Leila Taylor is a forthright social activist who advocates for equal rights and writes for the Daily Bugle. She uses her voice and smarts to call out racism when she sees it no matter the risk to herself.
An Unsung Hero
At heart a social activist, Leila cares deeply about her Harlem neighborhood and calls out injustice at every opportunity. When vigilante hero Sam Wilson, AKA Falcon, hangs up his wings to become a social worker in Harlem, she approaches him at his office. Leila encourages him to be a hero again, suggesting she knows his alter-ego identity, and that Harlem and their people didn’t need handouts.
Daily Bugle Columnist
Leila has a knack for discovering the truth and puts her investigative skills to good use as a reporter for the Daily Bugle.
Hidden From the Public Eye
Leila's association with the Falcon often gets her into hot waters, such as when she's taken hostage by the criminal Stoneface and Dimension Zero’s Night People. The latter of which use her to get to the Falcon. Some of the Night People brainwash her and the Falcon to be heroes for them to fight a monstrous threat to their world.
When Leila finds incriminating evidence against the rogue admiral James Westbrook of the United States Navy who associates himself with the Rivas drug cartel, she ends up imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay.
Close Friends and Column Colleagues
Leila becomes the Falcon’s on-again, off-again girlfriend. Their romance influences him to focus more on minorities in need and he parts ways with his partner Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America, for a time to serve Harlem. Though his heroic career often lands Leila into trouble and she gets kidnapped and used as bait to lure the Falcon out. When they’re off, Leila sees other people and sometimes Sam gets jealous.
Leila finds a mentor in reporter and eventual chief editor Joseph “Robbie” Robertson when she works at the Daily Bugle.
The Hard News
Leila joined the Falcon on a trip to the African kingdom of Wakanda where she met T’Challa, AKA Black Panther. Though she felt quite bored by the lack of action and so T’Challa sent her with escorts to explore the markets in Lagos, Nigeria. While shopping, Stoneface—a criminal who formerly ran the Harlem rackets but was busted by Falcon—appeared and recognized her. Seeing an opportunity to get back at Falcon, he had his cronies shoot and kill her escorts and took her hostage. When Flacon and Black Panther got word, they rushed to her rescue. Falcon used his new and improved glider-wings and with the Panther’s help, saved Leila from her captor.
After Brothers Harmony and Peach Pie of the Night People overheard Leila talking to the Falcon, they kidnapped her, taking her to Zero Street in hopes to lure the Falcon to help them defeat the monster terrorizing their realm, Dimension Zero. After Brother Inquisitor questioned Leila, nuclear physicist Abner Doolittle, AKA Brother Wonderful’s dimension scanner located the Falcon as he frantically sought to rescue Leila, and Doolittle opened a dimensional portal in front of him. The surprised Falcon arrived in Zero Street and was gassed, bound, and brought before Brother Inquisitor. Doolittle then used the electro-shock therapy machine to brainwash the Falcon and Leila into joining the Night People, as Brother Super-Hero and Sister Sweet.
Captain America and wealthy millionaire “Texas Jack” Muldoon—who had been searching for the Falcon and investigating the former ZeroStreet in Manhattan—leapt through a dimensional portal, one being tested by Doolittle, and arrived on Zero Street in Dimension Zero. Cap helped send Falcon, Leila and Jack back home to Earth and manipulated Brother Inquisitor and Doolittle to reveal a destruct device to prevent use of the machine. Cap saved them and convinced the remaining Night People to flee to Earth, after which he activated the destruct device, sealing the portal to Dimension Zero.
The Night People arrived back in Manhattan, where most were gathered by the NYPD since they had been visiting Earth regularly and thieving. Doolittle and Brother Inquisitor were remanded into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody for containment and therapy. The brainwashing effects on Leila and the Falcon were reversed by S.H.I.E.L.D. scientist Dr. Daniel Hartman.
Leila joined the staff at the Daily Bugle as a columnist. While there, she and reporter Joe Robertson helped Falcon and Captain America subvert rogue U.S. naval operations supervised by Admiral Jimmy Westbrook in cooperation with the Rivas drug cartel. The Office of Naval Intelligence (ONI) requested that S.H.I.E.L.D. leak word of ONI’s involvement with the Rivas drug cartel in a bio-weapons project. Ever the reporter, Leila investigated the rumor and attempted to smuggle out a sample of ONI’s research, a virus based on the DNA of the telepathic madman M.O.D.O.K., only to be arrested by U.S. forces in Cuba and taken to a Guantanamo Bay prison. Taylor’s friend, the vigilante Falcon, broke her out of prison, prompting ONI’s rogue operative to emerge from hiding to pursue them. This was just as S.H.I.E.L.D. had intended. The operative, dressed in Captain America’s uniform and dubbed Anti-Cap, confronted the hero at the Rivas estate and killed druglord Manuel Rivas. He then flew with both Falcon and Taylor to the U.S., only for them to escape when the plane crashed. The Anti-Cap tracked them again but was captured by the true Captain America (Rogers) after an excruciating battle.
