Scott Free is an escape artist. And a superhero. And the owner of the DC universe's best T-shirt collection. But those are beside the point, which is that he's known for escaping things. You could say he gets out of them, well... scot free. But this week's Mister Miracle #9 might have given him, at last, a trap that could prevail over even his abilities.

There's a point in every comic book supervillain's life when they're made to team up with the very superheroes they'd once sworn to destroy by any means necessary. For Darkseid, that time is now.

Mister Miracle, DC Comics' haunting, beautiful series about the small lives of Scott Free and Big Barda being swept up in the enormous scope of Jack Kirby's Fourth World (soon to be seen in live-action), is all about contrasting the banal with the fantastical, the drama of real life amid the drama of scifi weirdness. This week's issue was a pitch-perfect example of that mission statement.

Justice League finally hits theatres this week, and while its villain, Steppenwolf, is not the big bad many were expecting when the movie was first revealed, he opens up the gateway to a whole new corner of DC Comics canon: Jack Kirby's legendary Fourth World and its New Gods. Here's a spoiler-free guide to Steppenwolf and what you need to know about him before you watch Justice League.

The first issue of Mister Miracle put Scott Free under a microscope, examining the psyche of a man trying outrun his own mortality in a hazy world where it's hard to tell what's real and what isn't. Mister Miracle's second issue offers much the same thematically, but through the deceptive lens of interstellar politics.