Most every genre concept has its own expanded universe, whether it be novels, comic books or video games. The biggest culprits being, of course, Star Wars and Star Trek. Some are below subpar (Blackflame's Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street novels), while others can be pleasantly surprising (James Luceno and Brian Daley's Robotech "novelizations", the few Red Dwarf novels).
There does, in fact, appear to be a hierarchy of expanded material. Novels, for whatever reason, are usually considered more valid than comics and video games. In the case of novels, novelizations of movies can be clues into earlier drafts and concepts and deleted material. Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith is a shining example of actually improving the material.
There's also the interesting occurrence of expanded material being negated by later material. For instance, all the early Dark Horse Aliens and Terminator comics. The former featured Hicks and a grown Newt escaping an alien infested earth and taking the fight back to the aliens' home planet, while the latter had Sarah giving birth to a baby girl, Joan Connor. All that material was later negated by Alien 3 and Terminator 2. Still, whenever that old stuff pops up again in new editions, they try to fix the old mistakes by changing names and such, but often it just doesn't work.
Star Wars stuff is even more bizarre, in that old contradictions (especially by early stuff like Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye or Marvel's Star War comics) are kept in "canon" but constantly being retconned or explained.
Some cases, like Buffy season 8 and Angel: After the Fall, act as "officlal" sequels, while others are nothing but fluff and filler. Still, I could be in the middle of real literature like a Toni Morrison novel and then, out of nowhere, some random Indiana Jones book from 1992 will catch my eye and I have to stop myself.
The interesting contradiction is that novels, in most expanded universes, are considered more canonical but comic books and video games are less embarrassing. I don't want to be seen reading a dimestore Battletech novel in public, but I have no shame in playing Knights of the Old Republic.
My question is, what embarrassing tie-in material can you not keep your hands off?
There does, in fact, appear to be a hierarchy of expanded material. Novels, for whatever reason, are usually considered more valid than comics and video games. In the case of novels, novelizations of movies can be clues into earlier drafts and concepts and deleted material. Matthew Stover's Revenge of the Sith is a shining example of actually improving the material.
There's also the interesting occurrence of expanded material being negated by later material. For instance, all the early Dark Horse Aliens and Terminator comics. The former featured Hicks and a grown Newt escaping an alien infested earth and taking the fight back to the aliens' home planet, while the latter had Sarah giving birth to a baby girl, Joan Connor. All that material was later negated by Alien 3 and Terminator 2. Still, whenever that old stuff pops up again in new editions, they try to fix the old mistakes by changing names and such, but often it just doesn't work.
Star Wars stuff is even more bizarre, in that old contradictions (especially by early stuff like Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye or Marvel's Star War comics) are kept in "canon" but constantly being retconned or explained.
Some cases, like Buffy season 8 and Angel: After the Fall, act as "officlal" sequels, while others are nothing but fluff and filler. Still, I could be in the middle of real literature like a Toni Morrison novel and then, out of nowhere, some random Indiana Jones book from 1992 will catch my eye and I have to stop myself.
The interesting contradiction is that novels, in most expanded universes, are considered more canonical but comic books and video games are less embarrassing. I don't want to be seen reading a dimestore Battletech novel in public, but I have no shame in playing Knights of the Old Republic.
My question is, what embarrassing tie-in material can you not keep your hands off?
