Invincible boss teases season 4’s "completely original" story in major change from comics

Along with the Viltrumite War arc and the long-awaited debut of Dinosaurus, Invincible season 4 will see the return of a character in a change from the comics that's 'completely original to the show'. In preparation for the big reveal, series co-showrunners and executive producers Robert Kirkman and Simon Racioppa, have given us a tease about its great importance.

In season 1 of Invincible, demon detective Damien Darkblood was part of the show’s initial storyline about investigating Omni-Man (Nolan Grayson) as the prime suspect for murdering the Guardians of the Globe.

His part in the television adaptation ended a bit differently compared to the comics. In the show, Cecil sent him back to Hell to stop him from interfering with his own plans; originally, Darkblood was more of a gag character in the comics, and naturally disappeared from the story once Omni-Man's guilt was revealed.

Years after a slight tease during a post-credits scene of his final season 1 episode, and confirmation with a new scene at the end of season 3 where he speaks to Satan, Damien Darkblood will be making his Invincible return in season 4 — via a new storyline that’s completely original to the show.

As gathered from snippets of Invincible’s season 4 trailers so far, Darkblood’s new story seems to be set in Hell — it appears that we'll see him don intimidating armour to take on a powerful enemy, and pull Mark Grayson into the fray.

When asking Kirkman and Racioppa about how this will affect and fit in with the Viltrumite War Arc — the main plot of season 4 — both were keen to share that this wasn’t skippable content, and is still important to the show, both for comic fans and those who only know Invincible through the series.

"We always change things and enhance things and lengthen stories and shorten stories, so there’s a lot of big differences in this show. But to have something that's completely original and completely new, you know, hasn't happened a lot in the series up to this point," Kirkman said.

"And so this is something that you know is wholly original to the show. And I think that's going to be really cool, how it fits into the story, and how it weaves into the overall tapestry of the Viltrumite War. You'll just have to find out."

To hone in on the importance of this new storyline, despite not being featured in the comics, Racioppa added: "But we can promise you there's no episode of Invincible that you can skip. Everything's connected. Everything affects our characters. Everything changes the story as it goes forward. So it's definitely an important episode in the season."

If the last seasons are anything to go by, both Kirkman’s and Racippa's words will definitely run true. Thanks to the comic’s original creator being so involved with the series adaptation, appropriate adjustments that improve the storytelling but still hold true to the source material can easily be made.

For instance, Nolan and Debbie’s relationship in season 1 was given much more weight before the big fight between Omni-Man and Mark — giving the fallout a far larger impact at the time and in later seasons.

Even recently, gender-swapping Shrinking Rae for the show, changing her fate to survive her original death by the Lizard League’s Komodo Dragon, ended up becoming one of the best changes, thanks to her new character development shown in season 3.

Despite season 4 going deeper into some of the comic’s bigger and wackier stories; Dinosaurus, Universa, the preparation for the Viltrumuite War with the Coalation of Planets; if anyone could make an extra story about Damien Darkblood fit into an already packed bunch of episodes, it's Kirkman and Racioppa.

Invincible season 3 is available to stream in full now on Prime Video – you can sign up now for a free 30-day Prime Video trial.

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