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Emma Frost, The White Queen:
Super-powers as the performance of gender
Abstract
Richard Reynolds
Emma Frost has been a key character and enigma within the Marvel Universe since
her first appearance in 1979. Initially a ruthless and hypersexualized operative for
the nefarious Hellfire Club, Frost has been transformed into a leading member of
the X-Men. Her potent telepathic powers have been augmented by the ability to
transform her body into invulnerable crystal. She has replaced Jean Grey (aka
Phoenix) in the affections of X-Men leader Scott (Cyclops) Summers. Frost has
many facets: mutant, telepath, strategist, warrior, Machiavellian plotter, femme
fatale, lover, loyal friend.
Frost engages with the world on her own terms, bypassing many of the stereotypes
which have attached themselves to super-heroines over the decades. Her abrasive
and sometimes outright bitchy personality functions as a dark mirror for other
characters in the saga, inscribing emotions and attitudes that implicitly question the
values of the X-Men and the genre to which they belong. The long-term evolution
of Frost’s character and her relationships with other figures in the Marvel Universe
are key examples of transformative inter-textual character development, embracing
the work of numerous writers, artists and editors. Frost exemplifies what Judith
Butler has termed the ‘agreement to perform, produce, and sustain… genders as
cultural fictions’, and the over-determination of both Frost’s gender and sexuality
are repeatedly and tellingly portrayed as an explicit aspect of her superpowers.
The character of Emma Frost appears in key X-Men stories written by Joss
Whedon, Matt Fraction, Brian Michal Bendis – and others. She has also appeared
in television shows and movies. But this paper focuses on her original appearances
as a villain (in the 1979-80 Uncanny X-Men story-arc written by Chris Claremont
and pencilled by John Byrne), her youth and back-story (as told in Karl Bollers’
2003-4 mini-series Emma Frost), and her decision to join the X-Men and the
establishment of her relationship with Scott Summers, as detailed in Grant
Morrison’s 2001-5 stint as writer on New X-Men.
Key Words: Emma Frost White Queen X-Men gender performance post-modern
post-feminist transformation body becoming.

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The 1970s saw the emergence of a number of super-heroines who were clearly
created in response to the development of the feminist movement in the previous
decade. Established super-heroines were also fundamentally re-vamped in order to
appear more in tune with the changing social climate. The writer most active in this
process at Marvel was Chris Claremont, who invented Ms Marvel and Storm, and
re-invented Jean Grey (aka Marvel Girl) as the Phoenix. 1 At DC, Wonder Woman
had always been a heroine who fought at close quarters, and whose superpowers
included sheer physical strength. Supergirl and Power Girl are characters created in
a similar tradition. 2 But until Ms Marvel's appearance in 1976, Marvel's superheroines
were equipped with either what are sometimes called ‘stand and point"
powers (such as The Scarlet Witch, or the original Marvel Girl) or with powers that
required them to disappear from the action in order to be used (The Invisible
Woman, The Wasp). 3 Claremont’s ambitions also included changing the way that
female super-villains were portrayed, and his introduction of Emma Frost (aka The
White Queen) into the X-Men should be seen in this wider context.
Emma’s Frost’s first appearance was in Uncanny X-Men 129, cover-dated January
1980. The issue was written by Chris Claremont and pencilled by John Byrne,
during their stellar run together on the title. 4 Issue 129 marks the beginning of a
six-part story arc which narrates the X-Men’s first encounter with the Hellfire
Club, a group of super-powered individuals in pursuit of global power from behind
the cover of their eponymous and exclusive New York gentlemen’s club. The
Hellfire Club narrative is itself part of a longer, nine-part story which culminates in
the release of the Dark Phoenix from within the psyche of Jean Grey (aka Marvel
Girl). 5 The overwhelming power of the Phoenix, first manifest within Grey in an
earlier X-Men story, 6 causes her to undergo extreme personality changes. Into this
storyline – arguably an example of the tendency to problematize the super-heroine
who possesses too much power – is adduced Emma Frost, seemingly an example
of a woman already completely corrupted by the superpowers she deploys.
Frost is introduced to us as the Hellfire Club’s White Queen: their plan is that Jean
Grey will subsequently replace her and become their Black Queen. 7 Frost is also
Chair of the Trustees of the Massachusetts Academy, an educational institution in
competition with Professor Xavier’s Westchester Academy for Gifted Youngsters.
Both schools are in the business of recruiting and training young mutants. X-Men
129 sees the two academies competing head-to-head for another key character
making her debut: 13-year-old Kitty Pryde.
Despite being published during the crepuscular days of the Comics Code, 8 the
Hellfire Club storyline is deeply concerned with the sexuality of its characters. The

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sex motif is ubiquitous. Wolverine comes close to murdering a drug store
proprietor who asks him to pay for a copy of Penthouse he is exploring. Scott
Summers and Jean Gray engage in passionate lovemaking in issue 132: ‘…no
questions now, my love, no words. This is our moment. Let’s not waste it.’ Former
X-Man Warren (Angel) Worthington provokes jealousy from his partner Candy
Southern by kissing Jean a little to passionately at their reunion in issue 132. And
even 13-year-old Kitty Pryde is checking out Colossus’s impressive physique (‘that
guy pushing the wheelchair is so huge… kinda neat-looking too’). 9
Into this environment is inserted the hyper-sexualized White Queen. We first
glimpse her at a board meeting of the Hellfire Club, 10 at which Jason (aka
Mastermind) Wyngarde and Sebastian Shaw – rivals for control of the club – are
plotting the capture of emerging mutants and the simultaneous elimination or
capture of the X-Men. The board meeting is conducted in a dark, mysterious space,
with Wyngarde and Shaw depicted in profile, in shadow, or at long range – every
panel emphasizing the threat which they represent. On the final panel of page 14,
the White Queen is clearly depicted for the first time - in a frontal, three-quarter
length pose. 11 Emma Frost stands out from her surroundings as if spot-lit from
above, her body sculpted by Byrne’s use of chiaroscuro. Her white cloak, basque,
thigh-boots and sharply-bobbed blonde hair combine the super-heroine’s skin-tight
fighting costume with well-established fetish signifiers. Emma’s slender waist and
powerful, muscled thighs also present an idealized Dominatrix physique. We don’t
– as yet – know anything about this new character’s super-powers. But those with
eyes to see can tell that the White Queen’s power resides – at least partly – in her
sexuality.
Kitty Pryde, however, is immune to the White Queen’s seduction when Frost (now
clad in a slit-skirted business suit) visits the Pryde’s family home in Chicago, to
recruit Kitty for the Massachusetts Academy. Kitty reflects: ‘Where’d they dredge
up that “Ms Frost” anyway? She looked at me like I was something good to eat.
>Ick< She gives me the creeps.’ 12 As the plot develops, Colossus, Storm and
Wolverine are captured by the White Queen. Storm is shackled to a high-tech St
Andrews cross (that staple of the BDSM world), while Colossus and Wolverine are
suspended in cages. 13 Frost clearly relishes her power over the captured X-Men,
taking particular delight in torturing (or ‘psychically probing’) the helpless Storm
with bolts of electrical energy:

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WHITE QUEEN
I don’t want to hurt you, my dear. I want us to be… friends
STORM
Haiearrrgh!! 14
The prisoners are liberated by the intervention of Kitty Pryde, future member of the
team. In a re-match with the X-Men, the White Queen and her henchmen are
utterly defeated. Frost engages in a psychic duel with Jean Grey, which provokes
the only moment of heroism she displays during this story arc. Almost at the point
of destruction from the fiery onslaught of the Phoenix, Frost thinks: ‘Only one
chance… must channel… all remaining power... into a telepathic psi-bolt…’. This
display, in extremis, of the ‘extra effort’ or ‘all or nothing’ strategy is characteristic
of superheroes at the crucial moment in any battle. But Frost’s heroic extra effort
in insufficient, and she appears to have been killed.
Reader responses in the letter column were frequently insightful about the
achievements of Claremont and Byrne. The treatment of gender was much praised,
and the X-Men emerged as the superhero comic of choice among the LGBT
community − and more widely, among those with almost any kind of nonmainstream
identity. Elizabeth Holden, writing from Ottawa in Canada, praises the
Jason Wyngarde/Hellfire Club/White Queen storyline in the following terms:
The sense of dangerous sexuality, Phoenix’s inability to
understand what is happening to her… makes this plot very
interesting indeed. …this seems to be the only Marvel comic that
is free of sexual stereotypes or bias. 15
Under the influence of villain Jason Wyngarde, who is able to project his optical
illusions directly into Jean Grey’s mind, this formerly rather conventional young
woman begins to explore her darker sexual fantasies, at the same time as she gains
almost limitless psychic superpowers. 16 Part of Emma Frost’s function in this story
arc is to introduce the notion of what Angela Carter termed the ‘Sadean Woman’ in
her eponymous book of 1979. 17 The literary model for Carter’s sexual aggressors
is Juliette, protagonist of De Sade’s eponymous novel, who employs sex ‘as an
instrument of terror… [and] lobs her sex at men and women as if it were a hand
grenade.’ 18 Frost’s fully-developed Sadistic instincts demarcate the emotional and
sexual territory which Jean may be destined to explore. Emma is the finished
article, the sexual terrorist that Jean may be on the way to becoming.
But despite having been created (and destroyed) in the service of this limited
function, Emma Frost swiftly took on a life of her own. She was a character which

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the Marvel Universe, during the slow death of the Comics Code, now had a place
for. Frost returned for the first time in X-Men 151. 19 Having in some unspecified
way survived her encounter with Phoenix, she remains intent on enrolling Kitty
Pryde into her Massachusetts Academy. Without Byrne’s artwork, Frost’s return
lacks the resonance of her first appearance, and the character continued as an
occasional guest villain, also appearing in the mini-series Firestar, with her
Hellions – the superhero team made up of students from Frost’s Massachusetts
Academy. 20
Eventually, in the 1994 Phalanx Covenant series and spin-off Generation X comicbook,
Frost completed her transition to heroine. 21 In Generation X, Marvel were
responding to the popularity of Image’s new wave of team titles (WILDC.A.T.S,
Stormwatch and so on). The elaborate X-Men mythology was ripe for development
as Image’s competition. Frost, as an ex-villain, represented the kind of ‘edgy’
protagonist on which Image’s popularity was in part perceived to be built. Emma,
fighting on the side of the angels, was now dressed in form-fitting green instead of
frosty white. But she remained a sexual terrorist, as this exchange with the lessthan-trusting
Sean (Banshee) Cassidy exemplifies. Frost has brought Cassidy (a
fellow reformed criminal) and other members of Generation X to her luxurious
apartment:
BANSHEE
Now tell us what ye hoped to accomplish by bringing us here.
That is, if’n ye are through with trying to impress us?
WHITE QUEEN
I have a whole list of things I can do to impress you, Mr
Cassidy… but there are children present. 22
Emma Frost may have undertaken her journey from the dark side, but she has
never completely lost her ‘bad girl’ personality. Her dominant attitude provides a
powerful counterpoint to the accumulated emotional baggage of ‘good girl’ superheroines,
who are so-often saddled with what Judith Butler describes as gender
melancholia, often manifested through ambivalent feelings towards their own
super-powers. 23 Significantly, Frost soon returned to her signature white costumes.
24
After Generation X disbanded 25 , Frost taught young mutants in the sanctuary of
Genosha. When the island was attacked by Sentinels, as depicted in Grant
Morrison’s New X-Men 114 26 (his debut story for the title), Frost survived the
ensuing destruction of 16 million mutants through the intervention of a secondary

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mutation: she acquires a coating of organic diamond. This mutation visually
expresses both Frost’s vanity and acquisitiveness (‘I do look rather spectacular in
the light, don’t I?’) 27 , and the hard, impermeable boundaries that she places
between her emotions and the outside world. It is her arch rival and antagonist,
Jean Grey, who asks the killer question of this new, jewel-encrusted Emma Frost:
JEAN
What makes you such a bitch, Emma?
EMMA
Breeding, darling. Top class breeding 28
Emma’s response is both deliberately provocative, and to the point. Millions of
mutants have been wiped out in the Sentinel attack on Genosha, yet still Frost
holds herself aloof from the other X-Men, questioning Charles Xavier’s policies of
peaceful co-existence with homo sapiens. Such independence from peer pressure
invites both hostility and curiosity. Emma Frost’s back-story had been sketched out
before, but in 2003-4 her school and college years were explored in an 18-part
mini-series, written by Karl Bollers (best-known for his work on Sonic the
Hedgehog) and illustrated by Randy Green and Carlo Paglayan. 29
As the offspring of an extremely wealthy Massachusetts family, we witness
Emma’s struggles to assert herself in the shark-tank environment of her WASP
home: domineering father, oppressed mother, narcissistic supermodel sister
Adrienne, attention-seeking Emo sister Cordelia, and closet-gay brother Christian.
All the family compete in their different ways for paternal attention and approval.
Emma’s additional challenge is her emergent mutant mindreading power, which
initially she has difficulty in controlling. Not yet a blonde bombshell, Emma adopts
and discards a series of different strategies in her relationships with authority
figures: at home, in school, at university, at work, and in the criminal underworld.
Boller explores how an individual programmed by their environment to be a
passive victim escapes their conditioning and acquires agency in their dealings
with the outside world. The story’s artwork capitalizes on the visual relationship
between Frost’s growing sense of her own personality and capabilities, and the
evolving way in which he learns to use her body as a beautiful weapon in her
dealings those who hold power. We see Emma evolve from mousy-haired schoolgirl
to blonde temptress in a series of dramatic leaps. None is more dramatic than
the first, when a spectacular white Gaultier ballgown launches a reinvented Emma
at her school prom. As brother and confidante Christian observes: ‘white is
definitely your color.’ 30

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Icy white is the colour of all Emma’s most empowering performances. Teenage
Emma creates herself through her steadily more self-empowering performance of
her gender and sex. She becomes what Camille Paglia has termed a ‘psychologist,
actor, and dancer, a performance artist of hyper-developed sexual
imagination….’ 31 As Butler observes: ‘…gender proves to be performative …
gender is always doing, though not a doing by a subject who might be said to preexist
the deed’. 32 Occasions for such performance are offered at every turn: at the
prom, at family parties, at a casino, and (most dramatically) when performing a
staged bondage video for her kidnappers, in an attempt to extort a $250,000
ransom payment from her father. 33 This is the crisis which provokes Emma into
using her telepathic abilities for the first time as a weapon, sowing distrust amongst
the gang of amateur kidnappers – who in consequence eliminate each-other and
facilitate Emma’s escape. Emma then collects the ransom money from the agreed
drop-point, which she uses to fund her own college education: the kidnappers’
payoff buys Emma’s freedom from parental control. Next time we see Frost, she
has transformed into a bleached blonde, and is completing her education at New
York’s Empire State University – Peter Parker’s alma mater. 34 At ESU Emma is
inducted into the complexities of both human-mutant and mutant-mutant relations.
When provoked, her powers are manifest in even stronger ways. 35 Frost’s
education, her emotions and superpowers come together at this point to form the
template of the future White Queen – and beyond.
Grant Morrison, Joss Whedon, Matt Fraction and Kieron Gillen 36 have all used
Emma Frost as a key member of the X-Men team, and as the instigator of plotlines
which expose the emotional vulnerabilities of their other characters. But the
development which has embedded Frost at the emotional core of the X-Men is her
relationship with Scott (Cyclops) Summers, team-leader and successor-elect to
Professor Xavier. Morrison has Emma engaging Scott in sessions of telepathic
therapy (‘as the X-Men’s only qualified sex therapist’), 37 during which their
relationship blossoms – at the expense of Scott’s deteriorating marriage to Jean
Grey. Morrison explicitly links Emma’s telepathic powers with her performance of
both gender and sex, drawing out a theme which had been implicit in Claremont’s
original villainess. In New X-Men 139, Jean Grey enters Frost’s mind and finds
Scott already in residence, and Emma dressed-up in Jean’s Phoenix costume:
JEAN
I knew I’d find my husband here in your head, Emma.

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SCOTT
It’s not real… it’s just thoughts…
EMMA
Well, you have to agree I look rather good in these old rags of
yours, dear. But I can think myself into something a little more
up-to-date if you like. 38
Psychically probed by Jean in the ensuing confrontation, Emma explains how she
established herself as Sebastian Shaw’s right-hand in their mutual takeover of the
Hellfire Club:
EMMA
…I became exactly what Sebastian wanted… the Ice Queen, the
dominatrix from hell… and I watched how he did business. I
learned how simple and predictable the desires of men can be. 39
But Emma is moved to confess to Wolverine just a few pages later:
EMMA
…why did I allow myself to become so stupid and so
vulnerable, Logan? Why did I have to fall in love with Scott
bloody Summers? 40
This dialogue captures Frost’s struggle to experience authentic relationships with
her fellow X-Men, a motif which the comic has repeatedly explored over the last
15 years. Frost’s career as a manipulator is an inescapable part of her
characterization. But what is the intention behind all of this manipulation, this
relentless and empowering performance of what others wish to see? What does
Emma Frost want? Frost has trapped herself between the roles of object and
subject, by her very effectiveness, surpassing all established norms and
establishing new superlatives in her performance of both her gender and sex.
Frost’s entire existence is a performance - and one which her superpowers make
infinitely more effective. But the parameters of her gender performance are
ultimately determined by established gender roles in society. To paraphrase
Foucault: there is no performance which can take place outside of society. Or, as
Susan Bordo puts it: ‘women may indeed contribute to the perpetuation of female
subordination… by embracing, taking pleasure in, and even feeling empowered by
the cultural objectification and sexualisation of the female body.’ 41 Frost’s
freedom, Bordo might argue, depends on others’ oppression, a lesson which
Emma herself learns in Boller’s origin story. This may be why the covers of each

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of the 18-parts of Emma Frost show Emma not as she appears at that stage of the
story, but as the ultimate product of her evolving performance: the White Queen,
the Dominatrix from Hell. Likewise, the diamond skin she gains in Morrison’s text
both protects her from harm, but simultaneously renders her as a supremely
valuable and desirable object.
Immediately after Frost’s confession of her love for Scott Summers, she becomes
the victim of a mysterious assassin, and for a time appears to have been destroyed.
Her diamond form is smashed into thousands of glittering fragments. In her
writings on gender performativity, Judith Butler asserts that it is meaningless to
separate the performer from the performance. 42 But the attack that shatters Frost’s
crystal form could be said to do precisely this. The ‘cultural fictions’ which Frost’s
performances draw on are no more than precious artefacts when separated from
their controlling intelligence. But both Morrison and all the other key chroniclers
of Emma Frost’s development are male, and thus perhaps ready to see gender
performance as something separable from personal identity. It would be both
fascinating and enlightening to see what women writers and artists might
accomplish with Emma Frost as their protagonist.
Notes
1
Chris Claremont’s first credit as writer on Ms Marvel is for issue #3, dated March
1977. The earliest scripts were written by Gerry Conway. Claremont proceeded to
introduce major changes in Ms Marvel’s characterization. Storm first appeared in
Giant-Size X-Men # 1, dated May 1975. This issue was plotted by Len Wein, but
Claremont began writing the series from the next issue, # 94, and Storm’s
development as a major character is regarded as his work. Jean Grey first
transforms into Phoenix in X-Men # 101, October 1976, also written by Claremont.
2
Supergirl first appeared as a definitive character in Action Comics #252 (May
1959). Power Girl first appeared in All Star Comics #58 (January/February 1976)
3
The Scarlet Witch first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #4 (March 1964). Jean Grey,
Marvel Girl first appeared in Uncanny X-Men #1 (September 1963). The Invisible
Woman first appeared in Fantastic Four # 1 (November 1961). The Wasp first
appeared in Tales to Astonish #44 (June 1963).
4
Claremont and Byrne commenced their run as written and artist on the All-New
All-Different X-Men with issue # 108 (December 1977) and continued to work
together on the title until issue # 143 (March 1981). From issue # 114 the title

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reverted to being Uncanny X-Men. Issue # 110 (April 1978), a fill-in story, was a
collaboration between Claremont, Dave Cockrum and guest artist Tony DeZuniga.
5
Or such was the story as published in Uncanny X-Men 135-137 (July-August
1980). There have been (unfortunately, some might say) a number of retrospective
changes made to this aspect of continuity.
6
X-Men # 101 (October 1976).
7
As has been frequently pointed out, the storyline of Uncanny X-Men 129-134 is
deeply influenced by an episode of the British Avengers TV series, ‘A Touch of
Brimstone’, first transmitted 19 February 1966. Emma Peel (played by Diana
Rigg) is transformed into the ‘Queen of Sin’ by a modern day Hellfire Club based
in London, an organization which (like its namesake in the X-Men) is seeking
political power through a combination of financial and political influence, and
terrorism.
8
The Code continued to appear on Marvel titles until 2001, and on DC titles until
2011, but by the 1980s the Code’s original strictures had been softened, and far
more sex, violence and moral ambiguity was permitted even in comics which
displayed the Code logo. Nevertheless, the BDSM-themed imagery of X-Men 129-
134 skates close to the edge of what was perceived to be acceptable under the Code
in 1980.
9
Uncanny X-Men 132 (April 1980).
10
Uncanny X-Men 129 (January 1980).
11
Frost is glimpsed in silhouette, two panels earlier.
12
Uncanny X-Men 129 (January 1980), p.15.
13
Uncanny X-Men 130-131.
14
Uncanny X-Men 131 (March 1980), p.11.
15
Uncanny X-Men 136 (August 1980), p. 31.
16
This process starts in issue # 125, well before the main Hellfire Club story arc
begins, in issue #129.
17
Carter, A (1979). The Sadean Woman. Virago Press, London.
18
Carter (1979), p. 105.
19
Uncanny X-Men 151 (November 1981).
20
Firestar # 1-4 (March-June 1986).
21
As told in Uncanny X-Men # 316-318 (September-November 1994) and X-Men
36-37 (September-October 1994).
22
Uncanny X-Men 317 (October 1994).
23
Gender melancholia is first discussed by Butler in Gender Trouble (1990).
24
In Generation X 6 (August 1995).
25
Generation X 75 (June 2001).
26
New X-Men 116 (January 2002).
27
New X-Men 116 (January 2002).

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28
New X-Men 116 (January 2002).
29
Emma Frost: Ultimate Collection (2003-2004).
30
Emma Frost: Ultimate Collection # 1 (2003)
31
Paglia, C. Vamps & Tramps: New Essays. London, Penguin. 1994, p.57.
32
Gender Trouble, p.25.
33
Emma Frost: Ultimate Collection # 10 (2004).
34
Emma Frost: Ultimate Collection # 10-13 (2004).
35
Emma Frost: Ultimate Collection # 18 (2004).
36
See Fraction, M (w), Land, Greg, Portacio, Whilce and others. Uncanny X-Men
500-534. New York: Marvel Comics, 2009-2011. Gillen, Kieron (w), Land, Greg
and others. Uncanny X-Men 531-544 and Uncanny X-Men v.2 1-20. New York:
Marvel Comics, 2009-2011. Morrison, Grant (w), Jimenez, Phil, Quitely, Frank
and others. New X-Men 114-154. New York: Marvel Comics, 2001-05. Whedon,
Joss (w), Cassaday, John and others. Astonishing X-Men 1- 124, Giant Size
Astonishing X-Men 1. New York: Marvel Comics, 2004-08.
37
New X-Men 131 (April 2003).
38
New X-Men 139 (December 2003).
39
New X-Men 139 (December 2003).
40
New X-Men 139 (December 2003).
41
Bordo, S. (1993). Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body.
University of California Press, Berkeley.
42
Butler, J.(1990). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New
York: Routledge, 1990.
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Bordo, Susan. Unbearable Weight: Feminism, Western Culture and the Body.
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Bollers. Karl (w), Green, Randy, Pagulayan, Carlo and others. Emma Frost:
Ultimate Collection. New York: Marvel Comics, 2003-04.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity. New

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York: Routledge, 1990.
Butler, Judith. Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of ‘Sex’. New York:
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Carter, Angela. The Sadean Woman: An Exercise in Cultural History. London:
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DeFalco, Tom (w) Wilshire, Mary and others. Firestar 1-4. New York: Marvel
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Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality: 3: Care of the Self. London, Penguin.
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Fraction, M (w), Land, Greg, Portacio, Whilce and others. Uncanny X-Men 500-
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Claremont, Chris (w), Byrne, John and others. Uncanny X-Men 129-134. New
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Lobdell, Scott (w), Madureira, Joe and others. Uncanny X-Men 316-18. New
York: Marvel Comics, 1994.
Lobdell, Scott (w), Kubert, Andy and others. X-Men 36-37. New York: Marvel
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Morrison, Grant (w), Jimenez, Phil, Quitely, Frank and others. New X-Men 114-
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Comics, 2001.

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Richard Reynolds teaches at Central Saint Martins in London. He is a writer,
lecturer, occasional broadcaster and ex-publisher. His best-known work on comics
is Superheroes: A Modern Mythology.