Warning: HUGE spoilers for Heroes: Reborn!

One of the rallying cries in the first season of Heroes was "Save the cheerleader, save the world," but as it turns out, the characters were ultimately unsuccessful in that mission. Yes, poor Claire Bennet (played by Hayden Panettiere) is dead from the start in the revival of the series, Heroes Reborn

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"That sort of gets into some of the mythology of the new season," series creator Tim Kring said during the final panel at the summer 2015 Television Critics Association Summer Press Tour on Thursday, as he confirmed Claire's offscreen demise, first hinted at in the trailer shown at the NBC Upfront back in May.Kring explained that Claire died a year before the events of Heroes Reborn and that, "Jack Coleman as Horn-Rimmed Glasses [Noah Bennet] gets to uncover some of that for us."Kring remained adamant that, despite the return of some of the original crew in guest roles (including Greg Grunberg's Matt Parkman, Masi Oka's Hiro, Sendhil Ramamurthy's Mohinder and Cristine Rose's Angela Petrelli), this story is really about the new characters, Noah aside. It's essentially doing what Kring originally wanted to do with the series by introducing a new group each year, rather than focus on the same ongoing characters.Kring said the Season 4 finale helped set the stage for Heroes Reborn, noting, "When we went off the air we didn’t know we were going off the air. We left on an absolutely fantastic moment that set everything into motion of what we’re doing here. Hayden Panettiere's character... For four seasons the whole world had never know there were powers. She basically outed it in front of the whole world when we ended." Heroes Reborn will show the consequences of that reveal, and as the trailers hint, things aren't going well for people with powers.Considering part of the original criticism of the show following its inaugural season was the introduction of too many characters, it seems like a risky move to take, focusing the show on all new people. But resurrecting the series five years later also meant that most of the original cast just wasn't available to reprise those roles."This is closer to the original idea of origin stories," Kring added. "The primal existential questions of why and what’s my purpose? I always thought of it as a show that could repopulate itself. Falling in love with new characters is just as important as returning cast.""The ad for Heroes Reborn came on during the Olympics, and we didn’t know [it was happening]," Coleman added. "The original cast were all furiously texting each other. When Tim called me and said I want you on board and HRG and to fulfill kind of the same role, I was pretty thrilled to say yes as quickly and coolly as I did."As for new addition Zachary Levi? He remained pretty mum on his incoming character -- who is clearly shooting and killing people in the trailers -- but did tease that he's a villain. Of sorts."We’re bad. We’re misunderstood. We’ve been given this really cool world to play characters that are ambiguous," he said. "So much about what Heroes has been is challenging people’s perceptions about where you’re coming from. As horrible as some of the things Sylar did, you could also relate to his pain."Let's see if we relate to his.Heroes Reborn's two-hour premiere airs September 24th on NBC.