Marvel’s X-Men Revives Jean Grey and Emma Frost Rivalry

The world of the X-Men has changed. As of Dawn of X, mutants live on the island nation of Krakoa and death is almost irrelevant thanks to the combined powers of The Five. This new era has brought back together characters whose relationships had been fractured. These include Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, and Emma Frost. In the case of those first three, the classic mutant love triangle, Marvel has all but explicitly stated that they’re in a three-way relationship, with Cyclops and Wolverine each having bedrooms with doors that open into Jean’s room in the Summer House in the Krakoan habitat in the Blue Area of the moon.

But Emma Frost was with Cyclops during the time that Jean Grey was dead, and her relationship with the other has been vaguer. Today’s X-Men #3 revives her old rivalry with Jean. SPOILERS for X-Men #3 by Jonathan Hickman, Leinil Francis Yu, Gerry Alanguilan, and Sunny Gho follow.

Longtime X-Men fans may remember that Cyclops had begun a psychic affair with Emma not long before Jean, his wife, died. Cyclops and Emma continued their romantic relationship after Jean’s death. Then Cyclops died. Jean later returned from the dead, but Cyclops was still dead at the time.

Now everyone is alive again and living in Krakoa. Jean and Emma both serve on Krakoa’s Quiet Council, but they’ve had little interaction besides sharing drinks at the celebratory party that kicked off the Dawn of X. In X-Men #3, they have a verbal skirmish that seems rooted in their history with each and with Cyclops:

It ends civilly, and the tension may be a symptom of Krakoa psychically screaming at al the mentally-gifted mutants on the islands due to being hacked by some new X-Men villains. This could also be setting the stage for the upcoming Giant-Size X-Men: Jean Grey and Emma Frost one-shot, written by Hickman and drawn by Russell Dauterman.

What do you think of this interaction between Jean and Emma? Let us know in the comments. X-Men #3 is on sale now.

X-Men #3
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(W) Jonathan Hickman (A/CA) Leinil Francis Yu

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Rated T+
In Shops: Dec 04, 2019
SRP: $3.99