Always the devil's advocate, Emma Frost is a woman not to be messed with. She is someone who is known to use her beauty to get what she wants from the world and the people around her. She had a life that was beaming with privilege (despite the fact that her family home was hard with her very intense family and the fact that she grew up under some tough conditions.)
She has played on both sides of the field. Emma Frost is a controversial figure as she has done a lot of good for the X-Men and a lot of bad; depending on her mood (and current outfit.) Despite this, many still consider her an ally, though a slightly wishy-washy one.
10 Best: Taught And Raised The Generation X Class
Emma was always destined to be a teacher. In Generation X, she gives up her mantle of being a supervillain for a little while and instead takes up Jubilee, Monet, and Paige under her wings to help them flourish as teenagers and superheroes.
This takes a depart from the usual cold Emma who’s often seen as a supervillain, she cares very deeply about her students and often tries to help them out. She can be a little mean, but it shines through how much she loved being a teacher.
9 Worst: Hid The Fact That Cyclops Died From The World
In Inhumans Vs X-Men, Emma Frost used Cyclops to echo the beliefs that she thought was right. Emma projected an image of Cyclops to use in her battles so that she could hide his death, and continue fighting the good fight. Everyone hated Scott, so this would make him a martyr in the eyes of the mutants.
It turns out that he had died much prior to events of Inhumans Vs X-Men and had died with M-Pox. She thought his death wasn’t honorable and wanted to make sure he was remembered in a positive way.
8 Best: Was Able To Help Out Baby Jean Grey
Emma and Jean have always been enemies since their creation they have clashed. Because they clashed they were never really able to get along, that is, until they were able to talk to each other outside of fighting over Scott.
Because they are coming from two very different times, Jean and Emma are finally able to have a heart to heart without anyone judging them. Once they were able to do that they began to get along, and Emma Frost was even able to help out Jean control her newfound telepathy and use it in a useful way.
7 Worst: Had A Psychic Affair With Cyclops
Scott and Emma have had a tumultuous relationship, much of this is due to the fact that she started their relationship with therapy sessions that could only be described as psychic intimacy.
While the morals of this are dubious enough, as she was preying on him as her patient and using what he told her to seduce him. Using intimacy in this way isn’t something Emma is ever against, but it does enter a weird territory by using Scott’s deepest desires against him. She does get defeated by Jean Grey for this one, though.
6 Best: Financially Supported Utopia
While there many rich mutants who have used their funds to help out mutantkind, Emma Frost used her funding directly to help fund Utopia. She wanted to carry the entirety of mutantdom on her shoulders and she succeeded in doing so.
Scott wouldn’t be grateful enough for her sacrifice here, as she liquidated all her assets just to make her ends meet, and help Scott have his dream of being able to lead the X-Men again.
5 Worst: Became A Phoenix Host Twice
The Phoneix is a lot like the Black King / Queen role in the Hellfire Club. Many X-Men go through a phase where they are able to wield the Phoenix, but it’s unusual for a host that isn’t Jean Grey to come back to a host more than once, however with Emma she was chosen twice. The first time, she used Cyclops to fuel the Phoenix’s power, and in the second time, she had it split between her and the Phoneix Five.
She only very briefly used the Phoenix, but both times she was consumed with it and her lust for its power, if she had kept it longer, she could’ve gone Dark Phoneix
4 Best: Helped Her Brother Come To Term With His Demons
In Iceman, Emma takes up the help of Bobby Drake to help her brother out. It turns out that after leaving the psych ward, which Emma blames herself for, Christian had gone back to her family estate and was being kept captive by his brother.
However, what it turned out to be, was that Christian was mentally projecting his father after he killed him. She manages to go into Christian’s mind and was able to plant some hope inside of him, that would allow him to finally heal and flourish.
3 Worst: Killed Her Own Sister
Although this is somewhat justified in the fact that Emma’s sister had killed her students at Massachusetts Institute, Emma still had the guts to kill her own sister. Adrienne had always antagonized her sister, all her siblings actually, so it isn’t a surprise that Emma finally drew the line in the sand and killed her for revenge.
This action, though liberating for Emma, caused her students to lose trust in her. This really harmed her relationship with them in the worst way, because of this violent action. It had really shaken her Generation X team.
2 Best: Took Down Sebastian Shaw
In Leah Willams’ X-Men Black Emma Frost, Emma takes back her crown as the Black King of the hellfire club. She convinces the X-Men to work with her again for a small project after she had betrayed them a few series prior.
While the X-Men did her bidding, Emma goes after Sebastian Shaw. She outsmarts his security and even collaborates with an insider to make sure he is thrown out as the Black King. Sebastian gets paralyzed after he beats her bloody, and she reveals she was working with his maid.
1 Worst: Kidnapped The X-Men
In her first appearance in The Dark Phoenix Saga, Emma Frost is shown to be the evil villain of that arc alongside Mastermind and Sebastian Shaw. In this she has her goons kidnap the X-Men so that Mastermind can lure in Jean Grey and make her his black queen.
To be fair to Emma, she has done this multiple times, but this is the first time she does it. She also does end up getting into a telepathic fight with Jean Grey which ends up with her losing, and Jean and Kitty being able to save the X-men.