DC's Mister Miracle #8 is still a week out with its release date pushed from April 11 to April 18, but don't panic too hard -- CBR has a two-page sneak peak of Tom King & Mitch Gerads' latest issue to make the wait go by a little bit quicker. The first features Scott Free on what looks like a long-range assassination mission on Apokolips against Virman Vundabar -- kind of a risky gig for the Highfather himself, but apparently Scott's as competent a sniper as he is an escape artist.

mister miracle 8

The second is a little more mundane, but don't let that fool you. Get ready to start spinning some conspiracy theories up because it turns out someone we thought was very much dead is actually alive.

... maybe.

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Remember Funky Flashman? Last we saw him he was on the receiving end of Big Barda's Mega Rod after he was trying to play herald-slash-hype man for Orion leading up to Scott's planned execution. That was the end of issue #5. Issue #6 then opened with a pretty grisly look at "The Flamer," some sort of homemade incinerator piled high with what looked like the bodies of all Barda's fresh kills, Funky included. At least, that's what we've been assuming.

mister miracle 6 funky

Issue #8 turns that theory on its head. Not only do we see that Funky, apparently, was not one of the bodies being torched into ash, we learn that he's actually living in the Free household and... well, trying to give Scott baby-raising advice.

Or, at least, that might be what's happening. Throughout Mister Miracle, Scott's grip on reality has been tenuous at best and, let's face it, hallucinating a dead man trying to play nanny for his infant son is far from the worst (or the weirdest) thing he would have convinced himself he saw so far.

So, is Funky actually still alive? Is Scott just falling even further down the rabbit hole? Are either of those outcomes actually preferable?

Hopefully readers will get some real answers next week as Mister Miracle #8 hits shelves on April 18.

Mister Miracle #8 variant cover by Mitch Gerads