Hartley Johnson 1
Morgan Hartley Johnson
Professor Whatford
English 306-80
03, December 2017
I am just written that way.
Dear Marvel Universe,
It’s me your friendly Merc with a Mouth. I am here to talk to you about myself and why I
think you should cut me some slack when it comes to your opinions. I am actually not a bad guy,
and many of you know firsthand that I do have a fairly strong moral compass in regard to what is
acceptable and what is not. I know you have all been whiplashed with my good side, bad side
antics but I am here to assure you I am not a monster. Well, not a total monster, I am just written
that way.
We can start with what you all know about me. I am a cancer survivor. If you could call it
that. It took away my beautiful face and made me into this disfigured creature that I am. While I
still believe I am very much beautiful and have learned to embrace who I am, I know many of
you have not. One of the reasons I am still alive today is because of the fact that my cells are
constantly regenerating and fighting the cancer. My regeneration does in fact effect my mental
state. I mean really, how many of you can be shot in the brain at point blank and still survive a
rather normal life?
My life, I would not say is normal in any means. I know, I know, shocker. No, not the
character. The Marvel writers love screwing with me. I don’t know my history, I just know I was
a part of the special weapons program and it made me who I am today. I also remember I am
special forces trained, my daddy beat me, my mommy died, I broke Vanessa’s heart, and I have
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been tortured with experimentation (Deadpool, Marvel Universe). I also suffer from manic
depression, schizophrenia, and split personalities, but they keep me company. Ashley R. Deane a
professor at University of Otago, says that I probably got some wonky immune cells from my
mother as a child and that could be what accelerated or caused my schizophrenia (Deane,
Maternal Immune Activation in Rats Produces Temporal Perception Impairments in Adult
Offspring Analogues to Those Observed in Schizophrenia). Another smart lady who studies the
human brains and mental illnesses, Helen Lloyd, says that a person, such as myself, that has
mental disorders should be able to achieve long term and short-term goals as well as have
positive social interactions to be able to be the most normal functioning person they can be. We
all know issue after issue I am facing people looking down at me, shooting at me, trying to kill
me, and just overall being mean to me Wolverine and Spiderman I am looking at you with