers taking it that far okay. It was just convenient to make her the heavy for anything, and it was tired. The whole teen Scott thing was even worse (albeit the most clear product of an unstable grieving mind). But, page turned!
You can see the differences inside Marvel too. The writer of Infinity War portrayed Emma as a hero. The writer of Jessica Jones showed Emma as grumpy and sarcastic, but at the end of the day Emma couldn't resist joining Jessica to take down the Purple Man because she wanted to help Jessica and her daughter.
Leah did a good job trying to rebuild Emma by having her take over the Hellfire Club to take it away from Sebastian and his "Sentinel arms trading" and redirect the Hellfire Club to focus on helping mutants (and still make lots of profits).
As much as I disliked how Rosenberg's run and his overall portrayal of Emma, the one thing I did like is that we found out Emma's nefarious plan with the Hellfire Club was to build schools for mutant children, that was her plan, build schools.
Emma isn't a supervillain, she is a school teacher with money.
We are MUTANT..Krakoa, FOREVER!!! “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”
Emma has always been about the children. Which is something I think could be explored even more, and I am not always as well-versed in her deep origin lore as I could be. But that's been there since Claremont, and whatever my endless issues with the '90s it was always a throughline even then.
I think this was touched on in either the Scott thread or one of the Rectangle ones the other day, but a lot of writers also too often discount the role Emma had in reconceptualizing Cyclops. Morrison and Whedon did it very well, and made him a proactive, much stronger character by dealing with the dissolution of his marriage and the end of Xavier's reign and coming into his own manhood. He was stronger and more forceful and confident than he'd ever been (and still is to this day IMO, even as a general to the House of X- I can understand him stepping back). And as a post there said, a huge part of that comes from the impact Emma and that relationship had on loosing Scott's inner reins and neuroses - not in a sexual way but largely philosophically. To many writers find Emma to be incidental to that change, but she's not. She was absolutely fundamental to that change in his character. Her attitude became his.
I agree, Emma was supportive, and when she disagreed with Scott she always did it in private, she never undermined him in front of anyone. This is actually the right behaviour for a 2nd in Command, you support your Captain in the field or on the bridge, and you discuss your differences in private where no one overhears. Emma encouraged Scott to take proactive action and make bold moves. She never trusted Magneto, but she understood how he was an asset to Scott so she kept her doubts to her private discussions with Scott but otherwise backed his play when it came to Magneto. Emma had doubts about X-Force when she found out about, but she kept those doubts to her private discussions with Scott.
Emma seems like she is in the background, when in actual fact she is just a really good 1st Officer, who knows you never question the leader in public.
We are MUTANT..Krakoa, FOREVER!!! “Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité”
Why did they waste an X-day by giving it to Bunn?
Lord Ewing *Praise His name! Uplift Him in song!* Your divine works will be remembered and glorified in worship for all eternity. Amen!