Warning: SPOILERS ahead for October Faction season 1.
Steve Niles and Damien Worm’s horror comic The October Faction is a heavily stylized take on a gothic world filled with magic and monsters – but a lot was changed for Netflix’s recent adaptation. Developed for TV by Damian Kindler (Sanctuary), October Faction stars J.C. MacKenzie and Tamara Taylor as monster-hunters Fred and Deloris Allen, and Aurora Burghart and Gabriel Darku as their 17 year-old twins, Viv and Geoff.
The October Faction comics have the same core family (though their last name is spelled “Allan” instead of “Allen”), and the same revelation that Geoff and Viv were adopted after Fred and Deloris killed their parents – a pair of warlocks called the Harlows. From there, however, the October Faction TV show builds its own story about the Allens moving from a globe-trotting life back to their old home town of Barington-on-Hudson. Certain characters from the comics are missing in the show, others have been changed, and new characters have been added.
Netflix’s October Faction isn’t as dark as the comics, which heavily feature horror and gore elements, and portray the Allens as an Addams Family-esque band of proud weirdos, who care little about fitting into the normal world. The show’s casting is considerably more diverse than the comics, with the Allens being a mixed race family and Phil (who is a pale redhead in the source material) played by Indian Canadian actor Praneet Akilla. Beyond those differences, though, here’s a breakdown of October Faction‘s biggest changes from page to screen.
Presidio Doesn’t Exist in the October Faction Comics
A major element of Netflix’s October Faction is the Presidio Foundation, a clandestine global organization dedicated to eradicating the supernatural. Presidio doesn’t exist in the comics, where the Allens instead work independently as monster-hunters and eventually rebrand themselves as a family-run supernatural detective agency. The creation of Presidio expands the scope of the show beyond just the Allen family and their own small town, while also providing an authoritative force for them to rebel against. Being part of Presidio also means that the TV versions of the Allens use more high-tech weaponry, whereas in the comics they use a mix of guns, magic, and old-school weaponry like axes.
The Allens Have Several Monster Friends in the Comics
By the end of October Faction season 1, both the audience and the Allens themselves have been brought around to the idea that not all monsters are bad, and that humans are often the worst monsters of all. The show could be viewed as a prequel to the comics in this regard, since in the comics it’s established early on that Fred has a close friend who’s afflicted with the supernatural (Lucas, a werewolf who’s forced to stay in his wolf form after his human form becomes riddled with cancer). The Allens continue to accumulate strange allies as the October Faction comics go on: first Dante, then Geoff’s vampire boyfriend, and then a ghoul called Erik. With the Allens already on friendly(ish) terms with Moshe, Alice Harlow, and Dante in the TV show, we can probably expect the adaptation to ultimately catch up to the comics in this regard.
Dante’s Origin Story Is Different in the Comics
October Faction greatly expands upon the Allen family compared to the comics – adding new family members like Samuel and Maggie Allen, and inventing a backstory for Fred involving the death of his brother, Seth. The latter is used to create a new backstory for Dante, Viv’s part-machine friend, when it’s revealed that Dante has the body of a prison inmate who was turned into a host for Seth’s soul. In the comics, Dante was brutally beaten and had his face disfigured when he was a boy, and was pieced back together by a mad scientist. Fred Allen later killed Dante’s “father,” who had actually been working with the man who attacked Dante, and had a sick habit of mutilating children so that he could turn them into part-machine hybrids. Dante’s appearance is also more extreme in the comics; instead of simply having one robotic eye, most of his face is made up of robotic parts.
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