White Panther/Tiger/Wolf
- First Appearance:
- Hunter – Black Panther (Vol. 3) #4 (December 1998)
- Kevin Cole – Black Panther (Vol. 3) #50 (December 2002)
- Ava Ayala – Avengers Academy #20 (October 2011)
- Created By:
- Hunter – Christopher Priest, Mark Texeira
- Kevin Cole – Christopher Priest, Dan Fraga
- Ava Ayala – Christos N. Gage, Tom Raney
The story of the White Panther, White Tiger, and White Wolf is a bit complicated. They each have different origins, truthfully. At one point, T’Challa’s adopted brother Hunter takes on the White Wolf codename. White Tiger is a former protege of Kraven the Hunter named Ava Ayala who gets her abilities from an amulet. White Panther was a former police officer named Kevin “Kasper” Cole who eventually appeared as a white suit version of Black Panther. He is never able to be as good as T’Challa due to not consuming the herb all Panthers consume. This is only for Black Panthers, yet he needs to have it.
Killmonger offers him a synthetic version, which he only does if Cole drops the White Panther name. He then becomes “White Tiger.” As you can imagine, this is very complicated. It is widely assumed due to the real-life death of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman, T’Challa’s sister Shuri will be the new Black Panther. Yet there have also been plans to introduce Hunter, which further complicates things. As Bucky Barnes has taken on the White Wolf codename. Thus, we could see Hunter but as the White Panther instead. They could also introduce White Tiger down the line for Cole or Ava.