Angela Del Toro has always been called to the lawful side of justice, having worked within the NYPD and the FBI until she inherits her family’s legacy from her Uncle Hector, AKA White Tiger. She takes up his heroic mantel and becomes one with the amulet’s Tiger God, resisting its violent desires, and fights for justice as a vigilante.
Heroic Legacy
Angela Del Toro grows up as part of a large extended family who almost all study martial arts, choose a law enforcement career or both. Angela's Uncle Hector even becomes a Super Hero as the White Tiger. Wearing a necklace of mystical amulets composed of the fragments of an enchanted Jade Tiger statue from the fabled kingdom of K’un-Lun, Hector uses their power as an urban vigilante, befriending fellow heroes such as Matt Murdock, AKA Daredevil, Peter Parker, AKA Spider-Man, Luke Cage, and Danny Rand, AKA Iron Fist. Cage and Rand sometimes babysit young Angela as her "Uncle Luke" and "Uncle Danny." In her youth, she is a competitive martial artist, and grows up to serve with the NYPD for four years before becoming an FBI Special Agent.
After suffering personal tragedies stemming from public exposure of his secret identity, Hector retires his costumed guise for years. When the White Tiger finally returns, he is wrongly accused of murder and convicted despite the efforts of his lawyer, Matt Murdock. Trying to escape, a despairing Hector is shot dead shortly before new evidence belatedly proves his innocence.
Around the time of Hector's death, the FBI targets Matt Murdock, determined to prove that Murdock was Daredevil and to prosecute him for illegal vigilante activities. Angela volunteers to serve with the FBI's Daredevil task force, partly because she hopes studying Murdock would help her understand what motivated her uncle's lifestyle. Her curiosity becomes more urgent when Hector’s amulets are handed down to her, and an overwhelmed Angela asks Murdock to help her decide what to do with them. When she offers to quit the FBI in exchange for Murdock's guidance, he sees her sincerity and engages the amulet-empowered Angela in some rooftop sparring as Daredevil, then leads her to a convenience store robbery in progress which she foils single-handedly. Touched by the shopkeeper's awestruck gratitude, Angela finally understands her new calling.
Ancient Tiger Amulets
The White Tiger amulets—three mystical, glowing jade carvings shaped like a tiger's head and paws—augment Angela’s strength, speed, stamina, durability, agility, reflexes and recuperative powers to slightly superhuman levels, and also enhance her martial arts skills.
She can lift 1 ton, she heals rapidly. For example, a broken limb can heal within 10 days and she can recover from a fatal dose of poison within 3 days. She can further accelerate her healing by applying her amulets directly to an afflicted part of herself. She only requires 2 hours' sleep a night.
She can camouflage herself and her White Tiger costume so that they blend invisibly into the background. Her costume's highly durable fabric breathes like skin, absorbs bodily chemicals and regulates her body temperature.
More in tune with the amulets and in control of them than her late Uncle Hector, she resists the amulets' tendency to compel their wearer to seek violent action.
Angela is multilingual, fluent in Japanese, Spanish and English. She is a trained investigator, a good shot with firearms and a formidable unarmed combatant with a lifetime of martial arts training.
Corrupt Influences
Angela is slain by Lady Bullseye so that the Hand, a ninja cult, can resurrect her as a slave. She does their bidding and even tries to slay her own kin, another bearer of the Jade Tiger amulets, until she is freed from their hold.
A Family of White Tigers
Angela comes from the family Ayala, raised by her parents, Awilda “Willi” Ayala-Del Toro and Mr. Del Toro. She is niece to Hector Ayala, who leaves her the Jade Tiger amulets. Though most of her family is slain by Gideon Mace’s cronies, her aunt Ava survives and becomes the White Tiger after Angela’s death by Lady Bullseye. Though when she returns as a slave to the Hand, it is her aunt Ava that frees her from their corrupting hold.
Angela allies with the vigilante Daredevil, and later serves as his lieutenant in the Hand alongside the re-formed criminal Carlos LaMuerto, AKA Black Tarantula. Possessing healing abilities, Carlos tries to help free Angela from the control of the Hand when they brainwash her. She also teams up with veteran heroes Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow, Iron Fist, Spider-Man, and Luke Cage.
Vigilante Justice
Operating as a plainclothes vigilante at first, she rescued Murdock from ex-crimelord Alexander Bont and his reluctant henchman Melvin Potter, AKA Gladiator, and clashed repeatedly with organized crime figures from the Chaeyi and Yakuza gangs, notably Chaeyi mercenary Piet Voorhees, AKA Cobra, and the Yakuza's Sano Orii, who had killed Del Toro's FBI partner Harold Driver and ultimately killed himself.
Quitting the FBI in protest over Murdock's mistreatment, she joined private security firm 212 Security, who soon learned of her double identity and approved of it. During this time, she also survived a venomous attack from Klaus Voorhees, AKA King Cobra, and worked alongside a vigilante impersonating Daredevil, who she later discovered was Danny Rand, Spider-Man, Luke Cage and Black Widow. She also battled Curtis Connors, AKA Lizard.
She was later slain by Lady Bullseye so the Hand ninja cult could mystically resurrect Del Toro as their servant, but reformed super-criminal Black Tarantula, freed Angela from their control. LaMuerto and Del Toro have since served as lieutenants and confidants to Matt Murdock, who has assumed leadership of the Hand and begun trying to use its resources for good.
Though Angela was not truly freed from the Hand’s control and acted as a spy for the Snakeroot Clan. The clan used The Beast, a demonic entity, to possess Matt Murdock and as such, he became murderous, while Angela kept other Super Heroes from seeing him, and even threatened Foggy Nelson and Dakota North for trying to contact Matt. She also stabs Carlos in the back. Angela is finally subdued by Master Izo.
Though imprisoned, Angela met the Maker, an alternate-reality version of Reed Richards, AKA Mister Fantastic, who offered her revenge against her Aunt Ava Ayala who had taken up the White Tiger mantel. The Maker gifted Angela Amulets of Power from an alternate universe, and she used them to attack Ava. In doing so, Ava’s Tiger God merged with Angela’s making her more powerful. Angela then joined the New Revengers and with the group attacked the headquarters of Ava’s team, Avenger Base Two. Mid-battle, Ava swiped the amulets from her aunt which finally released Angela from the Hand and the control of the White Tiger Gods. Together, they fought the New Revengers and worked on other missions until Ava retired and convinced Angela to do so as well.
