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Thor Epic Collection
Thor Epic Collection, Vol. 7: Ulik Unchained
Thor puts the “epic” in Epic Collection, teaming up with Hercules as the two titans battle their way into Pluto’s underworld! Then, Thor joins Sif and Balder as they journey across the cosmos to stop the mysterious Black Stars from destroying the Rigellian homeworld! The unstoppable Destroyer threatens Midgard (A.K.A. Earth!), Galactus’ herald Firelord makes his debut and teams up with Loki and the origin of Ego the Living Planet is revealed—and that’s just for starters! Jane Foster is back! Thor battles the gods of Egypt! And the Absorbing Man joins forces with one of Asgard’s toughest customers: Ulik the Troll! Plus: a rare Hercules solo story!
Collects Thor (1966) #217-241, Marvel Premiere (1972) #26, material from Marvel Treasury Edition (1974) #3.
Collects Thor (1966) #217-241, Marvel Premiere (1972) #26, material from Marvel Treasury Edition (1974) #3.
512 pages, Paperback
Published December 21, 2021
About the author
Gerry Conway
2,097 books89 followersGerard Francis Conway (Gerard F. Conway) wass an American writer of comic books and television shows. He was known for co-creating the Marvel Comics' vigilante the Punisher and scripting the death of the character Gwen Stacy during his long run on The Amazing Spider-Man. At DC Comics, he was known for co-creating the superhero Firestorm and others, and for writing the Justice League of America for eight years. Conway wrote the first major, modern-day intercompany crossover, Superman vs. the Amazing Spider-Man.
On April 27, 2026, Marvel Comics announced on its website and social media accounts that Conway had died at the age of 73.
News of Conway's death from Wikipedia
On April 27, 2026, Marvel Comics announced on its website and social media accounts that Conway had died at the age of 73.
News of Conway's death from Wikipedia
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
September 18, 2023
Did you hear about what happened after Loki worked out too much?
He was very Thor.
Also, John Buscema is really great.
He was very Thor.
Also, John Buscema is really great.
December 31, 2023
A mixed bag of fairly interesting stories with some garbled nonsense, half-realized ideas, and garbage. Let's take this one arc-by-arc...
217-220 "The Five Planets of Death" ***
Thor and the whole Asgardian/Rigellian/alien sea captain party are returning from their last adventure when they get sucked into their next, a serviceable sci-fi story with an incomprehensible cosmological phenomenon and a race of giants. You'd think that in the vast expanses of the cosmos we'd encounter more civilizations with variable scales of existence.
221-223 "Before the Gates of Hell" **
During the previous arc, Asgardian warrior-woman Brunnhilde's nubile sister Krista went missing, and in this one we get to the bottom of it. Hint: it was Pluto, for Reasons, but metatextually to get Thor and Hercules to A. fight and B. team up as co-stars for a few issues. Also, the wan Krista's condition forces Thor to consider the unthinkable: to bring back Dr. Don Blake!
224-228 "No One Can Stop - The Destroyer"/"Ego: Beginning and End" ****
Thor's efforts to be a doctor are interrupted by the return of the Destroyer. (His patients have some of the longest wait times in the biz.) A corrupt researcher's spirit animates the dread automaton, but Thor and Hercules give it the old one-two punch and it's down, but then a new figure enters the Marvel Universe: Firelord! He's Galactus' new herald, and the God Squad's sojourn to the edges of the galaxy see them teaming up with the world-eater against an even graver threat - the madness of Ego, the Living Planet. Thor experiences Ego's origin in real time, and while he and Hercules try to blow up the planetoid's brain, Galactus succeeds in strapping a giant rocket to Ego's South Pole (snort) and send him careering into the void. Kidding aside, it's a classic conflict, and though Ego's origin will get retconned in Byrne's Fantastic Four, it adds nice texture to his character for now. They even put a bow on the Destroyer thing by freeing Firelord and letting the Asgardian take his place.
Things start to feel like they're going awry, though. Firelord is introduced as an emotionless, unknowable entity, but he and Thor are soon boon amis - and not seemingly through character growth, but more likely through editorial interference (hopefully not writerly incompetence).
229-234 "Where Darkness Dwells, Dwell I"/"Midgard Aflame" **
Just a mess. There's a rash of people setting themselves on fire, and one of them is - gasp! - Don Blake's old love, Jane Foster! She's the only survivor, of course, and is bedridden while Thor and Hercules track down the force behind the suicides, which might be the embodiment of fear? We also meet a new copper supporting character, Detective Blumkenn, who undergoes a dramatic personality shift between appearances. Then, while Odin goes missing in Asgard and Sif departs on a quest for something to save Jane Foster (she's really ready to roll over for the mortal's supposed claim on Thor's affections), Loki, who's been lost in a void since the end of the Avengers-Defenders War, has managed to pull himself together enough to hatch a plot involving Firelord, prismatic cube portals, force fields keeping every superhero but Thor trapped for the duration (at least this storyline provides a reason why other heroes aren't involved in the globe-spanning crisis, but how did they eat? Did some neighborhood kids watch Spider-Man poop?), and using the brainwashed armies of Asgard to invade Washington, DC. Thor bellyaches about the ignominy of being forced to battle fellow Asgardians, despite the multitude of times he's done so before and will in the future (including a couple issues hence when he scuffles with the Warriors Three at the drop of feathered helmet). Anyway, Thor solves it all by being better at punching than anyone else and the affair is never mentioned again.
235-236 "One Life to Give" ***
While all of the above was going on, Sif and Hercules steal a lion head on a stick from a blind guy and bring it back to Midgard to save Jane Foster. It allows Sif to merge her life-essence with Jane's, saving her, while Sif disappears. It still makes zero sense that Sif is so self-abnegating, but it is heroic of her. I was hoping this would give Jane the ability to transform into Sif the way Blake does into Thor, but no sign of that yet - though Jane does prove more intrepid than usual in upcoming issues, which may denote a Sifly influence.
237-238 "Ulik Unchained" *
Whoever picks Epic Collection titles needs a talking to. Why did they pick a title based on this unremarkable little two-parter, when there are so many other better titles to choose from that are more evocative of more universal themes? Helloooo, "The Death Ship Sails the Stars"? It's RIGHT. THERE.
Anyway, for some reason Asgardian trolls live under the actual earth like Moloids or something and launch an attack, and there's some kind of civil war between Ulik and the troll king, and Jane Foster lands the final blow, which is sort of cool at least.
239-241 "The Death Ship Sails the Stars" ****
So for the past few issues, Odin has been missing from Asgard, and it has transpired that he's given himself amnesia to walk amongst mortals and learn humility (though he hasn't given himself a frail body or lack of godly powers like he did his son; he's just wandering around at full Odin-power without knowing it or how to use it). He calls himself Orrin and has fallen in with southern Californian farmworkers who are attempting to organize, but are opposed by ruthless union busters. It's simultaneously sort of silly and also cool to see it addressed in a comic at all. At one point, when he and the young lady he befriends discuss the situation, and her final word is basically "fuck capitalism."
One has to wonder if the reason this storyline is abruptly dropped, along with series writer Gerry Conway, is because the powers-that-be were getting a mite nervous about all that. Bill Mantlo takes over, and the story shifts abruptly from a last-page-promised "Odinsong" to what feels like a hastily thrown-together coda to the troll storyline and a shift to this Egyptian pantheon arc. If Odin's farmworker friends ever appear again, it's not in this collection. It's a shame - this is the kind of thing I've been waiting to see this Marvel Read. It seems the company is willing to make gestures toward progressive politics without ever straying too close to the line of actually taking a position.
All that said, the introduction of the comic versions of Isis, Osiris, Horus and Seth is pretty neat. A giant pyramid pops up in the middle of San Diego and lures Odin within, where he undergoes a ritual that imbues him with the power of Atum-re, who's positioned as a sort of primordial source of divine might (and possibly an earlier iteration of the essence of Odin himself). It complicates the generally shoddy world-building of the Marvel Universe thus far in a neat way, though I'm sure it gets messed the hell up later. Seth's Death Ship and army of skeletons are eerie, and Odin struggling to remember who he is is affecting.
Hercules bonus: "The Games of Raging Gods" ***
A fun little solo tale following up on Herc's departure in a previous issue, when a UCLA professor showed up to ask him to give a lecture on Greek mythology (which is the most sensible thing any civilian has ever done in the Marvel Universe). Herc and his new friend get waylaid en route to the lecture by the Titan Typhon and his unstable girlfriend Cylla.
217-220 "The Five Planets of Death" ***
Thor and the whole Asgardian/Rigellian/alien sea captain party are returning from their last adventure when they get sucked into their next, a serviceable sci-fi story with an incomprehensible cosmological phenomenon and a race of giants. You'd think that in the vast expanses of the cosmos we'd encounter more civilizations with variable scales of existence.
221-223 "Before the Gates of Hell" **
During the previous arc, Asgardian warrior-woman Brunnhilde's nubile sister Krista went missing, and in this one we get to the bottom of it. Hint: it was Pluto, for Reasons, but metatextually to get Thor and Hercules to A. fight and B. team up as co-stars for a few issues. Also, the wan Krista's condition forces Thor to consider the unthinkable: to bring back Dr. Don Blake!
224-228 "No One Can Stop - The Destroyer"/"Ego: Beginning and End" ****
Thor's efforts to be a doctor are interrupted by the return of the Destroyer. (His patients have some of the longest wait times in the biz.) A corrupt researcher's spirit animates the dread automaton, but Thor and Hercules give it the old one-two punch and it's down, but then a new figure enters the Marvel Universe: Firelord! He's Galactus' new herald, and the God Squad's sojourn to the edges of the galaxy see them teaming up with the world-eater against an even graver threat - the madness of Ego, the Living Planet. Thor experiences Ego's origin in real time, and while he and Hercules try to blow up the planetoid's brain, Galactus succeeds in strapping a giant rocket to Ego's South Pole (snort) and send him careering into the void. Kidding aside, it's a classic conflict, and though Ego's origin will get retconned in Byrne's Fantastic Four, it adds nice texture to his character for now. They even put a bow on the Destroyer thing by freeing Firelord and letting the Asgardian take his place.
Things start to feel like they're going awry, though. Firelord is introduced as an emotionless, unknowable entity, but he and Thor are soon boon amis - and not seemingly through character growth, but more likely through editorial interference (hopefully not writerly incompetence).
229-234 "Where Darkness Dwells, Dwell I"/"Midgard Aflame" **
Just a mess. There's a rash of people setting themselves on fire, and one of them is - gasp! - Don Blake's old love, Jane Foster! She's the only survivor, of course, and is bedridden while Thor and Hercules track down the force behind the suicides, which might be the embodiment of fear? We also meet a new copper supporting character, Detective Blumkenn, who undergoes a dramatic personality shift between appearances. Then, while Odin goes missing in Asgard and Sif departs on a quest for something to save Jane Foster (she's really ready to roll over for the mortal's supposed claim on Thor's affections), Loki, who's been lost in a void since the end of the Avengers-Defenders War, has managed to pull himself together enough to hatch a plot involving Firelord, prismatic cube portals, force fields keeping every superhero but Thor trapped for the duration (at least this storyline provides a reason why other heroes aren't involved in the globe-spanning crisis, but how did they eat? Did some neighborhood kids watch Spider-Man poop?), and using the brainwashed armies of Asgard to invade Washington, DC. Thor bellyaches about the ignominy of being forced to battle fellow Asgardians, despite the multitude of times he's done so before and will in the future (including a couple issues hence when he scuffles with the Warriors Three at the drop of feathered helmet). Anyway, Thor solves it all by being better at punching than anyone else and the affair is never mentioned again.
235-236 "One Life to Give" ***
While all of the above was going on, Sif and Hercules steal a lion head on a stick from a blind guy and bring it back to Midgard to save Jane Foster. It allows Sif to merge her life-essence with Jane's, saving her, while Sif disappears. It still makes zero sense that Sif is so self-abnegating, but it is heroic of her. I was hoping this would give Jane the ability to transform into Sif the way Blake does into Thor, but no sign of that yet - though Jane does prove more intrepid than usual in upcoming issues, which may denote a Sifly influence.
237-238 "Ulik Unchained" *
Whoever picks Epic Collection titles needs a talking to. Why did they pick a title based on this unremarkable little two-parter, when there are so many other better titles to choose from that are more evocative of more universal themes? Helloooo, "The Death Ship Sails the Stars"? It's RIGHT. THERE.
Anyway, for some reason Asgardian trolls live under the actual earth like Moloids or something and launch an attack, and there's some kind of civil war between Ulik and the troll king, and Jane Foster lands the final blow, which is sort of cool at least.
239-241 "The Death Ship Sails the Stars" ****
So for the past few issues, Odin has been missing from Asgard, and it has transpired that he's given himself amnesia to walk amongst mortals and learn humility (though he hasn't given himself a frail body or lack of godly powers like he did his son; he's just wandering around at full Odin-power without knowing it or how to use it). He calls himself Orrin and has fallen in with southern Californian farmworkers who are attempting to organize, but are opposed by ruthless union busters. It's simultaneously sort of silly and also cool to see it addressed in a comic at all. At one point, when he and the young lady he befriends discuss the situation, and her final word is basically "fuck capitalism."
One has to wonder if the reason this storyline is abruptly dropped, along with series writer Gerry Conway, is because the powers-that-be were getting a mite nervous about all that. Bill Mantlo takes over, and the story shifts abruptly from a last-page-promised "Odinsong" to what feels like a hastily thrown-together coda to the troll storyline and a shift to this Egyptian pantheon arc. If Odin's farmworker friends ever appear again, it's not in this collection. It's a shame - this is the kind of thing I've been waiting to see this Marvel Read. It seems the company is willing to make gestures toward progressive politics without ever straying too close to the line of actually taking a position.
All that said, the introduction of the comic versions of Isis, Osiris, Horus and Seth is pretty neat. A giant pyramid pops up in the middle of San Diego and lures Odin within, where he undergoes a ritual that imbues him with the power of Atum-re, who's positioned as a sort of primordial source of divine might (and possibly an earlier iteration of the essence of Odin himself). It complicates the generally shoddy world-building of the Marvel Universe thus far in a neat way, though I'm sure it gets messed the hell up later. Seth's Death Ship and army of skeletons are eerie, and Odin struggling to remember who he is is affecting.
Hercules bonus: "The Games of Raging Gods" ***
A fun little solo tale following up on Herc's departure in a previous issue, when a UCLA professor showed up to ask him to give a lecture on Greek mythology (which is the most sensible thing any civilian has ever done in the Marvel Universe). Herc and his new friend get waylaid en route to the lecture by the Titan Typhon and his unstable girlfriend Cylla.
October 8, 2024
This was a mixed bag. There were some great stories involving Thor going up against the Absorbing Man, the Destroyer, Ulik, Loki and even the Egyptian gods, but there were also some duds.
One thing I appreciate about Gerry Conway, is that he always has several subplots going on, which makes this more than just a villain-of-the-week book. I enjoyed seeing Odin trying to live as a normal person and getting into all sorts of shenanigans, although I would think that the "All-Wise" would make sure Asgard is looked after before he took off, as him leaving caused all sorts of issues.
One sub-plot that I didn't like was around return of Jane Foster. As soon as she returned, Sif was out the door which was a pity. I enjoyed having Sif in the book and thought she was a much better love interest than Jane.
It's also worth noting that Hercules plays a big role in this book. Thor and Hercules have a battle near the beginning of the book due to a misunderstanding initiated by Pluto, and then after that Hercules stays for the rest of the volume, helping Thor on his adventures. The last issue in this collection even has a Hercules solo story from Marvel Premiere, which was a nice unexpected gem.
One thing I appreciate about Gerry Conway, is that he always has several subplots going on, which makes this more than just a villain-of-the-week book. I enjoyed seeing Odin trying to live as a normal person and getting into all sorts of shenanigans, although I would think that the "All-Wise" would make sure Asgard is looked after before he took off, as him leaving caused all sorts of issues.
One sub-plot that I didn't like was around return of Jane Foster. As soon as she returned, Sif was out the door which was a pity. I enjoyed having Sif in the book and thought she was a much better love interest than Jane.
It's also worth noting that Hercules plays a big role in this book. Thor and Hercules have a battle near the beginning of the book due to a misunderstanding initiated by Pluto, and then after that Hercules stays for the rest of the volume, helping Thor on his adventures. The last issue in this collection even has a Hercules solo story from Marvel Premiere, which was a nice unexpected gem.
April 22, 2023
Great collection of tales. Love the older artwork.
May 23, 2026
Solid nostalgia and constant fun! Weak parts are offset by genuinely exciting and highly fantastic stories, which flow from one book to the next so you cannot stop reading. Hercules and Odin co-star. Sif and Jane Foster are featured in most stories, but have mainly sidekick roles.
4.0 stars
4.0 stars
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews