White Tiger: A Hero’s Compulsion collects issues 1-6 of the miniseries written by Tamora Pierce and Timothy Liebe with art by Phil Briones, Alvaro Rio, and Ronaldo Adriano Silva, inks by Don Hillsman, colors by Chris Sotomayor, letters by Rus Wooton, and cover art by David Mack. The story picks up prior to the events of Marvel Civil War, with FBI agent Angela Del Toro dealing with the tragic killing of her uncle, Hector Ayala – the White Tiger. She receives his enchanted amulets and taps into the same source of his power while processing the fallout from her FBI partner’s murder, which torpedoed her career, and the arrest of Matt Murdock, her former mentor. Now she must hunt for Chaeyi – a shadowy organization within the criminal underworld with connections to the Yakuza and Russian mafia – while picking up the pieces of her former life and adjusting to her new abilities. The story features cameos from some of Marvel’s street-level heroes, including Black Widow, Daredevil, Spider-Man, Luke Cage, Danny Rand, and more. Pierce’s inclusion of Luke Cage and Iron Fist is particularly poignant as it helps ground the new White Tiger in continuity since her uncle, the original White Tiger, fought alongside Power Man and Iron Fist. While at times this story requires a familiarity with the events following House of M and leading to Civil War, Pierce’s great character writing drives the narrative and makes the new White Tiger a welcome addition to the Marvel canon. ( )

This is the first superhero book I have ever read with a real hispanic hero. As an added bonuse, she is a tough girl. Angela has a huge family (which is impressive when the reader considers how many members of her family she has recently lost) that supports her, and there are several cameos from some familiar super hero faces. In this origin tale Angela gets her uncle's amulet and becomes a female White Tiger. With her mentor in prison and her uncle dead, she is getting her feet wet at becoming her own super hero. ( )

The sixth and final issue of this limited series finally was released this week, so I took the opportunity to read all six issues as one story (I don't have the actual trade paperback just the individual comics). When I fist started reading these I thought they were just ok, but they grew on me and I think I definitely got more out of them reading the arc as a whole. The art was good - nothing spectacular, but nothing drew my attention away from the story particularly either. Mostly this came across as sort of a standard beginning superhero story although there were definitely some nice Pierce in jokes. I do find myself wondering where they're going to take White Tiger next particularly since her next supervillain encounter has already been set up. ( )

Not bad. I know just enough about the Civil War arc and Daredevil that I didn't feel lost, but this certainly isn't one to pick up without having had some exposure to those two things. I didn't feel the lack of not having read previous White Tiger comics, so the writer did a good job on that end. The action was fine, and any characters I didn't recognize were mentioned or described to the point where I wasn't too lost. ( )

Merideth says: After inheriting mystical amulets from an uncle, former FBI Agent, Angela del Toro reluctantly takes on the role of costumed hero , with the help of allies old and new.

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I did. Tamora Pierce is one of my Top 5 authors, and I was excited to see what she'd do with a superhero character. Unfortunately, this book is too tangled up in Marvel continuity to tell a compelling story. There are flashes of Pierce here -- Del Toro is a strong woman, with mystical aid, willing to work hard to master a greater force and serve as a hero -- however, whenever the story starts to breathe a little bit, we're dragged right back into the convoluted backstory of the Marvel Universe. The art is average, if slightly less cheesecakey than other Marvel offerings. All in all, a disappointment. ( )