Samara Weaving told everyone not to read into the photo of her reading Emma Frost comics in a bikini.
Fine. Fans read the comics instead.
Redditors went through the stack overnight and cataloged the books down to individual issue numbers, and it turns out Weaving wasn’t just holding a few random Emma Frost comics.
She’s got material covering nearly every major version of the character. And what the pile is weighted toward is the interesting part.
Here’s What’s Actually In The Stack
On the left, per the r/xmen catalog, are at least nine issues of Emma’s 2003 solo series: #2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 15, 17, and 18, with more buried underneath.
That’s most of the 18-issue run.
On the right is the Astonishing X-Men Modern Era Epic Collection: Unstoppable, collecting the back half of Joss Whedon and John Cassaday’s run, along with the Hellfire Galas collection from the Krakoa era.
In her hands is Emma Frost: The White Queen #3, the Nimit Malavia variant from last year’s Hellfire Club miniseries.
And that Fantastic Four artwork visible on the other side? It’s the back cover, not another clue.
Most Of The Stack Is Emma Frost’s Origin
The biggest chunk of the pile is the Greg Horn-covered 2003 Emma Frost solo series by Karl Bollers.
That’s the book that gave Emma her childhood: the old-money Frost family in Boston, her abusive father, siblings who resent her, and telepathy first emerging as something closer to a curse before Emma learns how to turn it into a weapon.
Emma is the protagonist here. She isn’t the White Queen yet. She isn’t an X-Man. She’s a young woman figuring out who she is while growing up in a family that treats her like an asset.
Weaving is 34, so Marvel obviously isn’t casting her to play teenage Emma.
But if you’re an actress trying to understand why Emma talks the way she talks, wants what she wants, and built the armor she carries into adulthood, this is exactly where you would start.
She Picked The Emma-Heavy Half Of Astonishing X-Men
The Astonishing X-Men book is another interesting choice.
It’s not Gifted, the first half of Whedon and Cassaday’s run. It’s Unstoppable, which collects issues #13 through #24 and the Giant-Size finale.
That includes “Torn,” one of the most Emma-heavy stretches of the run.
Her increasingly erratic behavior sends the X-Men into a spiral, a new Hellfire Club makes its move, and Emma’s guilt over her past is weaponized against the team she now helps lead. The book then moves into Breakworld and Kitty Pryde’s sacrifice.
This is Emma as co-headmistress of Xavier’s school, Cyclops’s partner, and a full-fledged X-Man whose Hellfire Club history still has teeth.
Of all the Astonishing material Weaving could be reading, she has the volume where Emma’s past and present collide.
Then There’s Emma At The Top: The Hellfire Galas
The Hellfire Galas collection gives Weaving another completely different Emma.
By the Krakoa era, Emma has a seat on the Quiet Council, serves as the White Queen of the Hellfire Trading Company, and hosts the annual Gala where mutantkind puts its power on display for the world.
The 2023 Gala is also where everything falls apart, with Orchis attacking the event and launching the Fall of X.
Emma survives as one of the few mutants left standing.
The One Straight-Up Villain Book Is The Newest One
The comic Weaving is actually holding is the newest book in the stack.
Emma Frost: The White Queen is a five-issue miniseries by Amy Chu and Andrea Di Vito that ran from June to October 2025.
It’s set entirely during Emma’s Hellfire Club days, before the diamond form and before her eventual turn toward the X-Men.
Chu pitched it as a globe-trotting thriller, with the White Queen hunting a mole inside the Hellfire Club who is leaking secrets to the X-Men.
She called it “BAD Emma Frost.”
Of everything visible on Weaving’s deck, this is the one book built entirely around Emma as the antagonist.
And She Went Straight Back To Emma’s First Appearance
Then there’s the image Weaving posted on D23 night.
It shows Emma in the full white cape ordering unconscious X-Men loaded onto a hovercraft.
That’s from Emma’s debut in Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s Uncanny X-Men #129 through #131 in 1980, the same storyline that introduced the Hellfire Club and Kitty Pryde.
And it’s worth remembering who Emma fights.
She captures Storm, Colossus, and Wolverine, followed by Jean Grey. Phoenix then destroys Emma in a psychic battle so completely that she’s left for dead.
Emma Frost’s first major fight in the comics is against Jean Grey.
Marvel just cast Sadie Sink as Jean.
So Which Emma Frost Is Marvel Building?
Look at the stack as a whole and it doesn’t point to one version of Emma.
It covers the young woman before the Hellfire Club, the White Queen villain, the X-Man and co-leader, and eventually one of mutantkind’s most powerful political figures.
Three of the four major books visible put Emma in the role of protagonist, co-leader, or head of state. One focuses entirely on the villain years, along with the classic villain-era panel Weaving posted for fans.
That doesn’t mean Marvel won’t introduce her as the White Queen.
Her casting profile pointed to a Hellfire Club entry point, Sebastian Shaw remains uncast, Wagner Moura was rumored for him in the spring, and Feige said at D23 that more names are coming.
The White Queen could absolutely be where Marvel starts Emma.
But Weaving’s reading list goes well beyond that version of the character.
The Scott and Jean material is sitting there too. Grant Morrison’s New X-Men put Emma inside Xavier’s school and into a psychic affair with Cyclops that Jean walked in on, while Astonishing X-Men turned Scott and Emma into the backbone of the team.
Both Kit Connor and Sink are cast young. Weaving is not, giving Marvel plenty of room to develop that dynamic later if that’s where Jake Schreier’s version eventually goes.
For now, the biggest takeaway is simpler: Weaving isn’t reading one Emma Frost story. She’s studying the character from the beginning through several completely different stages of her life.
Jake Schreier directs, cameras roll next year, and X-Men opens May 5, 2028. Watch the full D23 reveal here, see how Weaving landed the role in the first place, and catch her going viral opposite Cara Delevingne in the “Crazy, Baby” music video. Release date, full cast, villain, and every rumor are tracked in our X-Men guide.
