The White Tiger
White Tiger I
Alter Ego: Hector Ayala
Notable Aliases: El Tigre Blanco
First Appearance: The Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #19
Hector Ayala was a Puerto Rican immigrant studying in New York City's Empire State University who happened across the three mystical amulets worn by the now-obscure 1970s super-team the Sons of the Tiger. The amulets were pieces of an Ancient Artifact from K'un-L'un. When Hector wore all three at once, it gave him superhuman strength, speed, and agility, as well as a working knowledge of K'un-L'un-style kung fu, which he used to defend his neighborhood.
Hector returns home one day to find his parents and sister murdered. He goes on a hunt for the killer and finds himself facing Cape Buster Gideon Mace and his organization. The murders and the investigation were all part of Gideon's trap and the Tiger fell into it. He gets shot twelve times and struggles to survive in a hospital bed. Once conscious enough to know what he is doing, Hector disposes of the amulet and flees New York City for good, ending his career.
Hector eventually retired from superheroics at his girlfriend's insistence. Years later, he put the costume and amulets back on, but wound up as a suspect in a murder trial after intervening in a pawnshop robbery gone bad. Despite his innocence, Hector was convicted, and guards around the courthouse shot him dead while he was trying to escape.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: After being unceremoniously shoved onto a bus, he reappeared during Brian Bendis' Daredevil run, accused of murder and found guilty, and then dies in prison.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Break up a mugging - get arrested for it, convicted, and killed trying to escape prison.
White Tiger II
First Appearance: Heroes for Hire #1
An actual white Bengal tigress evolved into a woman of East Indian descent.
- Humanity Ensues: She was an actual white tiger that was turned into a human. She eventually returned to being a tiger.
White Tiger IV
Alter Ego: Angela del Toro
First Appearance: Daredevil Vol. 2, #58
The fourth character to use the name White Tiger. Angela del Toro is the niece of the original White Tiger Hector Ayala and the niece of Ava Ayala. Angela was one of the FBI agents charged with investigating Daredevil's secret identity. She was drawn to the life of a superhero after going into action alongside Daredevil, Unfortunately, after that Angela was killed and subsequently resurrected as an agent of the ninja clan known as the Hand.
- Back-to-Back Badasses: With her aunt Ava when they fought against the New Revengers.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: Courtesy of the Hand.
- Brought Down to Badass: Thanks to some manuevering by Avengers Idea Mechanics, Angela is freed of the Hand's brainwashing, but Ava destroys the Tiger amulets, depriving the two of them of their powers. Still, this leaves Angela with all that FBI and martial arts training.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Angela got an introductory arc in Daredevil, and then a miniseries of her own, before dropping off the face of the Earth, only reappearing in Shadowland to be killed by the Hand, resurrected as a brainwashed minion, and promptly forgotten for years.
- My Suit Is Also Super: It is, among other things, bulletproof. It's not swordproof though.
Alter Ego: Ava Ayala
First Appearance: Avengers Academy #20 (December 2011)
Team Affiliations: Mighty Avengers, Avengers Idea Mechanics
The fifth character to assume the White Tiger mantle, she is the younger sister of Hector Ayala as well as the aunt of Angela del Toro.
After the events of the "Shadowland" crossover, Ava Ayala inherited the White Tiger amulet from her brother, following the death of her family members at the hands of Gideon Mace. By this point, the tragedies that have occurred to her family mean Ava is much less enamoured of the super-hero life, and the mantle she's inherited.
A former student at the Avengers Academy, after graduating from the Academy, Ava took a job working for Luke Cage as part of his Heroes for Hire.During their first outing, during the Infinity crossover, Ava used her amulets as a mystic link to an ancient spirit called the Tiger, which represented the "First Enemy" of humanity: the predator in the shadows that early humans quickly learned to fear. The Tiger used Ava as an avatar, but soon came to regret it. Ava engaged the Tiger in a contest of wills and won, pointing out that the Tiger was no longer as frightening to humanity as it once had been, and thus gaining greater access to its power. She served as a member of Cage's volunteer-led, street-level Avengers team before the 2015 Secret Wars crossover.
She then served as a member of Sunspot's "Avengers Idea Mechanics" field team. After an adventure where she successfully managed to purge Angela of the remnants of her Hand brainwashing, Ava opted to retire and destroyed the original White Tiger amulet.
Angela remains occasionally active as a non-powered superhero, appearing in books such as Ta-Nehisi Coates' Captain America.
- Action Girl: A very proud Action Girl at that.
- Amulet of Concentrated Awesome: Her tiger amulet, which unlocks her powers.
- Animal-Themed Superbeing: She's named White Tiger, has a tiger-striped costume, and wears a tiger amulet.
- Badass Family: Both her elder brother and niece have had runs as the White Tiger. Neither times ended spectacularly well, which is something that troubles Ava.
- Bash Brothers:
- Has become this with Victor Alvarez, the Power Man, as their powers compliment one another. Later turned into a Battle Couple, before they broke up, Victor getting scared by Ava's increasing intensity.
- After Angela is restored to sanity, she and Ava go out on occasion to fight crime.
- Brought Down to Badass: She destroys the Tiger amulet, figuring it's better than letting the thing roam free, but she still keeps all her fighting skills.
- Canon Immigrant: She was originally made just for the Ultimate Spider-Man series, and then was brought into Avengers Academy. Interestingly enough, Reptil is a Canon Immigrant as well and they end up dating.
- Cat Girl: Well, she's named White Tiger and her powers and costume have a tiger/cat motif.
- Determinator: Despite her tragic past, she wants to represent the White Tiger legacy and become a hero.
- Femme Fatalons
- Genre Savvy: Even after destroying the amulets, she notes that sooner or later, it'll show up again. Something like that always finds a way back. While it hasn't found a new host (yet), it's still out there, lurking in the dark.
- Healing Factor
- Hero-Worshipper: Toward Spider-Man, who was involved in the Gideon Mace incident. She holds him in high esteem, and is severely disillusioned when the Superior Spider-Man is demeaning towards her and Power Man.
- It's Personal: Her family were murdered by Gideon Mace. Ava was willing to try and murder him in revenge, even going as far as letting the Tiger take over.
- Legacy Character: The fifth to hold the title, and the third in her family to have the amulets, no less. She's done better than her predecessors.
- Not So Stoic: While on the job, Ava is completely stoic and serious. When she's not... she's slightly stoic, but she is capable of emotion from time to time.
- Official Couple: She and Victor start dating around the time of Axis, but break-up after Secret Wars because Ava was becoming too distant.
- Parental Abandonment: Her parents were murdered when she was younger.
- Practically Different Generations: Her niece Angela del Toro was older than she was she became the White Tiger.
- Remember the New Guy?: Introduced in 2011 as the sister of Hector, and as having been present when Gideon Mace attacked him.
- Spicy Latina: She comes of like this a lot, mainly temperament-wise. She's also proud to be a Hispanic hero, and even chides Reptil for not embracing his heritage. In her first appearance, she browbeats Reptil for not representing Latino folk enough.
- Staring Down Cthulhu: She manages to browbeat a primordial tiger-god into doing what she wants.
- Willing Channeler: One night a month she allows the tiger god to control her body and run free, up until the tiger takes over and tries to violently murder a man, at which point Ava forces it to give up full control to her.
- You Can't Go Home Again: Her remaining family don't want anything to do with her, on account of the amulet. The last time she tried to reach out to them, they drove her away. At gunpoint.
The Tiger God
A primordial tiger-god, born from early mankind's fear of what lies in the dark, and the source of the White Tiger amulet's powers, forever seeking a host so it can roam free in the world once again.
- Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?:
- During Infinity, it mauls the astral form of Shuma-Gorath, though with the caveat that A: It was getting a power boost from Power Man, and B: in terms of physical presence, it was the equivalent of fighting Shuma-Gorath's fingernail.
- In Ultimates squared, it helps T'Challa maul Logos, the corrupted embodiment of universal law, and then both literally and figuratively tears it apart. This is after having been on the receiving end - T'Challa got it to cooperate by beating the crap out of it.
- Demonic Possession: Well, not a demon, but essentially. It takes over Ava at one point during Mighty Avengers, boosting her abilities to insane levels. We're talking "can put She-Hulk through a wall and scratch Luke Cage's unbreakable skin" strong here.
- Panthera Awesome: It's a giant tiger god.
- Primal Fear: It's the embodiment of mankind's fear of the dark. However, note the word "mankind". Non-humans, such as Atlanteans, are immune.
