Save the cheerleader, save the world?

Heroes Reborn will need a different tagline from the one that helped propel its original version to hit status.

Speaking to reporters in Beverly Hills on Thursday, creator Tim Kring dropped a major nugget about his highly-anticipated return to Heroes this fall:

Hayden Panettiere’s Claire is dead.

"She died a year prior to our story starting," Kring said at the 2015 Television Critics Association summer press tour. "That sort of gets into the mythology that's attached to the original show."

Claire's father, Jack Coleman’s HRG, will play a vital role, however, and his character “gets to uncover some of that mythology for us,” according to Kring.

Other original stars set to return include Greg Grunberg, Masi Oka, Sendhil Ramamurthy, Cristin Rose and Noah Gray-Cabey.

Kring also revealed the following tidbits about Heroes Reborn, which will kick off with a two-hour premiere on Thursday, September 25:

• Five years will have passed since the event that took place when Heroes went off the air.
• Claire went public with her powers as the final scene of Heroes and this will serve as "a baton pass of where to go from there. Since we didn’t get to have a fifth season, I always had in my mind that we had some unfinished business there."
• Time travel could prove to be "very useful" on Heroes Reborn.
• Kring is open to doing more than these 13 episodes.

"I always felt that the brand was elastic enough, a broad enough premise," he said about that possibility.

"I feel confident that we can find other stories to tell with new characters and some recurring characters."

Heroes Reborn Character Posters

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Matt Richenthal is the Editor in Chief of TV Fanatic. Follow him on Twitter and on Google+.