Emma Frost

Hey, this figure is two years early! The former Hellfire Club White Queen must grapple with her teammates' misgivings about her joining the X-Men, as well as her own. Killmonger may be wearing your granddad's Vegeta's clothes, but Emma Frost gets Vegeta's story: former villain who hangs around with the heroes, maybe even lives with/sleeps with some of them, but has changed nothing at all about themselves or even their personality, is still a massive jerk to everyone, and displays no remorse for their time as a villain, but the good guys all accept them with basically no hesitation. Now all we need is for Emma Jr. to become a time-travelling hero from the future and we'll be set! We can tell Emma goes along with this series' Cyclops, because she's also wearing her Astonishing X-Men costume. Which is at least minorly disappointing, because Hasbro's already done this costume twice. Never as good as this, but still: twice. Considering some of the other figures in this series, this would have been a prime opportunity to do "Generation X" Emma, when she was wearing almost normal clothes and a jacket; that look is pretty cool, but hasn't been done in plastic since 1996. On the plus side, this Emma gets a new sculpt. And wow, have we come a long way since that 2007 figure! Emma is wearing the high-heeled shoes that disappear up into her pants at the ankle, the X-logo belt, the opera gloves, and the bustier with cape built right in. While previous attempts at this have made the cape a separate accessory, meaning it didn't always line up the way it should, this time it's permanently glued into the figure's chest. The arms are plain enough that they could be reused, but the rest is definitely all an Emma Frost original. The head is great. The last few Emma heads we've gotten have been really nice, and this one keeps the trend alive. She still looks utterly haughty, as she should, but this one gets long, flowing hair that falls down to the top of her cape. She's wearing ice blue lipstick, as was the style at the time, and her hair is closer to actual blonde than "yellow." Molded capes never play well with articulation, and Emma's wraps around her arms right below the shoulder - what, do you suppose, are the odds that her arms can move very well at all? Oh, she may have the usual swivel/​hinges up there, but do you think the toy can adequately utilize them? Spoiler: it cannot. The elbows work fine, the wrists work fine, but the arms? Only way to raise them is to unplug the cape from her back and slide it up, and even then you're not going to get much more than you already were. Other than that, she's got a barbell head, balljointed chest and hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, and swivel/hinge ankles. If this were based on Emma the way John Cassady originally drew her, she'd actually have boots and could have had shin-swivels to go with them, but this is more like the variant cover for AXM #21. We get swappable hands for her, fists or gesturing, but no other accessories or pack-ins other than the right leg of Build-A-Figure Ch'od. This is Hasbro's third attempt at making this version of Emma Frost, and it's their best yet. But we're selfish enough to wish they'd just gotten it right the first time, so we could be getting something new today. -- 07/04/23

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