Hurm

Crushed by guilt over his recent brutality and afraid he is turning into Omni-Man, Mark brings his dark suit back to Art Rosenbaum's shop. Art assures him that feeling such guilt is the surest sign he is not his father at all, then unveils a reworked take on the old yellow-and-blue outfit. Far below, in the Underrealm, House Darkblood is losing its war to Volcanikka, a flame-headed magma ruler whose regeneration lets her explode Damien's warrior sister Domina into pieces. Damien hauls her remains before the Great Beast, their father, who has dwindled to a feeble Satan.

Lacking the strength to raise his fallen kin, Satan looks on as Damien tries a fallback ritual, spending a saved sample of Nolan's blood in a bid to summon him. The casting goes wrong and drags Mark down instead. In his tomb, meanwhile, the long-caged Ka-Hor sheds his old prejudices at last and seizes the human Riley as a host, walking free only to discover he is powerless and stuck on foot in the open desert.

After nearly striking Satan by mistake, Mark hears Damien out and learns that Cecil exorcised the detective back here and that Volcanikka had stolen the throne. Damien wants the Molten Crown recovered so Satan can regain his monstrous shape, and Mark signs on with one rule: no needless harm to anyone. The two survive an absurdly long drop down a subterranean shaft, beat back the hellhound Cerberus, and plunge into a battle scored to heavy metal. When Volcanikka once more crushes the revived Darkblood Clan, Mark steps forward and pounds her until she dissolves into nothing, her parting threat being that she can never truly die. A last rush by a pack called the Vial is smashed apart, locking in the clan's survival and Satan's reclaimed reign.

On the surface, Eve admits to William that she is pregnant, feels wholly unready to be a mother, and has kept the news from Mark; he gently pushes her to finally tell him. Mark himself comes back up with clearer eyes, pulls on the upgraded yellow-and-blue costume, and heads home, where Debbie shares that she intends to move in with Paul. Just as Eve braces to reveal her pregnancy on the rooftop, Nolan and Allen touch down to declare that war has come. This is the season's fourth entry and the twenty-eighth in the whole run, an original Damien Darkblood tale first devised for the comics; it retires the dark suit for good, sending the hero back into classic yellow-and-blue, and it stands as the lowest-rated chapter the series has aired.