An odd and unnecessary combination
I recently (about three days ago) read from where the Journey Into Mystery Fear Itself tie-in started to issue 635, and enjoyed it (may write reviews later). Today I was lent The Manchester Gods, and I must say that I'm somewhat disappointed with it.
That's not to say that there's anything all that wrong with the Manchester Gods part. No, it was the Mighty Thor issues that I found underwhelming.
In Manchester Gods, I enjoyed Gillen's writing and found it more or less on par with his earlier JIM material. The art, however, fell short in a few (important) scenes and ended up somewhat spoiling the mood for me- particularly in the scene where Hela drinks from the Grail; Hela looked rather disgusting (whereas she had, up to that point, been drawn as being somewhere around average in comic book attractiveness- she looked like a lich in the scene in question). Also, I found Loki's change of heart to be somewhat unconvincing, though not overly so, and I felt that the scene where Leah (sort of) dies could have been executed so much better.
Mighty Thor, however, was an utter waste of time. It tried to spin this convoluted space adventure plot with some guy named the Scrier, who was helpfully introduced by the Silver Surfer, but fell flat and ended up just being boring. I make a point of not reading Marvel space stories for a reason- the ones I've had the displeasure of reading have been crappy, and this was no exception.
Overall, 3/5. Journey Into Mystery was worth reading (and buying), but I wouldn't buy the compilation and would instead opt to track down and purchase them separate from the Mighty Thor issues.