WARNING: This article contains MAJOR SPOILERS for the latest episode of Daredevil: Born Again! Continue reading at your own risk… There were a lot of reasons to be excited about Daredevil: Born Again, most of them involving the returns of beloved characters from the Netflix Defenders franchise. There was also the knowledge that Born Again would mark the live-action debut of popular Marvel hero White Tiger, who fits in seamlessly to the street-level action of Daredevil. Unfortunately, Hector Ayala’s potential was largely wasted, as his entire on-screen life in the MCU was devoted to pushing the story of Daredevil forward.
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The first three episodes of Daredevil: Born Again followed the story of Matt Murdock defending Hector Ayala, who was accused of murdering a police officer after he stopped two dirty cops from beating up an innocent man on a subway platform. In the third episode, Murdock and Ayala won the case, largely due to the public reveal that Ayala was operating as the White Tiger. After the case was won, Ayala donned his mask and mystical amulet once again, and headed out onto the streets to try to help others. He was gunned down in cold blood.
There are opportunities for there to be a new White Tiger in the MCU, with Hector’s niece or sister potentially taking over the mantle moving forward. That would be great, but it doesn’t change the fact that Hector Ayala will never get the chance to make a real impact for Marvel moving forward.
White Tiger, a powerful character who can fight with the best of them and has a really exciting skill set, didn’t even get to show off his abilities in Daredevil: Born Again. The only real fight scenes featuring White Tiger on the show are grainy cell phone or security videos (which admittedly still looked better than Daredevil’s ugly bout with Bullseye in the premiere). There could have and should have been much better fight scenes with White Tiger.
The most unfortunate part of the situation is that the actor behind Hector Ayala is no longer with us. Kamar de los Reyes died of cancer in 2023, after shooting his part in Daredevil: Born Again. He was a perfect fit for the role, bringing a empathetic gravitas to Hector that made him a wildly relatable character who has been very easy to root for. Even if Marvel decided to turn back the clock a little bit and explore Hector’s story prior to the events of Born Again, the studio would have to recast the character, and that would be a real bummer after seeing what Reyes was able to do.
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Again, there are going to be opportunities for another White Tiger in the future, and it would be awesome to see them come to fruition. But Hector Ayala is such a fantastic character in his own right, and Daredevil: Born Again largely wasted his potential.
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