I truly appreciate y'all being here and offering your support! You could be buying yourself so many coffees instead of me, so your generosity is met with deep gratitude. Thanks for continuing my 32oz French Press habit whilst creating and commentating ;-)
But here's what I want to talk to you about: casting Samara Weaving as Emma Frost.
Now this is an interesting choice! And by that I mean having one of your 1st announced X-Men be Frost. I think the choice of Weaving is top-notch. I've loved her ever since seeing her in The Babysitter, and her range truly knows no bounds. Have you seen Guns Akimbo?! She's a maniac. I love her.
But I would argue that this telepathic mutant isn't necessarily who 1st jumps to mind when it comes to forming your X-men, for you casual movie goer to your die hard comic fan alike. I think most folks were anticipating Cyclops, Rogue, or Storm being named first. Its an interesting "first draft pick," if you will.
Emma debuted as The White Queen in the late 1970s in the very first appearance of the Hellfire Club. Frost, like Magneto, has a complicated relationship with the X-Men. Sometimes an adversary, sometimes an ally, sometimes headmistress of Xavier's school for gifted youngsters, so it'll be interesting to see how she's utilized in this new iteration of the mutants in movies...
If you haven't seen BND yet, we're going to get into spoiler territory...
... Especially since we've established we've got a strong telepathic/telekinetic in the mix. Of course, there are TONS of mutants with Psychic abilities in the comics (Charles, Psylocke, Kid Omega, X-Man, etc) but will your average movie-goer feel like this is a sort of psychic too many cooks, or will we get some really epic psychic battles? The later is my hope. Give me some Madelyn Pryor vs Jean X-Men 97 style stuff!
Another thing to consider: Emma Frost makes things MESSY.
I've said it before, the X-Men are all hooking up with one another on the reg, but Frost really complicates things with Scott Summers (not "I had a baby with your clone,” complicated, but still complicated). In Grant Morrison's New X-Men run, Scott and Emma have a psychic affair that eventually turns physical. Weaving and our new Jean Grey Sadie Sink have a ten year age gap between them. Now it isn't completely crazy for whoever our Scott Summers is to be in a relationship with a 24 year old and a 34 year old, but it definitely could shape how those relationship pairings play out. Especially if we get into Scott and Emma having an open relationship, or the Jean-Scott-Logan Polycule that happens later with their adjoining homes (YUP, that's a thing).
If you've followed me for awhile, you know I'm not a huge fan of Jean. She's constantly getting possessed by the Phoenix force, doing f'd up stuff, and/or dying. She and Scott got together as gifted youngsters, and I personally think their relationship can't handle all the trails, tribulations and trauma they share. Emma always seemed like a better fit for Scott in my opinion. They both know they’re screwed up, and Emma accepts Scott for all those flaws and demons. I know I'm in the minority on this one, so I'd love for people to weigh in on which pairings make the most sense to them.
I would genuinely love if we have more of a psychic mentor mentee relationship build with Emma and Jean. The Jean we've just met has done a LOT of morally grey things and is in a redemption journey where she’s going to need to choose to do better in spite of what’s happened to her and her sister, and while Charles definitely manipulates his students just as much as he helps them grown and learn, it could be fun to see what happens if Emma takes Jean under her wing and teaches her HER ways of using their power, rather than pitting the two against each other as romantic rivals.
Would love to hear your thoughts!