White Tiger

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Background

Powers and Abilities

Del Toro is a former top-notch Special Agent for the FBI, and a trained athlete and martial artist. Her styles are chiefly Japanese (both from Okinawa and the mainland, including kenjutsu) but with a distinct K‘un-Lun influence.

Amulets

She also owns the mystical jade tiger amulets once used by the Sons of the Tiger and the first White Tiger.

Wearing the amulets gives Del Toro quasi-superhuman speed, agility, reflexes, strength and endurance, and an encyclopaedic mastery of K‘un-Lun martial arts – though she’s not as good as Iron Fist.

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They also make her heal faster (a broken arm healed in a week and half) and can plunge her in a torpor to recover from normally fatal wounds or poisoning (in DC Heroes terms Invulnerability). She even learned to become invisible.

Her natural prowess has also been augmented, even when she is not wearing the amulets. As Angela she now performs at a cinematic  level of speed, fighting skill and agility.

The White Tiger’s fighting style includes a lot of leaping, pouncing, jump kicks, bouncing off walls, etc. Though she’s extremely strong for her size, the whole of her still weighs about as much as Luke Cage’s left leg and she needs momentum to best employ her strength.

She’ll also frequently grab improvised weapons, or melee weapons from her opponents — not improbable Jackie Chan stuff, but straightforward armament like a katana, a chain or a steel bar — when facing strong odds.

Friends in strange places

One of Del Toro’s most dangerous abilities is that she enjoys solid support from the New York City community of street-level heroes (as White Tiger) and from the NYPD (as Del Toro).

Tio Danny and tio Luke are considered to be part of the Del Toro family (they even occasionally served as babysitters for Angela in the 1970s) and Daredevil is her silent mentor, having asked some of his closest allies (including major adventurers such as Spider-Man or the Black Widow) to facilitate her beginnings.

The NYPD is filled with friends, family and their allies. As a detective put it, “You’re a Del Toro. Our people. The NYPD understands that.”

Her costume is a custom order from the Potter costume shop. It absorbs moisture, regulates temperature, is practically impossible to stain (and thus odourless) and is self-sealing.

It is presumably made of unstable molecules, since it turns invisible when she does – which doesn’t work with her normal wardrobe. This fabric is S.H.I.E.L.D. issue.

History

(For additional context, see our entry for White Tiger (Hector Ayala)).

Angela Del Toro is the daughter of Mr. Del Toro and Awilda Ayala-Del Toro, the older sister of Hector Ayala. The most likely chronology is that she was born in late 1980, at about the same time as her parents married.

Angela’s mother was still mostly living in the Puerto Rican ghetto in the South Bronx at that point, caring for her own mother. Given the likely birth date for Angela, she was but a few months old when her mother, her maternal grandmother and maternal grandfather were assassinated by Gideon Mace’s troops.

Mace and his small army of trained killers were on a crusade to kill super-heroes in New York City. They slaughtered the Ayalas since Awilda’s younger brother Hector was the White Tiger, whose secret identity had been exposed on local television about 2 years prior.

The goal was apparently to provoke him into a rage to make it easier to gun him down. This nearly worked, but the power of his magic amulets allowed the White Tiger to survive being shot by Gideon Mace.

Even after the threat posed by Mace and his troops was over, Hector Ayala and his wife were forced to leave New York City for a place where no one knew about the White Tiger. Ayala apparently made frequent visits back to the Big Apple to see his little niece, though.

Little Angela was fascinated by the fact that her tio Hector used to be a real super-hero with a costume, borderline superhuman abilities and several years of fighting crime under his belt.

As a daughter of the Del Toro clan, Angela was quite likely to become either a cop or a martial artist – the two specialities of the family. As it turned out, she would be both. From childhood on, she received training in the martial arts – and it was high-end even by Del Toro standards.

During the earliest days of his career, the White Tiger had met with Iron Fist (Daniel Rand-K’ai) via their common ally Nathaniel “Blackbyrd” Byrd, a well-connected private detective. Rand recognised the amulets worn by the Tiger, and the two men stayed in touch.

When his niece started training, Hector sent her to a New York City dojo where Rand and his friend Luke Cage were giving self-defence classes.

The plucky teenager became a friend of both men, training and sparring with them for years. She also met Rand’s lady friend, private detective and NYPD veteran Misty Knight. Angela knew of Rand and Cage’s costumed activities, and the Heroes for Hire even babysat her and other Del Toro kids when Angela was in her early teens.

Del Toro participated in martial sports competitions as a teenager, apparently placing well in several championships.

Sound of da police

Since girlhood, Angela del Toro planned to become an elite Federal policewoman. She studied to prepare for this — B.A. in political science, M.A. in criminology — then worked with the NYPD for 4 years, presumably as a detective.

Armed with recommendations from the NYPD and solidly within the top 10% of her class at Quantico, she easily qualified as a Special Agent. Within a few years she was a GS-12, close to the highest possible pay grade for an agent working in the field.

Del Toro was assigned to the Bureau’s Yakuza Task Force. She already spoke the language and was familiar with certain older aspects of Japanese culture that the Yakuza frequently cherish.

In 2003, Hector Ayala was shot dead by the police after a shameful parody of a trial. The former White Tiger was deeply mourned by the Ayalas and the Del Toros, and Angela in particular. As she tried to understand her uncle’s life and death, Special Agent Del Toro’s interest in urban super-heroes increased.

At this point the FBI was investigating lawyer Matthew Murdock, whom they suspected was Daredevil. Angela volunteered to be on that task force. As she investigated, she grew convinced that Murdock was indeed Daredevil

He was a prime example of the street-level heroes she wanted to understand — and an ally of the White Tiger back when Ayala was active.

The Murdock investigation was a very high-profile one, with much political pressure and media mayhem. Furthermore, doing surveillance on Daredevil led Special Agent Del Toro and her partner Agent Driver to cross the path of high-powered criminal conspiracies attempting to fill the vacuum left after the most recent fall of the Kingpin (Wilson Fisk).

In particular they arrested one Sano Orii, a known yakuza boss from Philadelphia, after witnessing a duel between Murdock and Sano and his men. During the interrogation, Sano and Agent Driver developed a violent antagonism.

Hours later, Sano and his friends walked free. The yakuza boss had two of his enforcers open fire on Agent Driver and Special Agent Del Toro. Driver was killed and Del Toro only narrowly escaped the gunfire, largely thanks to Driver reflexively pushing her out of their car.

This in turn triggered retaliation by Murdock. He came after Sano and his mob with Luke Cage, Iron Fist and Spider-Man. Once the situation was moped up by the four powerful fighters, Daredevil had cops tell Special Agent Del Toro that the takedown of the Sano mob had been done to avenge Agent Driver.

As Special Agent Del Toro continued her investigations, an unknown party — likely a NYPD insider — mailed her uncle Hector’s amulets to her. She was unexpectedly holding superhuman power in her hands and did not know what to do.

Man without fear

Del Toro freaked out and went to see Murdock to ask for advice. She presumably wanted to keep any future dual identity a secret from her friends and family, and felt she owed Murdock for avenging Agent Driver.

Though the situation was awkward, Del Toro told Daredevil that she would be quitting the Bureau now that the amulets had been entrusted to her. Knowing that she wasn’t lying, Daredevil agreed to answer her questions.

Though Angela had expected a discussion, what she got was a sparring session on top of a cathedral’s roof. Daredevil knew that the amulets would give her enhanced athletic and martial abilities.

He then took her to a tiny shop that was being held up, and the soon-to-be-former Federal Agent ended up taking down 2 armed robbers with her bare hands without knowing how.

Between the rush of the fight and seeing the relief of the shopkeeper, Angela Del Toro gained a first-hand understanding of the drive behind such men as Matthew Murdock or Hector Ayala.

Leaving the Bureau

As she finished liaising with municipal cops to process the two thugs she had just arrested, Del Toro heard that Alexander Bont — the man who had been the kingpin of crime in New York City before Wilson Fisk — was publicly murdering Murdock.

She got there in time to engage Bont’s blackmailed henchman Melvin Potter (formerly the Gladiator), in hand-to-hand combat – likely saving Murdock’s life.

As Del Toro was preparing to announce that she was quitting, Willson Fisk forced the FBI’s hand, offering proof of Murdock’s dual identity in exchange for his own release. The director of the FBI told Del Toro that he was going to take the deal, in part because he hated vigilantes and in part for self-promotion.

Disgusted by this decision, Special Agent Del Toro simultaneously quit and was fired.

Her ex-colleagues kept her informed of where the Kingpin’s “Murdock papers” were and when she got there she ran into Daredevil, the Black Widow and Elektra. The three adventurers realised that Bullseye was nearby, and a brutal fight erupted.

Del Toro insisted to help. Knowing that with her lack of experience she would be a sitting duck against Bullseye, Daredevil broke her arm and kicked her from 2 stories up to force her out of the fight. Given Del Toro’s stubbornness, this probably saved her life.

Obsessive

Del Toro’s situation at that point wasn’t looking good. A broken arm, fired from the job she had been pursuing for her whole life, and her savings low. As it turned out, things went surprisingly well. Agent Driver had no family but the FBI, and he had willed his New York City apartment to his partner.

The arm healed in 10 days thanks to the power of the amulets. And Del Toro retained close allies within the Bureau, particularly fellow liberals who objected to certain policies of the then-current director.

One of them, Agent Coville of the Yakuza Unit, arranged for a high-end security firm to set up a hiring interview with his former colleague.

Meanwhile Angela, wearing black clothes, sneakers and a home-made black mask (and thus looking like a cat burglar) experimented with street vigilantism. She took on street gangs prowling her new neighbourhood.

One of her early cases led to a clash with couriers carrying blank passports and Green Cards, which in turn led to the discovery that the secretive mob Chaeyi, generally thought to be an urban legend, actually existed.

Furthermore, Murdock (who at that point was in prison – long story) took measures to ensure that Angela Del Toro would receive proper training and backing in his absence.

Murdock had been through more than a year of serious difficulties, and other vigilantes had closed ranks around him to support him, making them available to help a new heroine he supported.

The Black Widow took Del Toro to Melvin Potter’s shop where a made-to-specifications White Tiger costume was waiting for her. Spider-Man quickly familiarised himself with the new heroine, and Iron Fist (then masquerading as Daredevil) kept a close watch on Del Toro.

Though the job interview Agent Coville had arranged went oddly, Angela was immediately hired by 212 Security. This was a posh firm headed by the former Company man James Guererro and his wife Veronique, previously a famous supermodel rumoured to work in intelligence.

On the next day Del Toro was given two heavies — both veterans from the Air Force Commandos — to escort a pair of famous college-age socialites to the clubs. This was a typical 212 job.

Del Toro would eventually discover that her job with 212 had also been arranged in the shadows. Guererro and his wife were allies of the original Heroes for Hire, and it was understood that Del Toro’s activities as the White Tiger would occasionally impact her work.

After learning that the White Tiger was tangling with their enemies in Chaeyi, the Guererros hired Del Toro full time.

Del Toro also continued to track down Sano Orii. She discovered that he was now affiliated with Chaeyi. After spotting him, she went berserk and tried to claw him out of a speeding car, only to be shot in the shoulder and flung into a news stand.

The power of the amulet allowed her to quickly recover from her wounds, and she stubbornly resumed stalking Mr. Orii. This led to several clashes with his superhuman bodyguard the Cobra (Piet Vorhees), working for Chaeyi and facilitating Orii’s work.

Concrete jungle

Angela continued to investigate Chaeyi. She focused on Orii-san and their machination to provide authentic US passports to allow their foreign agents to freely come work in America. However, another clash with the Cobra resulted in her being badly poisoned.

The amulets saved her life, though she spent 3 days in a healing trance, hallucinating about her uncle Hector. The amulets made her transparent during that time, but Danny Rand (still disguised as Daredevil) found her and brought her home.

This is the point at which Del Toro learned that Rand and Cage had known all along that she was the White Tiger and had been facilitating things behind her back. She didn’t take it well but got over it after some yelling, sulking and arguing.

White Tiger managed to set up a particularly damaging raid against Chaeyi, enlisting various heroic allies to take on a crowd of armed criminals. During the fracas, Sano Orii accidentally shot his own father then committed ritual suicide to atone, closing the vendetta between the Oriis and Del Toro for Agent Driver’s death.

Shadowland

Several years later, White Tiger was ambushed and assassinated in her apartment by Lady Bullseye and several Hand genin. As per standard Hand modus operandi for exceptional fighters, Del Toro was then resurrected to serve as a Hand agent.

She drew another ally of Daredevil, the Black Tarantula (Carlos LaMuerto), into a trap and he was also killed and resurrected.

Thankfully, LaMuerto’s demise was a trick. Their ally the immortal sensei Master Izo knew that Tarantula’s healing power would beat Hand brainwashing in time, and he would become his man on the inside.

When the White Tiger and the Tarantula were sent by Lady Bullseye to eliminate Franklin “Foggy” Nelson, Tarantula broke cover to save Foggy, knocked Angela out by surprise, then used his powers to break her brainwashing.

Her free will recovered, the White Tiger stood at Daredevil’s side as he agreed to become the new shōgun of the Hand, hoping to turn the ninja cult into a force for good.

Though the situation was particularly dodgy, Norman Osborn had recently been placed in charge of the law enforcement and judicial forces of the United States. This meant that the protections of American citizens against crime and abuse had been drastically lowered.

In New York City in particular, having a shadow army of ninja take over and wage war against crime and the skyrocketing police and judicial corruption may actually have been the least worse solution.

As he tried to unite the Hand around his vision, Murdock made Del Toro the daimyo of all Hand activities in North America. He would later make Black Tarantula the Southern American daimyo, continuing to turn the Hand into his tool.

However, Murdock gradually felt under the sway of the Beast, the demon behind the Hand. Daredevil eventually cracked and murdered the assassin Bullseye, falling under the Beast’s sway.

As to Angela, while the Tarantula had freed her from the Hand’s control, she became a Hand thrall again during a trip to Japan. She had been too far from Tarantula’s power for too long.

The three other daimyo of the Hand (overseeing Eurasia, Africa, and Japan), turned her into their secret agent to usher Daredevil’s descent.

These three lords were from the Snakeroot splinter cult. Their plot had always been to use Murdock as a tool to eliminate non-Snakeroot leaders within the Hand and facilitate the reign of the Beast. In particular, they had Angela backstab the Black Tarantula and throw him from a roof, though LaMuerto narrowly survived.

The White Tiger disappeared after Murdock and the Beast were seemingly destroyed. Her Snakeroot masters were destroyed at about the same time by the Ghost Rider. She has not been seen since those events.

The new shōgun of the Hand being Wilson Fisk aka the Kingpin it is possible that she joined him as one of his lieutenants (along with Lady Bullseye and Typhoid Mary) – or perhaps the amulets have managed to break the Hand conditioning at last.

A new White Tiger (Angela’s cousin Ava Ayala) wearing the amulets has since emerged. As of this update (Avengers Academy #39) there was no mention of Del Toro, the amulets work differently for Ava than for any of her predecessors; and how she got the talismans wasn’t explained.

Description

Originally she wore a costume with a black sweater, black gloves, black running pants and a black bandana with two holes for the eyes (similar to Iron Fist’s mask). While this was fairly logical outfit, it said ’burglar‘ and not ’superhero vigilante‘, which was a problem.

Her new, white costume appears to have been designed with input from the Black Widow (Natalia Romanova).

The Tigress’s eyes occasionally glow a disconcerting jade green, especially when she uses Hero Points . She has a very fit, toned body but retains strong curves. With the skintight white costume she wears, people often comment on her physique.

In her professional civvies, Del Toro tends to stick with the Federal dress code – in her case, a black fitted pantsuit and a dark red or plain white business shirt.

She usually wears her hair in a large knot on top of her head. Combined with her angular features this makes her look older and more severe than she is. When she wears her hair loose she looks almost 10 years younger*.

The co-director of 212, former fashion model Veronique, occasionally has Del Toro wear designer pantsuits in a attempt to ensure that not every single 212 employee in the field wears a stock black business suit.

* That’s my No-Prize explanation for Del Toro getting younger and more attractive every time a new artist draws her, and I’m sticking to it.

Personality

Angela Del Toro has long been interested in urban super-heroes. Paradoxically she was a friend of several famous New York crimefighters, yet unable to understand why vigilantes did what they did. This was especially true after the death of Hector Ayala, following his shameful trial after a life of sacrifice for the common good.

When she found herself holding the amulets, trying to understand vigilantes became the most important thing in her life. She was on the cusp of becoming one herself and is not the sort to rush in and think about it later (rush in to do *what*, anyway ?).

The amulets answered the question in their own way. They make her crave for action and fighting, and blunt the pain and damage. Going out and getting rough is a kick, and it satisfies her desire to serve and protect.

The occasional acclaim and gratitude are nice, too, though she clearly prefers to have the civilians out of the fracas and not taking any risk.

Angie is stubborn, hard-nosed, pugnacious, determined to achieve results – and vengeful. Yet she remains a professional cop and investigator with advanced degrees and excellent training and thus mixes technology, field work, subterfuge and people skills to gather actionable intelligence.

The street toughs she’ll just scatter and scare off (though she’s interested in informants), but on her real targets she’ll try to build a case.

The stubborn aspect of her personality might be less politely described as obsessive. Once she determined to see something done, she just keeps her teeth sunk into it no matter how much effort is expended trying to shake her off. This could easily lead to her taking excessive risk as she just won’t let go.

As the White Tiger, the flow of adrenaline makes her less professional, and she tends to be playful with her allies and defiant toward her enemies.

But even the amulets can’t improve her sense of humour much, and her prideful streak might actually be worse when she’s White Tiger. Serious cop lady is serious, and she tends to take jokes and banter somewhat literally (especially cop jokes. She doesn’t like cop jokes).

Friends and family are very important to Angie, perhaps in part because she doesn’t seem to have room for love in her busy life. She’s unusually close to her ginormous extended family and her buddies (such as Rand and Cage), making little difference between the two.

The Del Toro have a clan mentality, and this is now part of Angela’s nature – though she doesn’t want the family to know that she’s walking in the footsteps of tio Hector.

Though she’s a Puerto Rican New Yorker from the South Bronx, Angela has extensive exposure to traditional Japanese dojo culture, and to more modern and mainstream Japanese culture.

Beyond her taste in gadgets, this means that she considers Daredevil to be her sensei, which played an important role in her willingness to accompany him in the descent that led to Shadowland and its fall.

While friendship and respect are crucial for her, she has a strong independent streak. She keeps for herself a broad perimeter for her private life and to be alone.

This somewhat cat-like behaviour is closer to that of a big cat than a house cat, though. She doesn’t like people intruding on her territory, has a clear maverick tendency, and can display a very aggressive temper when things become personal.

While she’s an ex-cop she doesn’t eat a lot of donuts. That’s a really tired clich&eacute. She eats a lot of bagels instead.

Quotes

(As Angela, in a bad mood, after mauling an armed thug in the street for assaulting a homeless man) “I just moved into the neighborhood. This kind of thing makes me cranky.” (to the homeless man) “Do me a favour. Pass the word. I see guys like that, I’ll start breaking bones.”

White Tiger: (Trying her costume for the first time) “I can’t wear anything this *tight* !” (pause) “How do I pee in this ?”
Black Widow: “You don’t.”
Li Ling Potter: “Pee after. Think dry thoughts.”
White Tiger (increasingly hesitant): “Won’t I sweat like a perra in this ?”

Tough guy: “Holy shit ! It’s her, it’s the mutie —!”
White Tiger: “Superhuman, estupido ! I’m a superhuman !”

(Manhandling a criminal) “Last chance, puto. Where do you connect with Sano ?”

“Eddie’s gang carries paper for Sano. Paper for Chaeyi. I need to find out who they were taking that paper to. And I need the name of Sano’s supplier. For that I need Sano. Sano isn’t a sidetrack. He got 99 years for killing an F.B.I. agent in broad daylight. Cop killers don’t walk, ever !”

“I am not at liberty to discuss an investigation that is still underway, sir.”

“Who’s your connection, yakuza boy ? Who gave you those blank documents ?”

(Annoyed by Spider-Man’s banter) “Cop-and-donut jokes stopped being funny in the last century.”

Rey Del Toro: “You’re good with kids, Angie. You should…”
Angela: “Don’t you start !”

“The ’fair and balanced‘ [Daily] Bugle, my rosy red tuchas. I bag gunrunners and the paper bills me as cheesecake !”

(Recounting a dream she had while spending 3 days in a regenerative trance) “Tio Hector talked to me… He… hugged me and said he was proud of me…”

“Orii-san, you cannot bring my partner, agent Driver, back from the dead. We will never agree on this. Whatever happens, happens, old yakuza.”

By Sébastien Andrivet.

Source of Character: Marvel Universe.

Helper(s): Kal El, Roy Cowan, Ethan Roe, Darci, Mike Davis.

Writeup updated on the 31^st of May, 2011.