A cold-hearted, ruthless psychic, the mantle of White Queen has long been synonymous with Emma Frost of the X-Men. However, a far more callous and dreadful woman also bears the title: Emma’s sister, Adrienne.

Adrienne Frost first appeared in Generation X #48 by Jay Faerber, Terry Dodson and Rachel Dodson. In this story, Adrienne laid out a scheme designed to extract as much hurt from her sister as humanly possible, and she achieved that mission by bringing a generation of X-Men to an end.

In their youth, Adrienne’s sociopathic ruthlessness lead her to conspire to the deportation of her brother’s boyfriend; a deeply upsetting experience that would push Christian Frost towards attempted suicide. Influenced by jealousy and pettiness over his derailing her modeling career), Adrienne was at the mercy of a greater, older game: sibling rivalry.

The Frosts fought amongst themselves to claim the favor of their father and the legacy of the house. Ultimately, Emma, not Adrienne, would inherit Frost Enterprises, setting aside the conflict to cast out on her own.

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Many years later, Emma Frost had established herself as both the White Queen of the Hellfire Club and the headmistress of the Massachusetts Academy. After suffering the tragic loss of her first class of students, the original Hellions, Frost joined with Professor Xavier to take on a new class of students, those mutants who would come to be known as Generation X.

After Frost Enterprises took an unexpected hit at the stock market, the school found itself under financial duress and in dire need of a bailout. Against the wall, Emma looked for help in Meridian Enterprises and their CEO; Adrienne Frost.

Whilst initially scoffing at the request, a touch of Emma’s purse would spur Adrienne’s own psychometric powers to kick in. A mutant with the ability to ‘read’ the psychic history of objects, Adrienne was able to learn the truth of Emma’s students and her scheming began in earnest. She seemingly has a change of the heart, accepting to render financial support to the academy on one condition: Adrienne would be installed as the Massachusetts Academy’s new co-headmistress.

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The new headmistress would then use her power to open the school up to human students alongside the mutant. While the shared education of both mutant and human was a long term goal of Professor Xavier, this proves to be far from an idyllic union, and one the Academy is inadequately prepared for. Even as tensions between the new arrivals and incumbent class reach a boiling point, Generation X would have to keep their emotions in check and their powers secret.

Declaring herself the new White Queen, Adrienne grows obsessed with making Emma relive her greatest failure: the death of her first class of students. While she is unsuccessful in making Generation X psychically relive the day the Hellions died, her true endgame delivered far more damaging results. Reaping the seeds sown by the invitation of humans to the academy, Adrienne reveals the true nature of the school. When the human parents arrive, a riot ensues and bombs are activated throughout.

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As Generation X rushes to defuse the bombs in time they have to contend with the rioting of hateful humans. Synch dies trying to save the very people who wanted him dead. This day would rupture the team permanently. With the death of Synch and the destruction of their school, Generation X would find themselves at childhood’s end.

In this rivalry for sibling dominance, the sisters’ conflict was the same as the one of their youth, taken to its deadly extremes. Since they were immune to each other’s psychic gifts, the siblings had to resort to more conventional ways to bear violence on each other. Adrienne used riots and bombs, so Emma repaid her by the bullet.

Whatever remorse she felt over killing her sister was fleeting in the face of the damage Adrienne had wrought, and Emma felt that her only regret was not killing her sooner. She has never felt that deep personal hatred before or since, making Adrienne perhaps Emma Frost’s most terrifying enemy; even in death.

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