Tao (comics) - Powers and Abilities

Powers and Abilities

Tao's abilities are ill-defined, his fellow WildC.A.Ts had no idea how to describe them. First and foremost Tao is superhumanly intelligent, especially when it comes to predicting and manipulating human behaviour. His inhuman perception allows him to see a persons deepest secrets and flaws after a few glancing moments or a conversation. Scientists working on the TAO project found that even speaking briefly with him was dangerous. He always seems to be a step ahead of everybody else. People are like pawns on a chess board which he moves around with ease, always multiple steps ahead of others. Words are his most dangerous weapon, allowing him to subtly apply psychological pressure, he can quickly manipulate people, forcing them to do what he wants or erasing specific memories. At one point he is shown completely undermining Stormwatch-member Fuji's self-confidence, rendering him nearly catatonic merely by having a short conversation with him. He has single handedly taken control of the WildC.A.T.S and Stormwatch as a personal army for a brief time. Upon discovery of this neither the WildC.A.T.S nor Stormwatch were able to stop him due to his exit strategy already in place. In an issue of Gen¹³, he was described as having the ability to completely control a victim's sense of logic.

Physically Tao doesn't seem to be much of a threat, though he has shown agility and some knowledge of martial arts as when he took out an entire squad of BLACK RAZOR spec ops agents by himself within seconds. Usually Tao manipulates circumstances so that he has no need to fight. Tao's ability to manipulate others not only allows for a personal army to fight for him, but rarely do his enemies find themselves able to lift a finger against him. More often than not anyone fighting him is stopped by Tao taking advantage of a weakness, or his enemies find it too costly to attack him. Holden Carver subdued Tao by removing his tongue.