Writer Rick Remender and artist Wes Craig launched Deadly Class in 2014, a creator owned series from Image Comics. Five years later, the '80s-set series about a clandestine high school for adolescent assassins is still going strong and about to become bigger than ever thanks to Syfy's television adaptation that launches this week. For a lot of creators, the adaptation is a separate thing that they have little or no involvement in, but Remender chose a different route and has become extensively involved with the Deadly Class adaptation.

That work has kept Remender very busy, but he hasn't forgotten about writing comics. In addition to his obligations to the show, Remender and the artists at his Giant Generator studio have been hard at work producing a whole new crop of creator owned titles. Their output for 2019 includes a new arc of the Deadly Class comic series (which kicks off the same day the show premieres), the conclusions of Low and Black Science, the returns of Seven to Eternity and Death or Glory and the possible launch of a new title.

CBR spoke with Remender about the new arc of Deadly Class and his work on the show, how they've fed into each other, the currently unfolding final arc of Low and the other comics coming from Giant Generator in 2019.

CBR: Rick, you're heavily involved in the production aspect of the Deadly Class TV show. What are some of the things you do on the show? And is your involvement sort of a way to bring the ethos of creator owned comics to adaptations?

Rick Remender: I’m a showrunner and lead writer, which is about 80 hours a week of work. I also lived in Vancouver for 4-5 months of the last year while we were filming it and the rest of my time is spent here in L.A. editing and picking the music, etcetera.

There's been very few instances where the creator has been able to shepherd their project forward as a showrunner. I think Neil Gaiman is doing it on Good Omens and here Sony and Syfy are allowing me to do it with Deadly Class. So, hopefully people will support it and like it, and then we can see creators continue to develop and move forward their own creations. I’ve been very lucky having the Russo Bros. faith and support in this as well, it’s made a huge difference.

NEXT PAGE: Promising Friendships Turn Sour in the Deadly Class Comic

What was it like writing this new arc of the Deadly Class comic at the same time you were writing the show?

It was an interesting challenge. With the show, I would immerse myself in the original cast and sort of unpack the untold stories of Deadly Class. Then I would have to jump back into writing the comics with the new kids and the new status quo for Marcus and the original cast. Plus, Marcus has made quite a journey over the course of the books. So, I found that the only way I could keep it straight was to go on hikes with my assistant, where I would talk out who Marcus was in the show and the present comic. That allowed me to reacclimate myself to who he is at these different points in time. So one didn't bleed into the other.

In the last arc of the book, Marcus came to classic Gen X conclusion that walking away in disgust is not the same thing as apathy. But, still, walking away is what we're going to do. He walked away from revenge. He walked away from the path that Master Lin had set him on, and decided to take a different course. When we pick things up in this new arc, “Never Go Back,” we'll look at what this new path is.

I understand part of examining that new path involves peyote.

Yeah, one of our favorite things to do with Marcus is to load him up with psychedelics and tell a story. [Laughs] So, we open up the new arc with Marcus on a peyote trip in the desert. It's sort of a spirit journey of him discovering what he thinks of his new friends, what he's going to do about his old friends, his relationship with Maria and how he's going to address Kings Dominion and Master Lin.

The last arc ended with Marcus' longtime enemy Viktor and new class member Helmut in interesting places. What are those characters dealing with when you pick back up with them?

We spent a good chunk of the last couple years dealing with the romance between Helmut and Petra. How they found each other, and how Helmut tried to bring her back from the brink of suicide and depression. That didn't turn out very well at the end of the last arc. Spoilers -- Brandy killed Petra while Marcus lay beaten on the ground watching. Helmut is convinced that Marcus allowed Petra to be killed in revenge for Billy. So, this puts Helmut and Marcus at odds. These are two characters we have big plans for moving forward. They're now discovering what looked like the beginning of a new friendship is something quite the opposite.

And in the last arc, when Marcus had a chance to get revenge for Willy on Viktor, he didn't take it. He let Viktor go. That had some kind of effect because later on in the story Viktor bought Marcus and his friends an escape from the Yakuza kids who had arrived to collect Marcus. They wanted to prove to Master Lin that Saya was a fraud and she had cheated in the freshmen finals. So, it's a tangled web. Why did Viktor save them? What's he up to? Has he had a change of heart? You'll have to read the comic to find out.

So you have more plans for him?

Yes. There’s a reason why all these cast members are still living and breathing. We have stories coming up with those characters that I believe are very interesting. We'll have a whole slew of new characters coming in during this new arc as well.

NEXT PAGE: Big Things Are in the Works for Deadly Class' Saya

One original cast member that we only saw here and there in the previous arc was Saya. Will we see more of her in “Never Go Back?”

There's a big story brewing with Saya. All of our original crew were sort of scattered to the wind, like, 16 issues ago. So, they've been separated for nearly half the series. That's by design, and when they all come together it's going to be a pretty big story.

The fun has been setting the characters out on their own separate journeys and then smashing them back together. We'll see who walks away from the crash.

Part of bringing your cast back together means returning to Kings Dominion, a locale we haven't seen for awhile. What's it like returning to the school?

It's very fun in that you blow up the status quo and go out into the world and tell strange stories. Then you bring them all back to the school and they get to deal with the ramifications of the adventures they had outside the school, but back in that familiar setting.

Having heavily developed the school for the book, I have a whole bucket of new ideas I’ve incorporated into the TV show and the book. I had a lot of my ideas for this arc and next laid out before we started Season 1 of the show. So, I was able to take some of those ideas and put them into the TV show. So, they'll be seeded in Season 1 and then people reading the book will see some of those seeds paid out in the later stories in the book.

The reason why I'm working myself to death to co-showrun and break all the stories as the lead writer of the show while doing the book is to make sure that they are not different animals. They're born from the same intention and batch of ideas and follow the same basic path. I think there are some surprises in the show, but I don't want them to feel like they're in completely different things.

The previous arc featured some insane, over the top action sequences from your collaborators Wes Craig and Jordan Boyd. What can you tell us about what we'll see from them in this arc?

The first issue is this 25-page peyote trip. So, it's stunning insanity. There are places in it where Jordan has taken a very rendered painterly approach and places where he's done the traditional flat colors of the series. There's other places where he and Wes have done Saturday morning cartoon style coloring, rendering and illustration.

So, the peyote trip is allowing Jordan and Wes to go completely off the rails, and Rus Wooton as well. When Jordan and Wes go crazy artistically it inspires Rus to come in and do the same thing with the lettering. He really did some incredibly inspired things.

The issue after that is where we catch back up with Saya. Her separate story reaches a head and we get to see Wes and Jordan off the leash for an exciting and incredibly visual story on the streets of Tokyo in the late '80s.

NEXT PAGE: This Still Plenty More Deadly Class Comic Book Stories to be Told

“Never Go Back” appears to be a pivotal arc in the long-form story of the Deadly Class comic. So, how much story do you have left to tell after this arc?

There's quite a bit left to tell. The wealth of characters leads to an amazing amount of story.

One thing I realized in unpacking the first season of the TV show and filling in entire episodes that didn't happen in the comic books, but sort of occurred between the major events of the comics' storylines, was how easily these characters filled that space. And how these new stories were so additive. Any time I sit down and start writing tons and tons of ideas come out because there's so many great characters.

The latest challenge has been that Wes and I are looking at a new batch of characters. He's done designs for 15 new characters, and we've picked four. You could take all 15 of them, though, and do 100 issues. Wes designs these fantastic looking characters and you really want to write stories for them. Then you want to start mixing things up. You want to see how these new characters interact with our established cast.

Do you feels there's a sort of a symbiotic relationship between the show and the comic where they feed back into each other?

Absolutely, you're able to go to new depths in television because one human being doesn't have to draw the stories. So, I'm able to slow things down and unpack them. I'm also working with an amazingly talented writers, crew and cast. They're all very inspiring. That's enabled me to get a bigger look at this world, which has certainly informed the comic book as well. So, it's been an amazing experience.

There's plenty of story left for Deadly Class, but one book you're nearing the end of is Low. Was it always your intention to end it at this point?

Low is one of the bestselling books I've ever had. Especially with the trades in the book market. So, the book could sustain itself and the trades do gangbuster business. Greg Tocchini is a high-level genius, though, who pours so much into every page that when we did the math on what it would take to go 40 issues it would take too long and it would kill him. He'd be 80 years old.

[Laughs] So, I removed one chunk of story from the outline and, once I had I realized that, this particular story was more exciting without it. Because we do sort of a jump and you're transported in media res to Stel Caine's situation. You find her on the surface with the Burnt Legion. They're the humans who were left up on the surface and evolved to adapt to the environment.

NEXT PAGE: Giant Generator's Low is Coming to an End, Too

So, this final seven-part arc “Last Embers” is more about Stel Caine up there on the surface world and less about the city of Salus, which we saw floating up towards space at the end of the last arc?

No, it's about everything. This is the big finale, so all of our pieces are coming together. This is every character and every storyline all coming to a head with a full resolution. So, this is a slightly longer tale and the story we're unpacking demanded the space. Once I did the outline and got optics it was clear it was going to need seven issues

Greg has drawn three issues of it already. One has been released and another is going to print this week.

With everything coming to a head, I'm guessing Greg's pages are going to be packed with even more action and detail than they usually are.

Greg and colorist Dave McCaig are such a spectacular team. All of the Giant Generator books are meant to be beautiful works of art that could live forever on a book shelf. So, we take the time to do that instead of keeping the single issues shipping every 30 days. It's a much more European approach to making comics, and it's one I frankly prefer.

I'm working with some of the very best creators in comics and I don't see the benefit in cracking the whip or rushing these things any more. I'd rather make sure that these are pure expressions of what these guys are capable of and that they have the time to do what they're capable of doing without having to chase down the 30-day deadline.

Finally, 2019 is shaping up to be a huge year for you in terms of both adaptations and comics from Giant Generator. You've got the end of Low, the end of Black Science, the return of Deadly Class and Seven to Eternity. Will Death or Glory return in 2019 as well?

Right now, Bengal is turning in pages for Issue #8. He's one of the best illustrators on the planet. So we said, “Okay, let's just take a bit of a breath.” I was behind on scripts because I was in the midst of trying to write 10 hours of television. So, he took a little bit of time off and did a few covers. Then I finally got him some scripts and he was off and running. I figure we wouldn't solicit any more issues until we had three in the can. That way we were never under a tremendous amount of stress.

Do you plan on launching any new books in 2019?

I am working on a new series with one of the greatest artists in the world who I don't want to announce yet, but the first issue is almost done and it is fucking spectacular. Hopefully we'll be able to announce that in the next few months. Again, I'd like to get another two to three issues under our belts before we reveal it to the world and start printing them. The book is utter lunacy drawn by a complete madman genius and it's a genre I have not done before.

I hope everybody enjoys the Deadly Class TV show. If you like it, try the comics. And if you're already enjoying the comics, please give some of the other Giant Generator books a try. We've been working ourselves to death on them for years, and I think they're good representations of what comic books can be.