Samara Weaving as the MCU Emma Frost Is Perfect X-Men Casting

Bow down, peasants. The White Queen has arrived.

While Spider-Man: Brand New Day had to swing into theaters through a cloud of rumors about Sadie Sink playing Jean Grey, Marvel has no intention of playing such games for another lady love in the life of Scott Summers. Deadline is reporting that Samara Weaving, best known for the Ready or Not films, has been cast as Emma Frost, the haughty mutant telepath who has fought with and against Marvel’s Mighty Mutants. And it’s hard to think of a better casting choice.

Frost made her debut in the all-time classic Uncanny X-Men #129 by Chris Claremont and John Byrne, the 1979 issue that also introduced the Hellfire Club and Kitty Pryde. Based on the sex club featured in an episode of the 1960s British TV show, The Avengers, the Hellfire Club was a social club for the most wealthy and powerful people in the world. The exterior of the Hellfire Club makes it seem like an organization for the rich to indulge their fantasies, complete with men dressed in 18th century garb and women in lingerie. However, the inner circle of the Hellfire Club is run by influential mutants, most notably the Black King Sebastian Shaw and the White Queen, Emma Frost.

In those early stories, Emma plays like a straightforward supervillain in a skimpy white outfit. She uses her telepathy and her army of Hellfire Club soldiers to attack the X-Men and shore up her power, mocking her enemies for daring to stand up to her. But Claremont soon begins fleshing out Emma, first by introducing the Massachusetts Academy, an elite prep school for young mutants that Frost operates as counter to Xavier’s School for Youngsters. Even in these stories, Emma reveals herself to be someone who cares deeply about young mutants and, despite her love of money and power, wants only the best for the next generation. When her young students, the Hellions, get slaughtered by a rival group called the Upstarts, Emma teams with former X-Man Banshee to create Generation X, a new group of young mutants that includes Jubilee.

Ever since then, Emma has moved into the center of the X-Men universe, becoming a traditionally heroic figure that best serves mutant children. However, she has lost none of her snarkiness, even when teaching a group of platinum blonde teen telepaths called the Stepford Cuckoos or having a psychic affair with Cyclops, with whom she has a long and rich romance after Jean’s death. She even managed to form a strong friendship with the now-grown Kitty Pryde, the girl she once tried to kill, who can appreciate Emma’s snobbiness and also remind Ms. Frost that she’s just a Bostonian who puts on airs.

In short, Emma Frost must be at once arrogant and vulnerable, domineering and funny. And that’s what makes Weaving such a great choice. Where X-Men: First Class didn’t give January Jones much space to build her disaffected take on Emma, one imagines Weaving will get a lot to do. The Australian actress has made a name for herself in horror and thrillers like Ash vs. Evil Dead and The Babysitter. She also has revealed a sense of humor that can be goofy (see her self-deprecating cameos in Babylon or Scream VI) or absolutely ruthless in a way that Ms. Frost would appreciate. Her role in the recent Over Your Dead Body, where she plays an unhappy spouse who realizes her husband is trying to kill her and decides… to screw with him before offing him instead is pitch black fun, especially when Weaving is at her iciest.

She also proved in the more recent Ready or Not 2 that she has more than enough charisma to anchor an entire franchise of demonic mischief, finding space to play both the comedy and humanity of a woman who married into the eccentricities of the wealthy and damned.

Weaving makes so much sense as Emma Frost that we really only have one question: who can be the more powerful telepath, Emma or Jean Grey? For that, we’ll have to wait until the X-Men fully arrive on screen in the upcoming movie from Jake Schreier.

X-Men is now in pre-production.