5 Things You Missed In The Deadly Class Pilot

Well, it looks like Christmas has come a little early for fans of Rick Remender and Wes Craig’s hodge-podge of drugs, blood, and '80s nostalgia, Deadly Class. The pilot episode of SYFY’s upcoming television adaptation has dropped online, and fans everywhere are getting to see what Remender is capable of as showrunner.

Together with Miles Orion Feldsott, Remender is bringing his vision of what it’s like to grow up in San Fransisco during the autumn of 1987, attending a high school “where the daggers in your back are real.” Deadly Class is filled with all the tension and drama that you’d expect from a show centered around a high school for deadly assassins, legacies of the world’s shadiest and affluent criminals. By putting a comic creator like Remender in charge, SYFY has all but ensured a series filled with obscure comic book references and Easter eggs. Let’s break down the first episode and see what surprises Remender and the crew left out for us to discover.

5. Wes Waz Here

The San Fransisco of SYFY’s Deadly Class is a grimy, rotting husk of a city. One riddled with dangerous people, secret murderous high schools, and graffiti. Okay, so maybe that last one isn’t so bad, but if you pay close attention to some of the graffiti in the series—specifically when Marcus is writing in his notebook—you’ll notice a familiar name among all the paint.

Fans of the comics will instantly recognize the “Wes Waz Here” written on the side of the bus stop as series co-creator and illustrator Wes Craig. A larger piece of Craig’s can be seen during the scene in the graveyard that simply says “Wes."

Wes Craig, like Remender, has also been working very closely with the production team in order to create an atmosphere for the adaptation that will closely mirror his work for the original series. It’s exciting to see that studios are finally giving the creators the reigns, allowing them to really put forth something that is aligned with their unique vision of their original work.

4. Animated Memories

For anyone familiar with the comics, the animated flashback scene Marcus has about his parents will look awfully familiar. The scene was directed by Craig and taken from the comics almost panel for panel. There are a few key differences in these two scenes, however.

For one, in the comics, Marcus and his parents are on a ferry in this scene. And two, Barbara Salinger is standing on the Golden Gate Bridge when she decides to swan dive off, unknowingly taking both of Marcus’ parents with her. Craig’s beautiful artistic vision for the flashback sequences still shines through on the screen just as much as it does it the comics. Hopefully, the series has a few more animated sequences throughout the season that can highlight Craig’s incredible aesthetic even further. A lot of the buzz surrounding Remender’s story has seemingly overshadowed the excellent work Craig has done in creating the story’s visual identity, so it’s nice to see bits of Craig’s contributions sprinkled throughout the pilot. Hopefully, more is shown throughout the rest of the series as well.

3. Gavrilo Princip

The premiere episode of Deadly Class spends much of its opening scene focused Benedict Wong’s Master Lin as he recounts the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand by Gavrilo Princip, the 19-year-old kid who pulled the trigger on both the Archduke and his wife, Sophie. This summation of Gravrilo Princip’s story lays out a blueprint for Marcus’ own deadly ambitions and the possible consequences of them. Marcus blames Reagan for Barbara Salinger killing his parents, and if Gavrilo sparked off two world wars by taking the life of the Archduke, it leaves you to wonder what kind of consequences Marcus will bring about by following his plan to kill the Gipper. I guess we’ll all just have to wait to find out what Remender was alluding to here.

NEXT: Deadly Class Promo Compares TV Cast to Comic Counterparts

2. Comics In Cars With Guns

Fans of the comics will immediately recognize Willie Lewis, played by Luke Tennie, one of the first real friends Marcus makes after starting at Kings Dominion. It looks like we may get to see that relationship play out again in SYFY’s new adaptation, too.

One of the scenes Marcus and Willie share in this first episode is dedicated to the show's creator’s favorite comic creators. The battle of indie vs. mainstream rages on as Willie and Marcus drive around in hope of completing their assignment. Marcus decries the mainstream (he would), saying that indie comics like American Flagg (by Howard Chaykin) and The Flaming Carrot (by Bob Burden) are where it’s all at. The scene shows Willie, with a gun to Marcus’ head, demanding that he acknowledges the efforts of Chris Claremont and John Byrne’s run on Uncanny X-men. Funny enough, it makes you wonder if this was a Remender v. Craig argument at some point or just two sides of one creator’s personality.

1. Chester 'F---Face' Wilson

Alright, so he wasn’t technically in the pilot, but if you stuck around until just after the pilot episode ended, then you were treated to a preview of what is still left to come in Deadly Class’ freshman season. If you haven’t read the comics then there’s a chance that you didn’t recognize the psychotic burn victim rockin’ that sweet, sweet mullet. But if you have read the comics, then you probably recognized the intolerable and truly disturbed, Chester Wilson (or F--Face as he’s known to call himself in the comics).

Maybe you couldn’t guess by the disfigured face and the big knife in the preview, but Chester is a man with a vendetta against Marcus. It doesn’t look like things will play out exactly as they did in the comics, but with Chester Wilson’s introduction at some point in the near future, things are definitely going to get a lot more complicated for Marcus and all the other students at Kings Dominion.

MORE: Rick Remender Opens Up About Bringing Deadly Class to TV