When Captain America was assassinated back in Captain America #25 everyone was in denial and not just fans. Even the Marvel Universe thought something smelled fishy so naturally they sent Wolverine to confirm it was really Cap and not just some stinkin’ Skrull. But the nose don’t lie bub.

So if Captain America really is dead, just how does Marvel plan to bring him back (as we all knew they would)?

TIME GUN!

You heard me true (dis)believer, a time gun. Captain America: Reborn #1 revealed that the involuntary sleeper agent Sharon Carter hadn’t killed Steve (much to her relief) rather she exposed him to tachyons, which caused him to become “unstuck in time.” Now Steve Rogers time travels Quatum Leap style with his consciousness bouncing between earlier incarnations of himself.

Unfortunately it won’t be as easy as putting the time gun in reverse. No matter where Captain American’s mind might be, his body’s still worm food. Of course there’s one body out there that’d be a perfect fit for him: his doppelganger 1950s “commie smasher” Cap, who was suggestively featured in Captain America #600.

But writer Ed Brubaker warns fans, “Just because we’re bringing back Steve, don’t think you know everything we’re going to do. I wouldn’t have ‘Captain America: Reborn’ be this big of a deal and not have some tricks up my sleeve.”

Hopefully one of those “tricks” will explain how Thor was chatting with Captain American’s ghost if he wasn’t really dead (pwned). Does this mean… A SOULLESS CAPTAIN AMERICA!?

And if Steve Rogers does return, will he even want to be Captain America?

Editor Tom Brevoort explains, “[But that all] assumes Steve will come back hale and hearty and fit for duty, both physically and emotionally, and that may not be the case. All during these months, while the world thought him dead, Steve’s been on a metaphysical journey of his own, and the experiences he’s lived through during that time are going to have a profound effect on his state of mind.”

And let’s not forget Cap’s legal status. He was shot on his way to stand trail for treason and I’m pretty sure being “reborn” doesn’t qualify as mitigating circumstances.

After months of speculation on who the “Fallen” was in Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, who would’ve guessed that it’d be two slapstick sidekicks that would spark the real debate.

Skids and Mudflap are Transformers that speak in ebonics, or as I like to call them Ebonicons ™.

Voice actor Reno Wilson (Mudflap) describes them as “wannabe gangster types” who learned about human culture through the Web (thank the Allspark they didn’t visit Perez Hilton’s website).

Director Michael Bay defends the characters saying, “We’re just putting more personality in. I don’t know if it’s stereotypes – they are robots, by the way.” Yeah and all those infamous Looney Tunes cartoons, which had Bugs Bunny in black face, weren’t stereotypes either. After all, “he is a rabbit, by the way.”

And while one can argue Skids and Mudflap are just Transformers trying to “act” black, tiggers if you will, their impersonation is nonetheless defamatory. In one particularly offensive scene the caricatures shamefully confess that they are illiterate.

But these are far from the first racist robots. In an episode Robot Chicken a white scientist builds a robot with an afro, aptly named Afrobot. When switched on Afrobot inquires, “Where the white women at?” (clip @ Adult Swim) The difference, besides actually being funny, is that Robot Chicken is satire.

Just as with explosions Mr. Bay, there’s a time and place for racism and you’ve blown it again!

Humanity just got a little closer to Judgment Day thanks to the Japanese.

Researchers at Waseda University recently unveiled Kobian, a emotional robot that’s more man than machine. Kobian uses 48 actuators to express up to 7 different emotions, including: happiness, surprise, sadness, disgust, and anger (read: bloodlust). It’s also got a double-jointed neck to give it more expressive postures (read: sass).

Kobian’s creators say its expressiveness will help it to interact with people in fields like nursing. Check out this demonstration video, showing just how Kobian will “take care of” us.

Just when you thought your dorm room couldn’t feel any more like a prison cell, along comes the Study Ball.

The prison-style ball and chain weighs 21 lbs. and keeps you from wandering off and doing frivolous things like having a social life. And there’s no time off for good behavior, “the manacle won’t come off until the schedule study time is up” (programmable up to 4 hours). It’s the perfect (mom) gift for students having a “hard time” concentrating on their schoolwork.

You can get Study Ball @ curiosite.com for just… $118.78 !!? (definitely not on a student’s budget)

There’s been a lot of debate about whether homosexuality is a choice or you’re born with it, but it turns out it’s neither.

It’s a demon that enters you (sometimes repeatedly).

A small Connecticut church is in hot water with child & gay advocacy groups after a performing a violent exorcism on a 16-year-old boy to cure him of his homosexuality (video below). A man, who ironically appears to mount the boy at one point, commands “Come on, you homosexual demon! You homosexual spirit, we call you out right now!”

Pastor Patricia McKinney of Manifested Glory Ministries says she’s even been getting death threats as a result of the video, but doesn’t understand the outrage. Me either.

What, ghosts can’t be gay?

More importantly, I think we’ve just found the perfect enemy for the next Ghostbusters movie. Hell, it practically writes itself. “When there’s something queer in your neighborhood who you gonna call? Gaybusters!” And then Peter yells, “Oh no, I’ve been slimed!” Ray responds, “That ain’t ectoplasm, my friend.”

3 words: Vampire Japanese Schoolgirl! Although technically she’s not really a schoolgirl. Her name’s Saya, and she’s gone undercover to hunt her own kind. And these aren’t your typical bloodsuckers, they’re a lot uglier & not prone to sunburn.

Unfortunately, this live action adaptation of the classic anime takes a lot of artistic liberties. Not only is Saya much older, but now she’s now 1/2 human, which makes her seem like a rip-off of Blade. What’s worse, they gave Saya a buddy character to interact with… AND IT AIN’T HAJI!

There’s also frequent flashbacks to Saya’s childhood, which feel more forced than that time Peter Griffin… well you get the idea. They would have been better off starting the movie in the past and flashing forward with perhaps a single strategically placed flashback, instead of constantly pulling the audience out moment. It feels like you’re watching 2 movies (and not in a ‘wow what a bargain’ kinda way).

Bottom line: Unless your one of Saya’s Chevaliers watching this will crystallize you with disgust. If you don’t get any of those references just nod & smile (trust me it’s funny). But despite not-so-special effects and bad story telling, it’s not all bad…

“Pluses”

• Actress Masiela Lusha (imdb) can suck me dry any day
• 1 afro-sporting vampire is cool enough, but twins!?
• uh… Vampire Japanese Schoolgirl!

Whenever I need to find old/rare anime (unlicensed of course)  I head over to Boxtorrents.com, but last weekend I was shocked to find the website was gone! Not just down for maintenance but completely vanished with only a placeholder declaring the domain was for sale by owner.

Even if you weren’t a member, this affects you!

If you’ve ever downloaded manga, anime, j-pop, or any live action Asian show from a torrent aggregator, at least one of the trackers (sources) was probably from Boxtorrents.

So what happened to the website? Well that depends on who you believe. Site administrators Malus and Jarudin say they took it down after they discovered founder “Box” was making torrents of money from donations meant (in their opinion) solely for operating costs. “We had believed in the spirit of Boxtorrents and don’t believe in profiting from operating an Anime torrent site. We considered confronting Box about this, but considering his evasiveness about donations, we felt that that was all the answers we needed,” said Malus in a statement on the site’s forum.

However it didn’t end there. The admins decided to keep the community going by transferring everything to their own website bakabt.com. “So we saved all the site/tracker/forum/wiki/etc. code and databases and brought it over here to BakaBT. We felt fine with doing this since most of the work was done by the staff and not Box, so we felt it belonged to the community and not Box himself. Plus, as many of you may know, Box had little impact on day-to-day operations since it has all be handled by the staff (save donations and contact with our provider) for a while now, which only reinforced our feelings about re-using the code from Boxtorrents. And that is basically how BakaBT came to be and Boxtorrents ceased to be,” explains Malus.

Honestly, I’d be surprised if Box doesn’t sue them despite the dubious nature of the website. But while Box disputes their accusations, he’s apparently taking the virtual coup in stride. In a conciliatory rebuttal, Box said “I dont really blame malus and jarudin for doing this as I really don’t do that much on the site anymore and if I was a regular staff member I would have been ‘fired’ which is effectively what has happened here. The site will do well in Jarudins capable hands and you can no doubt expect some awesome updates to it as time goes on.”

On a side note, L7 World is completely upfront about where donations go: ME! (not that I get any, ya moochers)

California Democrats are testy after getting more than just the shaft from the Governator.

Gov. Schwarzenegger reportedly sent Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg a metal sculpture of bull testicles along with a note saying that they would have to make some hard choices if they are going to close the state’s $24.3 billion budget deficit. Lawmakers called the gift juvenile. “We’ve got more important things on our plate right now than to waste any more time on such trivial matters,” added a spokesperson for Steinberg, who promptly returned the package.

I guess these girlie men don’t have the balls after all.

The game picks up where the movies left off, with the Ghostbusters as popular as ever and by extension Mayor Lenny. And the Mayor wants to keep it that way so when a huge psychic burst reanimates some old foes, he tries to keep the collateral damage to a minimum by teaming the Ghostbusters up with another old foe: Walter Peck!

In fact the whole gang is back: Venkman, Ray, Egon, Winston, and… Rookie!?

Now it’s bad enough that you have play as some nameless “Rookie” instead of one of the main characters, but he’s so peripheral that he might as well not be there. He never even speaks! This makes any emotional connection with the character impossible. Not that there much time for that anyway. The game is all of 6 hours long!

The new ghosts (even the bosses) are unimaginative & forgettable, and if it weren’t for cult icons like Slimer, the Grey Lady, and the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man the city would seem dead (more so than it already is). Except for a few stages like the Times Square battle with Stay Puft & an encounter with the Grey Lady in the New York Public Library (again nothing new), it never really feels like you’re in NYC. You can’t even drive the Ecto-1, although Ray does tease you about it. Heck even the 8os NES game let you drive! If only it was an open-world environment the game could have be awesome, short but awesome.

The actual gameplay is great! Capturing ghosts feels just like you’d think it would: frantic. Ghosts thrash about as you hit them with your proton stream and try reel them in. Fortunately there’s a new innovation to help you with that called “Slam” which lets you knock the wind outta them by violently swinging the ghosts back & forth and even straight into the trap with the proper upgrade, of which there are a lot!

Any real Ghostbuster fan will want to play this regardless of any flaws, but do yourself a favor and rent it. There’s very little replay value, unless you’re big into lame achievements like scanning all the ghosts you encounter or finding utterly random artifacts (most of which you’ll get the first time around anyway).

A California woman is suing General Mills for false advertising. Janine Sugawara claims the company misled her into believing Cap’n Crunch with Crunchberries was made with real berries.

Let’s just hope she never finds out the truth behind dinngleberries!

Judge Morrison England Jr. dismissed the case, pointing out “This Court is not aware of, nor has Plaintiff alleged the existence of, any actual fruit referred to as a ‘crunchberry.’” (or Booberry for that matter)

But attorney Jeffery Kravits disagrees with the ruling, “Call it Cap’n Crunch with sugar balls. Let consumers know what it is ahead of time.”

Right… heck for all we know he’s not even a real Captain!

It’s not Sugawara’s first time pulling a stunt like this. She had a similar case, which alleged Froot Loops was not made with real fruit, thrown out as well. Still Sugawara is undeterred and plans to appeal.

You might call her a “cereal” suer.