I'm not a big fan of how Brevoort talks about the cosmic side of the universe. He makes it seem like from
Annihilation through
Annihilators: Earthfall took place away from the rest of the Marvel Universe. In fact, they were very much a part of the Marvel Universe, and, as someone who wasn't reading any Marvel, they were my introduction to a lot of the recent events at Marvel. Sure they weren't involved in everything, but there were a lot of links:
- The Annihilation: Super-Skrull mini-series had the titular Super-Skrull visit Reed Richards for a way into the Negative Zone.
- Annihilation itself had a scene where Nova tried to contact Earth, but due to the events of the Civil War, didn't get much of a response.
- Early in his series, Nova returned to Earth, was met by Iron Man who gave him the Initiative sales pitch, caught up with Justice, faced the Thunderbolts, and talked to Penance (nee Speedball), all of which convinced him to get off Earth as quickly as possible.
- The big bad of Annihilation: Conquest was Ultron.
- Following Annihilation: Conquest and a tussle with Galactus and the Surfer, Nova caught wind of the Secret Invasion and headed back to Earth. He encountered Darkhawk at Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. and fought the Skrulls there. While on Earth, he caught up with fellow New Warriors Firestar and Justice.
- Meanwhile, the Guardians of the Galaxy, fought Blastar at the "Project 42" prison and warned Reed Richards of the threat of invasion by the Negative Zone hoards.
- The events of X-Men: Deadly Genesis, "The Rise and Fall of the Shi'ar Empire" the 12 issue storyline in Uncanny X-Men, X-Men: Divided We Stand, and X-Men: Kingbreaker, as well as Secret Invasion: Inhumans and Secret Invasion: War of Kings all lead directly to War of Kings, which involved the Starjammers lead by Alex Summers (aka Havok) and comprised of other former X-Men Polaris and Rachel Summers (aka Phoenix), the former of which was the one-time sister-in-law to Crystal of the inhumans and the latter of which found out that the Shi'ar had killed her family. The Shi'ar Imperial Guard and Lilandra (onetime wife of Charles Xavier) were involved.
- Following War of Kings, in the Nova issues that tied in with Realm of Kings, Nova chased after Darkhawk and wound up in a part of the Fault where he interacted with past versions of Reed Richards and Black Bolt, against other various versions of Earth villains such as Moonstone.
- While The Thanos Imperative and the first Annihilators mini-series were pretty cut-off from the rest of the Marvel Universe, the second (and last) Annihilators mini was entitled Earthfall and had the Annihilators team up with a team of Avengers made up of Captain America, Iron Man, Red Hulk, Valkyrie, Ms. Marvel, and Spider-Man.
So Marvel Cosmic was never really apart from the rest of the Marvel Universe. Brevoort always seems dismissive of the 2006-2011 Marvel Cosmic Universe, which upsets me, because, again, for those 5 years, that was my exposure to the Marvel Universe. And it was my enjoyment of those comics which lead me to recently pick up the first four
Fantastic Four TPBS of Hickman's run, as well as the
Avengers Assemble comic. Recently, I branched out and tried and liked
Daredevil and, assuming my wallet can take it, I might try
Avengers and
New Avengers with Hickman, as well as whatever title the Guardians appear in.