Spirit of the Tao

Spirit of the Tao is a comic published by Top Cow Productions. The story focused on Jasmine and Lance, the two most recent incarnations of the Spirit of the Tao. Whenever the earth is threatened by its own life forms the Spirit of the Tao is summoned to kill off the harmful species and return the planet to peace. Humanity was branded such a threat before, but then, as now, a force known as the Tao Hunters appeared to defend humanity and destroy the Tao.

When Jasmine and Lance were attacked by the Tao Hunters their powers were awakened, covering their limbs in hard scales and talons. They could also summon small dragon heads on tentacle necks that attack foes around them. So too was Jasmine's rage awakened, and she attacked any humans in her way, adversaries or otherwise. When cornered Jasmine and Lance combined their powers, forming a massive green serpent that destroyed all of San Francisco before being dispelled by a secret division of the US military.

Following the incident in San Francisco Lance became overcome with guilt while Jasmine became more and more convinced that humanity had to be destroyed. They eventually ended up in in Artantica on opposite sides of a fight over the Dragon Ashes, a substance that would allow the Spirit of the Tao to eradicate humanity. Unfortunately for them a third party, an artificial Tao, claimed the ashes instead, and immediately went mad and attempted to destroy all life. While trying to stop the raging artificial Tao the Tao Hunters also appeared and revealed their true form: that of alien scavengers who feed on the carrion of dead planets. Their goal was always to destroy the Tao so that the planet would be unable to heal itself.

Summoning up all their power, the Spirit of the Tao managed to destroy the Tao Hunters, but the battle left the planet scarred. Human civilization was destroyed, and humans, what few of them remained, had to learn to live together with the remaining animals and the new life that was created to fill the void. Jasmine and Lance both survived, and lived as normal humans after their powers were passed down to their daughter.