The New Canon and Another Death

The news that many of us expected was coming down (well, I expected it at least) finally arrived: The Star Wars Expanded Universe is essentially null and void. I completely understand and respect the decision. After all, vast swaths of the Expanded Universe material was less than stellar (although I did enjoy much of it...a bit of a guilty pleasure of mine) and why tie down the new movies to canon of questionable quality. However, I hope that this doesn't mean that we'll never see Mara Jade, Grand Admiral Thrawn, the young Skywalker and Solo kids, and the characters from the EU that were bright spots. Supposedly, the novels and such will continue, but the current timeline of the novels are a different "what if" reality of Star Wars and not the real thing. (You can read the official announcement here.)

Also in geek news today, Marvel has announced that they are going to kill Wolverine. That's right, the big kahuna of the Marvel Universes is going to bite the big one. Although I have some major doubts that Marvel will kill off one of, if not the, most popular character in their universe with the intent of Wolvie staying dead for longer than 4-year old's attention span lasts, I do hope that Wolverine will stay dead longer than Superman. After all, if you're going to have the brass cajones to kill off one of the big dogs, have the same level of cajones to keep 'em dead long enough for rigor mortis to set in. Not sure how I feel about this one, but Marvel has made it quite a habit of having grand, far-affecting, events and then retconning them a month or two later, so I doubt that one of my favorites will be gone for very long.