After the finale of Daredevil: Born Again Season 2, most people were talking about Matt Murdock or Wilson Fisk, but I couldn’t stop thinking about White Tiger.
White Tiger has been around in Marvel Comics for decades and is often cited as one of the earliest Latino superheroes in U.S. comic book history. Even with that legacy, the character has never really been given the same level of attention in Marvel’s live-action universe as a lot of its bigger names. The version I grew up with was from Marvel’s Ultimate Spider-Man, a show I watched constantly when I was younger, and White Tiger was a big part of why I kept tuning in. At the time, seeing a Latino character like that still felt like something you didn’t get very often.
That’s part of why Daredevil: Born Again stood out to me this season.
Season 1 introduces Hector Ayala, played by Kamar de los Reyes, as one of the street-level heroes in New York. Season 2 then shifts into his young niece, Angela Del Toro, played by Camila Rodríguez, taking on the White Tiger mantle. Her storyline isn’t always front and center in terms of screen time, but I kept thinking about it after the season ended.
A lot of that comes down to how her story is set up. Angela is dealing with the death of her uncle while also trying to figure out what it actually means to take on something he left behind. The show doesn’t frame her becoming White Tiger as an easy transition – she has a lot of work to do to take it on.
As the season moves forward, she ends up working alongside Daredevil and others as bad guy Wilson Fisk tightens his control over New York via his Anti-Vigilante Task Force. On paper, they’re supposed to bring order to the city and deal with masked heroes. In practice, they’re more about intimidation and taking control over neighborhoods through any means.
And it’s hard not to think about real-world parallels there. The way the task force operates and the language around “order” and “safety” connect pretty directly to conversations about immigration enforcement today and how certain communities get labeled as threats. In the show, you see that connection in how the Task Force harasses people in targeted neighborhoods, even putting some in cages, as we see in our real world.
Angela’s story sits right inside that echo. White Tiger’s dealing with this political violence and the chaos it causes in real time while also trying to process losing her uncle. The pressure is building around her, and most of her choices this season come from trying to respond to it, whether she’s helping rescue folks, getting pulled into larger fights, or showing up at a protest against Fisk at City Hall.
While she’s not the marquee character, Angela steals the show in the time she’s given. With Season 3 already greenlit, I’m hoping she gets more character development because her arc this season left me wanting more.
That also ties into something bigger Daredevil: Born Again brushes up against. Latina superheroes have been part of comics for a long time, but in mainstream storytelling, they still don’t consistently get the space or focus that other characters do. They appear, but a lot of the time, the story doesn’t stay with them, especially powerhouse franchises such as Marvel.
That’s why Angela Del Toro’s version of White Tiger feels important here – it’s a step toward something that could be bigger if the character is allowed to take up more space.
Looking forward, Angela fits into what Marvel is building with younger heroes like Kate Bishop, Ms. Marvel, and America Chavez (another Latina superhero) – White Tiger would be a natural part of that group. Whether she gets the chance to keep developing or gets a bigger role is still an open question, but Camila Rodríguez’s Angela Del Toro is definitely someone worth paying attention to.
