Frankly, I’m not sure I’ve ever cared as much about a fictional romance as I care about Scott/Emma. If I have, it’s been a long time. While I always enjoy fictional romances, generally, I don’t form this kind of attachment to them. I think because I usually attach myself more strongly to individual characters and end up caring about one character in the relationship more than the other(s). With Scott and Emma, I would be hard-pressed to choose a favorite. Gun to my head, I’d probably give the edge to Scott, but that’s mostly down to Emma’s canonical fake British accent (I have an extremely low tolerance for secondhand embarrassment). Add to my intense love of both characters the fact that their relationship is so beautiful and played such an enormous role in shaping them into the characters I fell in love with (I love pre-M-Day Scott, but I doubt I would love him nearly as much if he didn’t eventually become post-M-Day Scott), and I can’t help but be obsessed. What I intend to do here is break down and celebrate what I see as the key elements that make their relationship compelling, roughly in order of how important I personally find them.
- Healing
The way these characters heal from their past emotional abuse through and during their relationship is so gorgeous. Now, I do want to offer the caveat that their romantic entanglement is not the sole reason these characters develop the way they do; they have a lot more nuance than that, but the relationship is an essential element. Furthermore, there is a symbolic element here. Scott and Emma being together and supporting each other as they undergo these changes helps tie that character growth to the relationship in the reader’s mind, imbuing the relationship with a symbolic weight relating to their characterizations.
Emma grew up in a home with an emotionally abusive father and a generally cold familial environment 
(Emma Frost #3 8). At some point, she was institutionalized for her mutation 
(X-Men Vol. 3 #13 17) and was briefly homeless 
(Generation X #-1 14). Finally, she began working for the controlling 
(X-Men: Deadly Genesis #5 23), manipulative 
(Uncanny X-Men #531 20), and violent 
(X-Men Origins: Emma Frost #1 20) Sebastion Shaw. While her ambition allowed her to rise through the ranks of The Hellfire Club, a high rank did little to meaningfully protect her within the misogynistic structure of The Club 
(X-Treme X-Men #41 19). Emma did become a teacher, a career she had wanted to pursue for a long time, but the amount of emotional trauma she had suffered and her internalization of The Hellfire Club’s rhetoric meant that she sometimes mistreated the children in her care 
(X-Men Origins: Emma Frost #1 26). Only after the death of her first class of students did Emma reassess her life 
(Uncanny X-Men #314 17). She then made it a priority to be a better teacher and better serve her students 
(Generation X #22 9). However, she was still unable to extend that care beyond the boundaries of her school. And she also frequently taught her students the type of “me first” ethic The Hellfire Club espoused 
(New X-Men #115 20). After the trauma of surviving the Genoshian genocide, Emma began searching for genuine emotional connection and fell in love with Scott 
(New X-Men #139 20). By opening herself up to him, she opened herself up to the community he and the X-Men offered her. She began to see herself as a hero 
(Astonishing X-Men: Xenogenesis #5 11), if only by virtue of being an X-Man, and began to fight for a community far larger than herself and her immediate students. Scott’s faith in her goodness is invaluable in encouraging her to continue fighting for others, even when she makes mistakes 
(Dark X-Men: The Confession #1 19). And his love for her offers her, for pretty much the first time, a person who cares about her unconditionally, with no ulterior motive 
(Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 #21 11). Emma’s development during their relationship heyday wasn’t perfect. She still frequently reacted coldly to those most in need of support if she felt they threatened her loved ones or students 
(New X-Men Vol. 2 #22 21). But predominantly, her relationship with Scott helped her become a more loving person, who saw herself as part of a cause bigger than herself and found herself to be capable of accepting softness and love as well as giving it to those outside her immediate circle.
After his parents’ deaths, Scott was brainwashed, manipulated, and experimented on by Mr. Sinister 
(X-Factor #39 7). When he escaped, he was taken in by Jack Winter, a minor criminal who exploited Scott’s mutant power, of which he was already terrified 
(X-Men #40 20). Finally, he was taken in by Xavier, who made his affection and new home feel contingent on his participation in a dangerous superhero team, made him feel as though he owed the X-Men his service 
(X-Men #7 6), and frequently argued that mutants needed to earn equality by proving themselves through serving baseline humans (Xavier’s politics are more complicated than this, but in the service of focus, I’m leaving it here). With Emma's support, however, he began to call Xavier out on his manipulative tendencies 
(Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 #12 22). He began to understand that he deserved better than endlessly submitting to Xavier. When Sentinels camping out on the lawn of the school after M-Day became a radicalizing force for Scott, Emma supported him as he found his own political voice 
(Uncanny X-Men #495 3). While he still believed in defending the Earth and helping humans when possible 
(Uncanny X-Men #543 19), he no longer framed it as something mutants owed humans. Instead, he tried to prioritize issues of mutant discrimination whenever possible 
(Uncanny X-Men #507 19), rather than living in a fantasy world where being a “good mutant” magically solves discrimination. Scott doesn’t completely heal pre-AvX. He still uses the rhetoric of “Xavier’s dream” 
(New Mutants Vol. 3 #10 15), tying a broad idea of mutant-human harmony to a single man who emotionally abused him and who didn’t have the best strategies for accomplishing that dream. But for the most part, his relationship with Emma helps him stop defining himself by Xavier and challenge the worldview Xavier force-fed him as an adolescent.
I want to call out two moments that, for me, represent the culmination of the growth this relationship allowed them to have. They may not seem like the right culmination moments, given that Emma’s is long after they break-up and Scott’s is long before, and maybe they aren’t, but they are the moments I think about when I think of how their relationship changed them for the better. For Scott, it’s a fairly simple moment 
(Uncanny X-Men #544 21). He is able to leave behind the school and ideology that shaped him and begin moving into a new future. Emma is by his side, offering comfort if he needs it in such a monumental shift 
(Uncanny X-Men #544 20) and supporting him as he moves beyond Xavier. For Emma, the moment I’ve chosen is a little more emotionally fraught 
(Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 #32 15). Honestly, Scott really lets this moment down. If I was the kind of person to consider what characters do in canon to be “out of character,” then I would consider his behavior in this issue “out of character.” Unfortunately, I’m not, and his behavior in this issue makes me want to drop kick him into the sun. However, enough evidence exists to support ascribing his response to a combination of sympathetic factors: projecting his complicated guilt over Xavier’s death onto Emma as a form of coping, general emotional strain, him backsliding on his progress far more than she has at this point due to their break-up, Xavier dying, and the immense community pressure on him to devolve. Besides, his being shitty doesn’t make it any less a terrific Emma moment. I’m going to try my best to articulate the contrary elements of what makes this panel so great. Part of what I love about Emma’s redemption arc is that she doesn’t assume she will be forgiven 
(X-Men: Manifest Destiny #2 20). She changes because she wants to be better, not because she thinks the world will treat her better. Assuming you deserve to be forgiven when you hurt someone is an awful and manipulative way to behave, so for Emma to not expect it makes me respect her a lot. She may want forgiveness, she may even ask for it, but she almost never anticipates it. That said, part of why Emma doesn’t expect forgiveness is she has never had much emotional support from anyone. No one has ever demonstrated that she still deserves to be loved, even when she makes mistakes. She has lived her life alone. An enormous part of her redemption, especially her relationship with Scott, is about learning to love and be loved, learning to care and be cared for. Therefore, for her to approach Scott expecting all will be forgiven between them, and they can return to the way things were, demonstrates a huge amount of emotional growth. She trusts him to support her emotionally in a way she’s never trusted anyone else to do. Absolutely, he lets her down here. But he doesn’t destroy her growth because even though he lets her down with his words and actions, he doesn’t let her down with his emotions, not completely anyway. Come Death of X, they are still a team 
(Death of X #1 7) because he does still love and care for her. And until he dies, that’s enough to prove to her that her mistakes don’t stop him from seeing her as worthy of care.
- Basic Kindnesses
Outside Dark X-Men: The Confession #1 (the definitive Scott/Emma issue), this 
(X-Men Vol. 2 #188 14) is probably my favorite Scott/Emma moment. She defends Scott’s choices, against Xavier’s protests, in front of Scott. She calls Xavier out on how manipulative and hypocritical he’s being, on Scott’s behalf, in front of Scott. And harshly shuts down any pushback he tries to give. She is not remotely interested in catering to Xavier’s feelings, only in defending Scott’s choices. I literally cannot think of another character who has done that for him. Scott’s life has been so profoundly defined, not only by Xavier’s emotional abuse, but by the fact that Xavier occupies a position of veneration within Scott's broader community. Part of what makes it so difficult for Scott to move beyond Xavier is just how much communal pressure is exerted on him to continue worshiping him. Emma, on the other hand, continually affirms her support for Scott over Xavier 
(Dark X-Men: The Confession #1 19). She also goes with Scott when he goes to confront Xavier after the move to San Francisco, flipping the tables on Xavier’s attempts to manipulate Scott again 
(X-Men: Legacy #215 9) 
(X-Men: Legacy #215 21). This protectiveness against Scott’s abuser is a big part of what allows him that growth I explored earlier.
Scott is also protective of Emma in the face of Shaw 
(Generation Hope #15 10), as well as physically protective of her in battle 
(Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 #22 6), but that’s not really where I intend to focus. Shaw just plays a much smaller role in their lives than Xavier does. Instead, I want to explore this interaction 
(Dark X-Men: The Confession #1 13) 
(Dark X-Men: The Confession #1 19). Emma’s history with sex work is something that Marvel, understandably, tends to skirt around. Sex work is a fraught subject, and I don’t blame Marvel for being reluctant to dive into it, but it’s also an important part of Emma’s history. We know she was a stripper 
(X-Men Origins: Emma Frost #1 20), and we know she slept with people for The Hellfire Club 
(Uncanny X-Men Annual #2 (2009) 14). How much control she had over her work, we don’t know. Nor do we know how she feels about her history with sex work. (I have some broad assumptions based on the available evidence, but I won’t get into them here.) What we do know is that she is forced to deal with the stigma of having done sex work after she leaves these roles. Other characters definitely look down on her for her sexual history. She frequently has her sexual history weaponized against her 
(Generation Hope #15 10). Even characters we are supposed to view as accepting have occasionally crafted insults based on her sexual history 
(X-Treme X-Men #21 14). What’s notable about her discussion with Scott is that it specifically calls out Namor and Tony not respecting him. If it were primarily about her being a villain, she would have listed heroes with way more standing in the superhero community (say Captain America and Mr. Fantastic). But it’s not about her villainous past; it’s about her history with sex work, so she alludes to two people who slept with her while she was still associated with The Hellfire Club. Scott is the only person to say to Emma directly that her past with sex work does not make him think less of her. (Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 #32 fucks this up a little, but Scott is referring to a specific act of infidelity, not her sexual history generally.)
I want to make it clear, these are basic decencies. It should not matter that Scott and Emma offer them to each other because everyone should be offering them. Scott and Emma should have support against their abusers. Emma’s sexual history should not make people respect her less. But the reality is they receive these vital kindnesses from so few people that it does matter that they give them to each other. It also matters that they are on relatively equal footing in terms of what they need. Needing such basic signs of support doesn’t create a power imbalance between them because they both need those little things and because neither of them ever resents offering them.
- Happiness
Obviously, Scott and Emma are happy together. It would be ridiculous if they weren’t. And while I love the way their appearances together are sprinkled with jokes and flirtation 
(Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 #25 4), that isn’t really the point I’m trying to make here. Multiple people comment on how Scott seems happier than ever when he and Emma are together 
(Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 #25 7) 
(Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 #7 7). Hank’s comments are particularly notable given how long he’s known Scott. But happiness is not an easily quantifiable thing. I think what these comments suggest is that Scott is relaxed with Emma, something he has always struggled with, and that would be easier for an outside observer to quantify. They even go on multiple vacations together 
(Uncanny X-Men #495 4) with only the thinnest of external excuses (birthday vacations are not a given) 
(Heralds #1 4). Of course, if we do take Hank as completely correct, that’s even better. On Emma’s side, we get a little more tragic Emma allows herself to be soft with Scott 
(Uncanny X-Men #495 18). She tells her daughters she encouraged them to harden themselves against the world because it was how she survived 
(X-Men: Phoenix: Warsong #5 15), yet Emma admits her softness for Scott as soon as she starts falling for him 
(Astonishing X-Men #13 21). Other than being blown away and unable to react when he first says he loves her, she never really tries to lie to herself, or him, about how she feels 
(Giant-Size Astonishing X-Men #1 40). Allowing herself this genuine emotional connection also allows her access to the kind of happiness that bond brings.
- Openness
Scott and Emma have always shared some level of understanding. And they’ve always been drawn to the darkness in one another 
(X-Men: Phoenix: Endsong #2 2). From Emma’s past as a villain to the infidelity that brought them together, they have always been aware of each other’s flaws. However, what draws me to them is much deeper than just accepting each other, warts and all. I called Dark X-Men: The Confession #1 the definitive Scott/Emma comic for a reason. While I probably can’t get away with posting the whole thing and calling it fair use, you do kind of need to read the comic in its entirety to get the full impact. Scott and Emma open up to each other, sharing every questionable decision, insecurity, and mistake they’ve made over the past few months 
(Dark X-Men: The Confession #1 19). Realistically, other than promising no more secrets, they don't solve or change much doing this, but that isn’t the point. The act of sharing these deep dark parts of themselves is about telling the other person what they are ashamed of and being accepted and loved anyway. Telling is a crucial word in that sentence. Emma is a telepath. Technically, she could pluck everything Scott shares with her out of his head whenever she chose if she really wanted to, but knowing isn’t what matters. The point is that they volunteer this information and are able to let one another into their point of view by explaining their thought process. Choosing to share their thoughts, decisions, and emotions is, in so many ways, a more intimate act than simply knowing how the other person thinks, acts, or feels.
- Communication
Before their break-up, Scott and Emma rarely have blow-out fights, the only one I can recall off the top of my head is when Emma first contained the sliver of void 
(Uncanny X-Men #515 21), but they tend to snip at each other when in disagreement or under duress. That’s why I love this interaction in X-Men Vol. 2 #204 
(5). Here we see how they react when sniping at each other begins to tip toward a fight. Emma rewinds and clarifies why she approached him the way she did. Scott is open to hearing this clarification and shares the emotions he’s struggling with 
(X-Men Vol. 2 #204 5). It’s an incredibly mature way to handle conflict that prioritizes open communication over winning and losing a fight.
They are also great co-leaders. In comparing Scott/Emma to Scott/Jean, I’ve seen some people say that Scott/Jean work as a unit, whereas Scott/Emma operate independently. To their credit, they weren’t trying to disparage either relationship, just point out differences. Nonetheless, this analysis oversimplifies both relationships. I understand where it comes from; it is often true. A major conflict at the beginning of the San Francisco/Utopia era is around Scott and Emma running independent, secret operations. But both couples show way more diversity in how they operate than that analysis allows. For Scott and Emma, most of the times they function as a unit come when making decisions for the X-Men or the school. My personal favorite moment is when they jointly decide to shelter the former mutants who turn up on their doorstep
(Uncanny X-Men #506 8), but it’s far from an outlier. The communication they have around their work helps strengthen their understanding of each other as people. Through Scott’s post-M-Day leadership of mutantkind, Emma acts as a right-hand woman and confidant. Even with more experienced leaders like Ororo and Magneto around offering guidance and support, Scott consults Emma because their relationship makes them a team.
- Problems
This may seem counter-intuitive, but another thing I love about Scott/Emma is the way the problems in their relationship naturally arise from their flaws instead of from random exterior obstacles. Just like all real couples, most fictional couples have problems, and any fictional couple whose romance plays a central role in a larger story is going to have some significant problems. Conflict drives plot. However, there are a couple of ways that drama can be approached. Forcing external obstacles, like physical distance, or manufactured obstacles, like misunderstandings, can lead to interesting stories, but it means the romantic relationship doesn’t contribute to the characters’ growth at all. And having problems arise solely from within the relationship often makes the relationship feel unhealthy. For Scott and Emma, nearly all their problems are born of character struggles that significantly pre-date their relationship. The biggest problem they have is Emma’s insecurity 
(X-Men: Manifest Destiny #2 18). Because of her villainous past and the fact that the majority of her relationships from birth until she began teaching Generation X have been toxic and/or abusive, she struggles to see herself as worthy of love. Her jealousy of Jean seems to be born, in large part, from seeing Jean as somehow superior to her 
(X-Men: Manifest Destiny #2 18). Namor presents as an external obstacle, but part of his pursuit of Emma involves picking at her insecurities by implying Scott negatively compares her to Jean 
(Uncanny X-Men #540 16). Scott, for his part, has plenty of reasons not to want to get married (two failed marriages and managing the biggest catastrophe in mutant history being among them), but Emma’s insecurity is only partially about Scott. We see the damage her guilt over the past has done to her long before their relationship starts 
(X-Force #42 20). It’s a flaw for her as a character Namor exploits, not a problem born out of their relationship. Scott, too, causes problems because of his existing flaws. His need to present an image of himself Xavier would approve of is born of that abusive relationship 
(Dark X-Men: The Confession #1 12). And his tendency to self-isolate is something I’ve discussed at length in my Character Study of him. These are the flaws that motivate him to hide the X-Force. While many stories feature characters overcoming their core flaws, they rarely entirely vanish, and in open-ended stories, like superhero comics, they often fade and resurge as characters grow and regress. Being together doesn’t heal Scott and Emma of these flaws, but the narrative potential of the relationship is better for them. Because the problems that arise are natural problems born of who these characters are, their relationship helps them make incremental progress in overcoming their flaws and remains relatively healthy and stable (until the Avengers fuck everything up).
- Post-Break-Up
Speaking of AvX, as much as I hate everything about the actual break-up, there’s a lot in the aftermath of their relationship ending that has really informed my reading of why their romance matters. The end of the Scott/Emma relationship coincides with both characters losing a lot of the progress they have made.
For Scott, he begins backsliding in his glorification of Xavier almost immediately 
(Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 #3 21). He hadn’t yet fully moved beyond holding Xavier up as a paragon of virtue and certainly hadn’t outright acknowledged that he was abusive, but after the break-up, he is enslaved to Xavier’s memory. He names his new school after Xavier and, while rightfully refusing to take the blame for something that happened while he possessed by the full force of the Phoenix with no prep or psychic ability, remains consumed by anguish over Xavier’s death 
(Uncanny X-Men Vol. 3 #18 8). Now, the break-up clearly isn’t the only cause of this (Xavier is dead), but not having the same romantic support from Emma he used to have doesn’t help. Furthermore, the aforementioned symbolic link between Scott/Emma means their break-up aligns with his renewed devotion to Xavier in the audience's minds. Bendis’s Uncanny X-Men holds some hope that Scott will hold on to his political progress, but that hope devolves further and further as he moves away from his and Emma’s relationship. While his resurrection features some return to his old rhetoric, he is mostly filled with regret and eventually gives up his leadership position 
(Uncanny X-Men Vol. 5 #16 8). Now, he and Emma are somewhat back together, which has helped with his politics a bit. But the lack of any meaningful connection beyond half-baked innuendos (Emma doesn’t even get to be part of the Summer House), and the reintroduced influence of Jean, means the reunion hasn’t been enough to stop the devolution of his character. He is now back to being little more than Xavier’s lackey 
(House of X #6 9) (because make no mistake—The Quiet Council is under Xavier’s control—he appointed every member but Kate). Hopefully, Hickman’s run will be the end of Scott's downward spiral, but we’ll see. (Probably not.)
Emma’s side is possibly even more tragic (although she’s faring better in Hickman’s current reign). Her insecurities extended beyond Scott. She worried that she didn’t deserve her place in the X-Men, too 
(Astonishing X-Men Vol. 3 #2 18). Moreover, she attaches much of her ability to view herself as a hero to the X-Men. She, understandably, tied so much of her reshaped identity up in this new community 
(X-Men/Fantastic Four #5 23). The implication that she was only ever welcome because of Scott always hovered awkwardly around the edges of that community 
(X-Men: Manifest Destiny #2 23), but mostly they accepted her. However, after Scott died, she was almost completely cut off from said community. Illyana was fully welcomed back, but not Emma. Even as Ororo and other X-Men leadership worked with her to defend their people against the Inhumans, she still was placed firmly on the outside, despite having years for them to see that her prickliness meant she needed people to reach out to her 
(Inhumans vs. X-Men #0 29). Writers liked to frame Emma’s grief over Scott as her “going crazy,” but the reality is that she’s left twisting in the wind. Alone to try to cope with the loss of the person who most believed in her potential and most forgave her past. And alone to try to cope with the loss of one of the few people who cared about her trauma and who showed her the most kindness. Again, the reconciliation between Scott and Emma has brought Emma back into the fold, but again the distance means much of the healing done when they were together is undermined. Emma sits on the Quiet Council with Shaw (which, there are many, many aspects of the current X-Men status quo that make it hard to keep an open mind, but Mr. Sinister and Shaw on the Quiet Council when both of them show no remorse for abusing people Xavier claims to care about (Sage, if not Emma) is a particularly tough pill for me to swallow). At least she has Kate and Ororo’s support in having to deal with him, which gives her a massive leg up over Scott’s situation.
Final Notes:
I live in hope that Scott/Emma will one day be returned to its former glory. But in reality, their relationship will probably be further degraded, and portions of my reading will be rendered invalid as future writers retcon their relationship and continue to glorify Xavier for some godforsaken reason. Still, I cannot tell you how good it feels to get this all off my chest. One caveat, just because I can’t resist covering my ass, it’s been a little while since I re-read the Scott/Emma glory days and longer still since I read their post-break-up lives. There may have been key moments that support my arguments that I didn’t bring up because I didn’t remember them while I was writing this.
