Ice Cold Murder in Devil's Reign: X-Men #2 and 3

Emma Frost is framed for murder in Devil’s Reign: X-Men #2-3 written by Gerry Duggan, drawn by Phil Noto and lettered by Cory Petit.

Christi Eddleman: Hey… sweetheart? This says issue three? Wasn’t the last issue we discussed issue one? Did we deliberately skip covering issue two because there wasn’t enough substance and/or we were too busy? That doesn’t sound like us, does it?

Chris Eddleman: Well, regardless, we’ll have plenty to talk about as we tackle the back two thirds of this tie-in, which we foolishly believed to be about Lourdes Chantel, but is instead about our favorite lady in white, Kingpin’s angel on his shoulder, the eminent Emma Frost. Noto and Duggan bring us what I consider to at least be the platonic ideal of what I want from a crossover, structure wise. Let’s dig into the details, dear.

A Tale of Two Witches

Christi: The devil is in the details and boy did I misinterpret the details of the ending of issue one. As did Fisk, apparently. With Emma Frost accused of the murder I thought we saw last issue, we get a series of flashbacks to many of Emma’s misdeeds while working for Fisk: impersonating Sue Storm, getting secrets from Tony Stark, manipulating Jennifer Walters in the courtroom, and influencing an indisposed Nic Fury. While I was certain that Elektra murdered the young witness, an flashback to an exchange between our bad and good witches shows the girl was very much safe. The only two pages of nine panel grids in the whole issue are used during this exchange, coupled with a rather muted color palette accented by Elektra’s red costume. This seemed to set it apart from the rest of the issue. What do you make of these Noto’s choices here, darling?

Chris: Well, the Hellfire Club in general (Red Queen notwithstanding) tend to dress more in blacks and whites (and not think in those terms), so this felt pretty appropriate to me. Elektra’s costume in these issues contrasted with Emma’s calls to mind that she is the wetwork woman while Emma is more, on the surface, dealing in gentle terms. As for the grids, I feel like a lot of artists tend to like to switch to grids during face-to-face conversations, so I’m not too shocked there.

I want to talk about our shades of grey here. Emma clearly has very little qualms in doing her work for Fisk, whereas Elektra feels a bit more to me like she has a bit of guilt involved, or at least some amount of moral code. That’s not always the case with her character to me but, we’re dealing with this issue. Anyway, Elektra accuses Emma of not fully understanding what she more “benign” actions do, whereas her own (bloody murder) are at least more humane in the long run. This continues during the later rescue. How does killing compare to ruining someone’s entire life here, dear?

Christi: I feel like we should ask the dead what they think about that question. Both Elektra and Emma have their own moral codes of a sort, even if neither is a girl scout. I feel like nitpicking when you’re working for Kingpin is really a pot calling the kettle black.

While Emma and Elektra attempt to beat Kingpin’s men to the punch, Emma recruits an unlikely ally in their fight, Spider-Man. Peter Parker, outfitted in his 80s black costume, is pulled in to assist and this gives us the most stand-out page of the issue, a series of vignettes of Peter’s origin story. As Emma reads Peter’s mind in an effort to understand how to best manipulate him, she sees and is moved by his childhood tragedies. Emma having a soft spot for Peter Parker was not something I anticipated from this issue. How did this work for you, honey?

Chris: So, I think a couple of things we need to keep in mind about Emma that are heavily reinforced in this miniseries are that she is a very capable cloak-and-dagger operator and also that she has a big soft spot for kids. Not only does she save young Isabelle (a kid in foster care who already seems to have terrible foster parents) but she also sets her up across the pond and even promises a pony! She also clearly tries to keep Isabelle calm (mostly effectively) as they fly the coop. And her mindscan of Spider-Man reinforces this side of Emma, as someone who feels bad for Peter due to his rather difficult adolescence. This also has the side effect of Emma KNOWING HIS IDENTITY and seemingly never revealing it. What a small but interesting retcon.

Anyway, Emma basically gets away with it, except a photo is taken of her getting Isabelle into a limo after their retreat. This is set up earlier in a quote where anyone after Emma needs to do things from far, far away. I expected a sniper but, a photographer makes for a better story anyway. Is this a good Emma story Christi, or just kind of more that we already know?

Christi: In defining what makes a good Emma story, we really need to pin down how we define good. If the character is behaving and playing to type with no major deviations from what we expect, the character is written well. Emma is written well here. No surprises, given Duggan has spent a decent portion of time writing her. Now is the story itself particularly high stakes or is the art exceptionally dynamic? Not necessarily. But in terms of being a good Emma story, this is a capsulized essence of who Emma is today in comics. In that it succeeds.

What’s All This Then

Chris: So our Emma at the end of the second issue flies off to the UK to find Isabelle, where she is immediately taken into UK government custody courtesy of Union Jack. The UK and Krakoa are not…pals at this moment so there’s also the extra bit of that heaped on. I like seeing another psychic sequence wherein Emma escapes/incapacitates a bunch of goons. Also, the fact that conspiracy theories about psychic dampeners plays a part is interesting to me as well. Duggan seems to be pretty fond of these scenes, and I think this one is pretty enjoyable! It kind of pushes her good witch narrative a little bit, even if I don’t always gel with Noto’s action sequences. This takes up a chunk of the comic, Christi darling. Is it worth the space?

Christi: The rule of cool, love. Emma being cool is always worth the space. Conspiracy theories showing up amongst the unnamed badies in a Duggan comic is absolutely what I’d expect. I also enjoyed seeing Emma’s compassion for the police dogs play out here. Animals and children are pretty soft spots for the White Queen. Although what perhaps works least for me is Emma’s outfit. We’ve seen Emma disguise herself in a myriad of ways, and while it’s a fun bit to see her cosplaying Captain Kate, it seems unlikely she’d raid her closet for this.

It doesn’t take Emma long to locate Isabelle as she’s all grown up and waiting for Emma at London’s Hellfire Club, looking very much like a superhero herself. What did you think of this reunion, love?

Chris: It was nice to get a little bit of character for Isabelle, who otherwise wasn’t really given much prior to this. She’s still kind of flat as a character but, this is pretty clearly an Emma story. We find out that her other “mom” Elektra, visited her to teach her how to take care of herself. Emma seems to have felt that a life of safety would be best for Isabelle but, I like that Elektra seems to take the Kingpin a little bit more seriously to provide Isabelle with a base of combat to take care of herself. The two make their escape through a combo of combat and psychic takeovers (Noto does a fun exterior shot that lets the mind wander a bit). So all’s well that end’s well mostly, but Emma still has someone else to visit for a little bit of payback to Kingpin in two parts.

Christi: Firstly, this is my formal request that no person ever write dialogue where a person, especially a traditionally attractive woman, feels ashamed about eating unless it’s specifically addressing someone’s relationship with food. While it’s meant as a humorous remark, it’s ultimately harmful and unnecessary. If Emma wanted to eat a bagel without someone knowing, she wouldn’t have to make a self-deprecating comment about it anyway.

Bagel aside, Emma’s meeting with her attorney’s goes well as Emma decides to handle legal problems in her favorite way – throwing money at them. In what is a delightful wrap up to this mini, Emma confronts Fisk by mind controlling his wife to hold a knife to his throat. It’s a display of power and a threat. Emma could be any person that Fisk meets at any time, and her final question to him will be if crossing her was worth it.

This tie-in mini series was a nice stand alone that really does not require one to read the main title. Noto captures Emma’s subtle yet fierce expressions well and Duggan delivers a love note to the character of Emma Frost. While it marks a shift in Emma’s relationship with Fisk (and confirms that Emma is pro-pony), there’s nothing that makes this essential reading.

Chris: Yeah, I think it this was a little bit of fun, but luckily tie-ins don’t usually claim to be much more. I think we’ll see more Kingpin/Emma stuff in the future, so I’m happy that we have some setup there but, even if not I’ll never say no to a nice little Emma Frost story.