Who Is Hector Ayala in Daredevil: Born Again? MCU White Tiger, Explained

[Warning: This article contains spoilers from Daredevil: Born Again season 1 episode 2, “Optics.”] “We all have many sides. Good, bad, it’s not that simple,” blind lawyer Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) says in Daredevil: Born Again. “The only difference between hero and villain, salvation and destruction, is which side you’re on.” But there’s no shades of gray with neighborhood hero Hector Ayala (Kamar de Los Reyes), who moonlights as the masked vigilante White Tiger.

The Puerto Rican superhero made his Marvel Cinematic Universe debut in Tuesday night’s two-episode series premiere of Daredevil: Born Again, first on surveillance camera busting up a bodega robbery on television as White Tiger and then as Hector, a pro bono client of the law firm Murdock & McDuffie.

Episode 2 (which opens with a dedication to the late de Los Reyes) sees Matt take on Hector’s case after he’s arrested and accused of killing a New York City police officer. But the alleged cop killer was a Good Samaritan: Hector intervened when he saw Nicky Torres (Nick Jordan) taking a beating on New Year’s Eve. Unfortunately for Hector, the assailants turned out to be NYPD Officers Powell (Hamish Allan-Headley) and Shanahan (Jefferson Cox), with the latter taking an accidental tumble into the path of a passing subway train.

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“All I was trying to do was help a guy out,” Hector tells Matt, his case hinging on finding the witness that Hector saved on the platform. The incident occurred as newly-elected Mayor Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) decried rampant vigilantism, taking aim at the city’s vigilantes like White Tiger, the Punisher, Spider-Man, and the disappeared Daredevil.

“It’s the first time we’re seeing White Tiger on screen. I’m very excited about it,” executive producer Sana Amanat told ComicBook. “Kamar de los Reyes, who we lost, unfortunately, after filming ended, was just an incredible force. And we really hope that people will love him and love what he brought to [the role].” (The actor died at age 56 in 2023 shortly after being diagnosed with cancer.)

After Matt’s private investigator Cherry (Clark Johnson) discovers that the decorated Army veteran and 15-year CPA leads a secret double-life as a vigilante, the question is: Who is the White Tiger?

Hector Ayala debuted in the final pages of 1975’s Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #19, Marvel’s martial arts magazine featuring the likes of Shang-Chi, Iron Fist, and the Sons of the Tiger.

El Tigre Blanco: The Time of the White Tiger

Between black-and-white pullout sections about Bruce Lee and features on martial arts techniques like kung fu, judo, jujutsu, aikido, and taekwondo, the Gerry Conway-penned and Dick Giordano-drawn Sons of the Tiger strip saw the students of slain Master Kee — Lin Sun, Abe Brown, and Bob Diamond — become the Sons of the Tiger. Each received a talisman: a Jade Tiger head amulet and two tiger claws, which originated in the mystical city of K’un-Lun long defended by the living weapon Iron Fist.

The mystical tiger-shaped amulets grant their wearer enhanced strength, speed, durability, stamina, agility, and reflexes. In Deadly Hands of Kung Fu #19’s Sons of the Tiger backup story (by writers Bill Mantlo and Yvette O. Perez and artists George Perez and Jack Abel), titled “An Ending,” the trio disbanded and discarded their amulets. It was the beginning for Hector Ayala, the then-unnamed young man who found the amulets and was immediately transformed into a martial arts master: the White Tiger.

Deadly Hands #20’s Sons of the Tiger story featured White Tiger, who was first introduced as Hector Ayala. After his first outing as White Tiger ended with a young boy’s accidental death at the hands of a security guard, Hector removed the amulet and had no memory of the night’s events beyond finding the amulets. (When not wearing the amulets, Hector would become sick, suffering nausea and other withdrawal symptoms.)

Who Is the White Tiger: Hero or Menace?

Issue #20 ended with Hector’s arrest after the White Tiger was a suspect in a gang killing — an incident he had no memory of (a side effect that Born Again eschews). The amulet compelled Hector to trigger his transformation into White Tiger, who evaded the police and then encountered his first costumed opponent: Hobie Brown, the Prowler, from the pages of Amazing Spider-Man.

White Tiger was innocent of the crime of which he was accused, and after a tussle with the Prowler, he was cleared of killing Manny Lopez when the security guard confessed to manslaughter. Although he continued to black out, Hector prowled the South Bronx as the White Tiger and eventually learned of his own alter-ego.

Dubbed “Marvel’s most controversial creation,” Hector’s White Tiger made his first-ever appearance in a color comic in 1977’s Peter Parker, The Spectacular Spider-Man #9, after The Daily Bugle questioned whether the white-clad vigilante was hero or menace. Hector would go on to fight alongside Shang-Chi, Iron Fist, and Spider-Man, until Colonel Gideon Mace — an enemy of Luke Cage, Harlem’s hero for hire — had Hector’s family killed in the wake of his secret identity being exposed by the villain Lightmaster (in Spectacular #20).

Mace and his Hero Killers planned to exterminate New York City’s costumed superheroes, starting with White Tiger. He was lured into a trap and gunned down by Mace, who had Hector’s body dumped in front of The Daily Bugle. The amulet saved Hector’s life, but after his family’s murder, he relinquished the amulets and left New York with his girlfriend, Holly Gillis.

Hector Ayala: Super Hero Cop Killer?

After Hector retired as the White Tiger, he wouldn’t appear again until 2002’s Daredevil #38 by writer Brian Michael Bendis (a consulting producer on Daredevil: Born Again) and artist Manuel Gutierrez. In that issue, Heroes for Hire Luke Cage and Danny Rand asked Matt Murdock to defend Hector after he was labeled a “super hero cop killer” in the press.

But Matt — who was dealing with his own legal troubles after a tabloid outed his secret identity as Daredevil — initially turned down representing Hector. Two days after returning as the White Tiger, Hector was accused of killing a police officer shot dead during a pawn shop robbery. Hector was arrested when White Tiger was found at the scene of the crime while trying to capture the real killers.

Matt and his associate, Foggy Nelson, met with Hector at Ryker’s Island, where Matt’s heightened senses detected no lies as Hector claimed innocence. Meanwhile, Luke and Danny tracked down the gang members responsible for the cop killing, while Matt and Foggy had members of the superhero community testify on Hector’s behalf when the Trial of the White Tiger took place in Daredevil #39-#40.

But when a jury found Hector guilty as charged in the murder of Officer Perkins, Hector panicked, attacked a bailiff, stole his gun, and fled the courtroom. Hector was then shot dead by the police on the courthouse steps.

In the end, it wasn’t Matt Murdock who got justice for the innocent Hector Ayala, but Daredevil, who tracked down the real cop killer and had him confess his crime to the police.

New episodes of Daredevil: Born Again premiere Tuesdays on Disney+.