Comic Book tie ins (issues or whole series) that are canon or are written as such.

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Urntrede frdtrut

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Note: I've considered posting this in the CBC forums, but I felt it better for The Entertainment and GAD forums since these are about comics that tie into well, animated and live action shows.

Comic book tie ins exist for a simple reason. Money. And a good deal of many are simply non canon or don't fit in because of certain details. With that said, some comic book tie ins, however, are meant as official canon or at least written so that they don't contradict with established details from the official story. Which ones are you aware of?

1. To save time, both Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Gargoyles (the recent series) were advertised as the official 8th and 3rd season respectively continuing the storylines from the finished shows.

2. Batman Adventures (written by Dan Slott and Ty Templeton) while not part of the official DCAU was written to expand the continuity just the same. The stories had more continuity and even moved some Batman characters forward (as well as bridging the gap between Mr. Freeze's appearance in BTAS "Cold Comfort" and Batman Beyond "Meltdown").

I'll typed some more in a bit.
 
I believe the tie-in comics to the recent "Star Trek" movie are possibly canon (at least on the level of the Animated Series), as they were written to give background to the movie.
 
That would be Star Trek Countdown which I believe is canon (though I hear Data appears in the issue despite having been killed in ST Nemesis).

1. The shortlived Smallville comics were indeed intended as canon and would sometimes expand on some show specific events (one of which has a story taking place between Season 2 and 3, and another one which explains the absence of Lionel's former assisstant, Dominic Santori).

2. While the series for the most part contradicts canon, Justice League Unlimited #33 is written to work as canon, and even provides a continuation to Kid's Stuff. #37-38 are written by show writer Matt Wayne and intended as canon (both taking place after Destroyer).

3. Teen Titans Go would often explore the stories from the Teen Titans cartoon and I hear it is acknowledged as canon.

4. Though shortlived, the Tale Spin comics (according to the letter pages) would have explored the backgrounds of the characters (#7 infact shows how Kit ended up with The Air Pirates). A planned but unmade Annual would have showed us the origins of The Iron Vulture.
 
I have heard the Care Bears comic book series explained how the second movie fit into the rest of the continuity. I guess if anything in Care Bears can be considered canon, this can. Either way, I find it very interesting.

Let's not forget that there are a good handful of View Askewniverse comics, all are pretty much canon (and all of which are in the omnibus collection Tales from the Clerks). According to Wikipedia, the View Askewniverse timeline goes in this order:
1. Walt Flanagan's Dog (comic story originally published in Oni Double Feature #1, 1998)
2. Mallrats (1995 movie)
3. Clerks (1994 movie)
3a. Clerks: The Lost Scene (1999 comic book, and 2004 animated short film)
4. Chasing Amy (1997 film)
4a. all Bluntman & Chronic comics (published between 1997 and 2001, all are fictional even in the already fictional world of the View Askewniverse)
5. Chasing Dogma (originally published between 1998 and 1999 as a four-issue miniseries entitled "Jay & Silent Bob", overlaps with Chasing Amy and Dogma).
6. Dogma (1999 film)
7. Clerks. (The Comic Book) (1998 comic book)
8. Clerks. (The Holiday Special) (1998 comic book)
9. Clerks: The Cartoon (animated TV series aired in 2000, released on DVD in 2001 as "Clerks: Uncensored". Canonicity is questionable).
10. Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001 film)
11. The Flying Car (2002 short film with Dante and Randal made for the Leno-era Tonight Show)
12. Where's the Beef (2006 comic book story originally sold at conventions)
13. Clerks II (2006 film)
 
Regarding Ty and Dan's Batman Adventures, Ty was writing and illustrating the original The Batman Adventures tales as well, so for my money, most of the stories that appeared in those books can be taken as canon, if they don't contradict anything, or you really, really like them. Example? The final three issues of the original series tell a deeply emotional Hugo Strange story. Hugo had one lousy appearance on the animated series...but those three books really do great things with him. Why not consider it all canon? Superman Adventures did great things with Livewire, Supergirl and Mxy in particular. Were they all supposed to be canon? Probably not, but many turned out to fit perfectly into the shows they sprang from. So official or not, I consider them gospel in most cases. Blight becoming Stalker's trophy in an issue of Batman Beyond? Eh...not so much.

#37-38 are written by show writer Matt Wayne and intended as canon (both taking place after Destroyer).

See, of all the DCAU tie-in comics, I would recommend JLA and JLU the least, simply because even in the stories that were meant to be continuity-aware, big things would fall flat. Weather Wizard would be drawn to resemble his DCU counterpart (really? After like 10 years since his debut on S:TAS, the artist goofed that up?) or the stories would prove pointless (Matt Wayne's Spectre story is especially forgettable, despite appearances from Deadman and Rama Kushna). No offense to Wayne, but the best almost in-continuity stories in the JLU comics were the Joker raids the Watchtower tale, the Blue Devil story, the Mary Marvel/Supergirl issue (where Huntress and Hawkgirl wear the wrong costumes) and especially the Phantom Stranger Christmas issue (drawn entirely in THE BATMAN styled artwork).

Other books...?

There were Master of the Universe comics published to tie in with the 200X series from a few years back. Apparently those worked around the show's continuity to tell new tales that could be considered canon.

Teen Titans GO! definitely went out of their way to fit in with the series, and as the book went on, became perhaps even better than the show.

The 80's classic Labyrinth has been revisited in a manga comic series called Return to Labyrinth. I've read the first two (of four) books, but wouldn't really recommend them except to big manga fans or big Labyrinth fans. They're not especially great extensions of the movie.
 
Data was "killed", but he downloaded his mind and memories into his brother, B-4 (this was even hinted at in ST Nemesis). When Data meets Spock, the old Vulcan comments that they "share a common experience", referring to the fact that both have overcome death. As for the canonicity, Bob Orci has said that it's optional.

Another such tie-in is Season 3 of Jericho, which is being published by Devil's Due publishing in November. It's the official third season, featuring stories that were originally written to be TV episodes. Season 3 deals with the modern American Civil War between the Allied States, United States and Independent Republic of Texas (as well as the various personal storylines of the inhabitants of Jericho, Kansas).
 
The Buffy comic that was based off of Joss's original script for the movie is considered canon. Spike: Asylum as well as Spike vs. Dracula where we learn that spike feels Dracula owes him 11 pounds for destroying a copy of Dracula autographed by Bram Stroker that Spike bought Drusilla. It's funny because Spike bought it when it was new, and he's asking for 11 pounds NOW. Dracula makes fun of him for not factoring in inflation and the rise in value since that time.
 
I'm looking more for stories that can work as canon on the grounds that it doesn't have any plotholes or plotholes that can easily explained away, rather than stories that one wants to be canon. Not that I dismiss the quality of the story as I do have a fair share of noncanon stories (JL Adventures #6 and 11 come to mind). Only reason I'm making an issue on whether or not said comic fits is for discussion sake.

That Joker in the Watchtower story seems like it could work. I figure that like Teen Titans Go, they never committed to a linear style (Doing stories that aren't post finale material), hence why Supergirl appeared.

That said, The Batman Strikes #15 comes to mind as it is an official tie in to The Batman VS Dracula (Which I was watching last night, hence making this post). Heck, I hear the story was originally to be sold with the DVD.
 
Eh, questionable. At the time it could have worked, but then details revealed in ROTF (in addition to Bay basically screwing up plot points for the sake of more action scenes) means that a second prequel series that somewhat retcons the other was produced. Perfect example of this- originally, the Fallen was to be trapped in a splinter dimension and the IDW prequel comics work with that. But then Bay decided that in the movie itself he'd just be sitting around on the Decepticon flagship.

Really, the TF movie comics are no more legit than any other 'See the story behind this summer's blockbuster movie!' cheap tie in comic. A much better example is Transformers Animated: The Arrival. It's written by the show's head writer and not only contains brand new stories but also shows what characters were doing off camera (like how Lockdown and Blackarachnia came to Earth and what happened on Cybertron after Prime's crew were considered MIA).
 
Going through some other comics recently, I was wondering.

Now, X-Men, X-Men 2 and Superman Returns all contain 2-4 issues of a Prequel miniseries to expand on the respective movieverses.

Now being labled as Prequels do they still count as official add-ons to the movie canon, or just merely milking the franchises? The only real conflict I'm informed of is X-Men Prequel: Wolverine. The issue itself introduced Silver Samurai who appears in X-Men The Official Game which I hear contradicts the comic appearance.
 
If it expands on the movie continuity I don' t see how it matters where in the timeline it fits. And, hey, I thought of one. There's a Garth Ennis comic that came packed in with some editions of the Thomas Jane Punisher movie that tells some of the back story. Best thing about the package, for me.
 
I think the problem is that alot of the time these comics, especially for superhero movies, act as shout outs to long term fans. So rather than get a story that perfectly fills the gap you instead get something that just about fills the brief whilst shoving in other comic characters that weren't chosen for the film. Funny you mention the games though, as they do it even more. The Spider-Man games for instance have you face the likes of Vulture and Shocker before you even see Green Goblin.
 
I heard about that.

True Heart is shot, so Mephisto offers Noble Heart a deal to annull their marriage to her life, which resets the continuity button.
 
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