Disney hates me.

Disney hates me. What other reason could there be for killing off my beloved universes. See nation, there are only three things in this world that I truly love. First and foremost Marvel comics. Marvel 616 to be precise. As a kid my mom use to take me to the comic book store when we were out and about and let me buy comics. I would spend countless hours looking through back issue bens for just the right comic book. I wouldn't know what I was looking for till I found it but once I did it was all I cared about. A large majority of the ones I picked were X-Men. Something about them being different spoke to me. It was a fun hobby as a child.

In middle school I had a lot of friends but I always felt like an outsider. I was never really one of them, they treated me like I was I just never felt it. I know that part of it was that I got beat up a lot. Mostly due to the fact that I was white and white people weren't well liked where I grew up. In 7th grade I had an English teacher named Mr. Needs and he found out that I loved to read and that I was a huge Star Wars fan. He suggested that I read Heir to the Empire. That book changed my life. It opened Star Wars up to me in ways that it never had before. The EU became an escape for me. An outlet which let me feel accepted. The summer before high school was to start I moved to Texas, a transition that I did not handle well. The only thing that got me through that time was A New Jedi Order. Star Wars was a big part of my life during that difficult time.

I didn't last long in Texas high schools. I just didn't fit in. I was home sick and just could adjust no matter how hard I tried. I dropped out of school in 9th grade. This was a time of great depression for me. I spent all my time alone in the house with nothing to do. My aunt and uncle took me on a trip back to San Diego. It was all I could hope for. Every part of me wished that trip would never end but of course it had to. Before we came back to Texas we stopped off at Disneyland. Ironic right? While there my uncle bought me the latest issue of Uncanny X-Men and it changed my life. I became a hard core weekly comic book collector right then and there.

Marvel and Star Wars kept hope alive in me at a time when I had thought all hope was lost. It kept me going during a point in my life where I couldn't see a reason to go on. I know it may seem a bit childish to be so upset over this but they weren't just something that I enjoyed, they were something, they are something that is apart of me. Not long after I discovered reruns of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and it changed the course of my life. After that show I wanted nothing more than to be a writer. I had to be a writer.

Saying goodbye to something that you love, something that has been apart of your life going back as far as you can remember is never easy. It isn't something you just do with a smile and a nod and forget about. The Star Wars EU and Marvel 616 weren't just something I enjoyed, they changed my life. Saved my life. If the universes that I loved as a child have to die for what is to come next than I can only hope that the new versions touch the next generation the same way that the old ones saved me. R.I.P. Star Wars and Marvel. You will always live on in our memories, and in back issues. Thank God for back Issues.