When your are three tables or more, just add union and left outer join:
select a.col1, b.col2, a.col3, b.col4, a.category_id
from
(
select category_id from a
union
select category_id from b
) as c
left outer join a on a.category_id = c.category_id
left outer join b on b.category_id = c.category_id