Daimon Helstrom gets a traumatic mark as a child but what is it exactly?
In the pilot episode of Marvel’s Helstrom, Daimon (Tom Austen) ends up getting a tattoo after he reaches out to his sister Ana (Sydney Lemmon) and doesn’t get a response via text.
WARNING: Spoilers for Helstrom season 1 ahead
He then heads to a tattoo parlor where the tattoo artist comments that the ink never seems to stick with his scar, it just fades. Daimon tells her it’s ok and to just keep trying as he remembers events in his childhood on how he received the mark. In the meantime Ana in San Francisco was also remembering the same event from her perspective.
The siblings look quite young at the time and while Ana was hiding in a corner trying to block out the horrific sounds, Daimon was on the ground with blood all over his shirt. He looks at his sister helplessly as their mother is pushed to the ground by a man who is probably their father. It’s also likely that it was their father who carved out Daimon’s chest.
Audiences aren’t given a full clear look at the scar as the lighting in the parlor is fairly dim. We get more glimpses in scenes when Daimon is shirtless throughout other episodes and it could resemble an upside down star. It would make sense as in the comic books he had an inverted pentacle pentagram-shaped birthmark on his chest.
The fact that he’s been unable to successfully cover it up through ink shows that there is something different about this emblem. In the comics his birthmark was significant because it allowed Daimon to physically manifest his Darksoul, a demonic counterpart to his human one. His Darksoul gave him numerous gifts including super strength and the ability to cast soulfire/hellfire.
Earlier in the episode we already saw Daimon briefly manifest a circle of fire inside the room of the young boy pretending to be possessed by a demon. He also has telekinetic abilities as he was able to move all the furniture in the space, but we don’t know if he’ll also possess superhuman strength.
Ana in the meantime has shown different abilities from her brother. She seems to be able to drain living creatures of energy and can read people and objects. In the comics, Satana Hellstrom was also able to summon soulfire/hellfire. We see a little bit of that when Ana is required to re-forge her father’s broken blade in order to save Daimon from demonic possession in the series.
The mark first lights up when members of the Blood attack Daimon and Gabriella. He gets shot and the scar activates and burns through his shirt as two attackers erupt in flames as well. It seems that when he’s under extreme duress and has to use his abilities intensely, the symbol is triggered. That would make sense if he is generating hellfire through his Darksoul. This happened again when he tried to exorcise the demon from within his body and was essentially internally combusting. Unfortunately though the creature did not die.
We also learn that the scar is the only thing that Daimon has never been able to heal from. Though why was only Daimon given it and not Ana? But perhaps she does have one herself given during the time she was with her father. While it’s a slim chance that Helstrom will have a season two, that’s a question that could have possibly been addressed. If anything we likely would have learned more about the scar itself.
