It does feel a little bit like they took a great villain and squandered a great deal of his potential. It’s a little bit like the Fellowship of the Ring, I suppose.īut all of this leads to a whole lot of bickering between team members, and what seemed like it would be an epic battle against Maleketh kind of devolves into a series of losing skirmishes and arguments. This is a coalition of dark elves, light elves, dwarves, giants, and trolls, and each faction sends a representative to hunt Maleketh. Of course, there’s some bureaucracy in the way, and in order to defeat the mischievous dark elf, the League of Realms is formed.

To maintain the tension after that epic fight against Gorr, the series really needed a top-tier villain, and Maleketh does just fine in this regard. I don’t want to say much more than that, because you should really read it for yourself, but know that this book starts out ridiculously strong. This is an incredible story that’s really hard to put down. From there, we’re off to the races, as they say, and Thor chases a god-killer across time and space.

The basic setup for the story - that some being has been slaying gods for millennia - happens in the first issue, and the mystery elements had me hooked from the very beginning. Plus, the title just sounds badass - this is something I’d been wanting to read for a really long time.Īnd I have to say, it doesn’t disappoint. The book begins with the God Butcher story (issues #1-5), which I’d heard nothing but good things about. I’m sure I don’t have to spell this out, but just in case you have no idea how the math works out on this, it looks like: 5+1+5+1+5+1=18.Īnyway, I’m not here for basic math I’m here for epic tales of gods and war - and there are plenty of those here. That’s why 18 issues was the exact right number for this collection - you’ve got five issues, plus the single issue spacer afterward, and this pattern is repeated three times.

The story is very neatly divided up into five-issue arcs, with a single issue between each one.

Thor by jason aaron omnibus vol 1