Writer Rick Remender and artist Wes Craig's creator-owned series Deadly Class takes place at the clandestine King's Dominion School of the Deadly Arts, where the adolescent children of criminals, spies and terrorists train to become the next generation of assassins. As such, it has all the machinations, personal drama and raging hormones of a normal high school, but conflicts between students can -- and will -- become lethal, especially if they're school-sanctioned.

One of the most brutal bouts of violence came when the freshmen class of 1987 were forced to battle each other. Recent issues of the Image Comics series, which are set in 1988, have revealed new developments about the survivors of that conflict while bouncing those sophomores off the new freshmen class. Those reveals and interactions have lit the match of several powder kegs and in October's Deadly Class #31 they'll explode.

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CBR spoke with Remender about some of his old and new cast members, the revelation that two long thought dead characters were still alive, and the slow boiling conflicts that are about to explode.

CBR: In recent issues of Deadly Class you gave us some glimpses into one of your most mysterious characters, Saya, that showed she's a little bit better of a person than she initially appeared to be. We now know that she actually spared Marcus during the freshmen finals and even reunited him with his girlfriend Maria. We also know that Saya's brother pretty much destroyed her family. Can you talk at all about what inspired Saya's background and her role in the book?

Rick Remender: We've seen pieces of Saya's story and we now understand a lot more about her motivations and why she needs to graduate. She needs those top honors from King's Dominion to come back and pick up her family's Yakuza clan and return it to the way her father had it, which was more steeped in the sort of neighborhood watch aspect of the samurai than some of the more traditional yakuza stuff.

Of course by the time we learn these things about her she's off the board. Saya is going to stay off the board for a while. Her brother Kenji is up to no good. He's a real rotten guy. Outward arrogance, coupled with greed and inward insecurity leads to some dangerous folk.

Then we have some very big stuff coming up with the other crews that we've been setting up, primarily the illuminati council of Shabnam and his crew, Helmut, Petra, and the freshmen, and then Marcus and Maria. Those are the three parts of the story that play the biggest role in what we have coming up.

The discovery that Saya spared Marcus, and Maria is still alive has given Deadly Class a bit more hope and light. Was that always your intention with the book? Did you always know you had this reveal coming up that would cause fans to cheer?

My moods change. The original outline had Marcus come back and it was obviously one of those deaths that was staged so that could happen. But then after it happened I decided not to bring him back, and I was working on the television adaptation of Deadly Class with my co-writer Miles Feldsott. So we were deep into the TV version of the universe with Marcus in his early years when I told him that I wasn't going to bring Marcus back.

We went to the office and Miles was like, “Dude, no! It's too much! I get it, but it's too much! I can't take it!” [Laughs] So we argued and argued. I then called my editor Sebastian Girner and we argued. Then I called Wes and we argued about it for two hours I think. That went on for like two months when I would call Wes, Sebastian, or Miles. I just couldn't decide.

I had actually wrote two outlines. I still have the outline where Marcus doesn't come back and instead Saya has his journal and Marcus is like a ghost that she still talks to. I wrote that. It's done, and then when it was getting close to where I would have to choose which direction to go I had another talk with Miles, and he pushed me over the edge of going back to the original version where Marcus comes back.

I'm really glad I made that choice. Because that other story is exciting and definitely has some really cool ideas, but this story has so much more in terms of merging the first class with the new class. And, like you said, it gives people a bit of hope after so much bad news. People who have really stuck with the series deserved it. I haven't had this much online response to anything I wrote since maybe the end of “The Dark Angel” saga in my Uncanny X-Force run. For about a week my Twitter feed was, “Thank you! Dear god! Thank you!” It was so flattering that people identify and connect with that character and cared so much.

Another big, fun moment in recent issues for me was when freshmen Helmut not only drew an axe and fought ninjas he did so while reciting the lyrics to one of my favorite Iron Maiden songs of all time, “The Trooper.” Was that scene something you were responsible for? Or was it more Wes?

I scripted it, but it was obviously only good because Wes drew it. I was talking to my buddy Harper Jaten who's a big Iron Maiden fan. I was more of a punker kid, which is always sort of a bone of contention. I used to sit around and talk about how punk actually said something. He would be like, “Yeah, but metal was all inclusive and there was no elitism.” Then we'd go on and on. So I Skyped him and asked, “Helmut is a hessian in full stoner mode. He's fighting ninjas and has a battle axe. I want him to be reciting lyrics to an Iron Maiden song.” He instantly goes, “'Trooper!” [Laughs]

Once I plugged that in there was one bit of dialogue that didn't fit in Helmut's scenes, but bled over into the ninja scenes. So I just had the ninjas finishing the song, and that tickled me pretty good. [Laughs] At that point I realized I had a fun scene. That's comic books.

Helmut is a lot of fun to write. We've got some cool shit coming up with him.

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Another interesting element for Helmut is his newfound romance with King's Dominion sophomore, Petra. What inspired you to pair the two of them together?

A couple things. The first was he's sort of a stoic, unflappable, force. She needed that. If she was going to be redeemed she needed someone to help her be redeemed. Of course he doesn't know what she did, but he's also done terrible shit. And even if he did know everything maybe he'd be forgiving. Who knows?

So it was that plus the idea that once these kids all meet up with Marcus he's going to at some point find out what Petra did to Billy…

We saw some of that in Deadly Class #30, and it looks like there's a lot of other powder kegs waiting to explode as well. You've got Shabnam's group who seem to be imploding and backstabbing each other as they're planning this big event for the school. You've got Master Lin looking for Saya, and we've got some other potential wildcards in the new class like Tosahwi the skate boarding Suicidal Tendencies fan.

Yeah, there are a lot of pieces in this story now. As I'm writing it I recognize that. So now when I talk to Wes I'm like, “You got another 30 to 40 issues in you?” [Laughs] I don't know how to do all of this in anything less, and fortunately with all the good stuff happening in the TV show, and all the support we have with the book and the trades, I don't think we'll see an end to the book any time soon. Wes and I both get so excited when we talk. We love making this book so much.

So yeah, we're playing with a lot of pieces. You got some glimpses into Tosahwi in issue #30, but you haven't heard his whole story yet. His development is still under way. We saw him have his friends back after they weren't super cool to him. We know that Master Lin is on the war path. He knows something is up because one of his star students has gone missing. Then you have Quan in the middle of all of it.

Victor saw Quan stab Saya. Kenji has dirt on Quan. He's told Quan to bring him Marcus or he's going to reveal that dirt and rain yakuza down on him. If Master Lin found out Quan had betrayed Saya and got rid of his star student he would be none too happy. So it takes a little while when you have this many characters, but we're getting the pot boiling and building up to our next big shit goes down storyline. [Laughs]

We've talked a lot in the past and in this article about how great an artist Wes Craig is, but I don't believe we've every really discussed his acting ability and how important the things he can do with facial expressions are to a book like Deadly Class.

There's no other person who can do what he's doing here, how he’s doing it. He keeps himself grounded in doing Deadly Class and is the reason the book is consistent and stunning. He's doing his best work and the acting and design of the characters as well as the authenticity he brings to the era is amazing. He can do quiet, soft moments. He can do action. He can do mood. He can do everything.

Every writer you talk to probably says the same thing, “MY ARTISTS ARE THE GREATEST!” But Wes is kind of the greatest. And Jordan Boyd, our colorist is fantastic. Add in the best editor around in Sebastian and the best letterer Rus Wooton and you get something magic. I could write this book the rest of my life. I love it.

Finally, earlier you mentioned we'd be hearing some more about the television adaptation of Deadly Class fairly soon. Can you comment any more on that?

Yeah, there's a lot of good shit going on. We might be able to drop some announcements pretty soon…

Deadly Class #31 is about done, and I think it’s a showstopper. It's one of our big issues. I don't think anybody will anticipate anything that happens in it. Everybody was really excited about it, and when Wes read the final script he was very effusive. I think we both feel with the end of this, we set the stage for a lot of the big fun that's coming.