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Time of India
a day ago
- Politics
- Time of India
New York Mayoral Race 2025 Decoded: Zohran Mamdani, Eric Adams or Andrew Cuomo - who will win?
In Daredevil: Born Again , Wilson Fisk—the Kingpin of Crime—doesn't just manipulate the system; he becomes Mayor of New York. Because in the Marvel Universe, the best way to consolidate criminal power isn't through backroom deals—it's by getting elected. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now A comic book storyline? Maybe. But in 2025 New York, fiction and politics are on disturbingly good terms. This is the city where Sinatra sang about making it big, Trump gold-plated his ego, and aliens always seem to start their invasions. So naturally, New York's mayoral race couldn't just be another bland contest of platforms and pamphlets—it had to be a full-blown cinematic crossover event. Daredevil: Born Again | Wilson Fisk becomes Mayor of New York City | Clip 4K The incumbent, Eric Adams, entered 2025 under a federal indictment—only to be miraculously rescued by the Trump Justice Department. Unburdened but politically bruised, Adams bailed on the Democratic primary and now seeks reelection as an independent via two oddly branded ballot lines: Safe Streets, Affordable City and EndAntiSemitism. Think DJ Khaled meets Bloomberg, but with more subpoenas. In the Democratic primary, the drama centres on two men who couldn't be more different if they tried: Andrew Cuomo, the scandal-drenched ex-Governor staging a Nixonian comeback, and Zohran Mamdani, a 33-year-old democratic socialist from Queens endorsed by AOC, Bernie Sanders, the Working Families Party, and anyone who uses the phrase 'neoliberal hellscape' without irony. Trailing them is a whole gallery of political side characters: Council Speaker Adrienne Adams, Comptroller Brad Lander, State Senators Zellnor Myrie and Jessica Ramos, hedge fund crusader Whitney Tilson, integrity lawyer Jim Walden, and the ever-returning vigilante Curtis Sliwa, whose red beret remains the most consistent part of Republican strategy in NYC. Eric Adams – The Survivor Mayor Image credits: Getty Images Adams' first term was less a public service than a multi-season streaming show. Tired of too many ads? go ad free now Crime stats, police drama, migrant shelter chaos, zoning reforms, a revolving cast of commissioners—and all of it interspersed with nightclub appearances and cryptic Instagram captions. Then came the indictment. Then came the acquittal. Now, Adams has reinvented himself as the 'competence candidate,' reminding voters that murders are down, rezonings are up, and hey—at least he's not a felon. But public memory is short and sharp. Most New Yorkers remember the headlines, not the metrics. They remember the vibe. And the vibe was: chaos, ego, and subpoenas. If Adams wins, it'll be a masterclass in narrative control. If he loses, it'll be because even New York eventually gets tired of being gaslit. Andrew Cuomo – The Once and Future Kingpin Image credits: Getty Images Cuomo is back. Not because New Yorkers missed him, but because Cuomo missed being Cuomo. His campaign pitch? 'Experience matters.' His campaign vibe? 'Please forget everything after 2019.' He's armed with union endorsements, a donor Rolodex fat enough to crush a CitiBike, and the smug certainty of a man who believes he built the state and should get a second chance to ruin the city. But every speech, every op-ed, every photo-op brings back the ghosts: the nursing home scandal, the sexual harassment accusations, the press briefings that felt like hostage negotiations. He's polling well among moderates, but even his supporters admit it's less about enthusiasm and more about resignation. Cuomo is the electoral equivalent of a nicotine patch: addictive, unsatisfying, and kind of gross. Zohran Mamdani – The Socialist from Queens Zohran Mamdani (Image credit AP) Where Cuomo evokes the past, Zohran Mamdani is the embodiment of political future-shock. Young, Ugandan-Indian, socialist, multilingual, and unapologetically radical, Mamdani offers New York a campaign that reads like a progressive fever dream: a $30 minimum wage, rent freezes, free public transit, and publicly-owned grocery stores. He's adored by the left, feared by centrists, and targeted by conservatives who struggle to pronounce 'Astoria' without wincing. His campaign ads are multilingual, his rallies are electric, and his vibe is pure disruption. But New York is a city that loves the idea of revolution—as long as it arrives in the back of an Uber. Can a city that claps for social justice actually vote for it? Or will it smile at Mamdani's poetry, then quietly fill in the bubble for Cuomo in the privacy of the booth? Brad Lander – The Wonk Whisperer New York City Comptroller Brad Lander is placed under arrest by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and FBI agents outside federal immigration court on Tuesday, June 17, 2025, in New York. (AP Photo/Olga Fedorova) Brad Lander is the guy who shows up to a protest with anExcel sheet and a legal pad. Brooklyn-born, fiscally responsible, and ideologically moderate by progressive standards, Lander has built a reputation as the man who knows how to make the city run. His pitch is clear: data, ethics, efficiency. His platform includes housing reform, mental health infrastructure, and fiscal transparency. He's the candidate who reads the fine print—probably because he wrote it. But charisma matters. In a race filled with rappers, rogues, and reformed governors, Lander is the competent dad trying to DJ the party. He's quietly gaining steam, especially among voters fatigued by Cuomo and wary of Mamdani. But unless he breaks out of his technocratic shell soon, he risks becoming everyone's second choice—and no one's winner. The Progressive Soup Jessica Ramos began her campaign as a worker-first progressive. Then she endorsed Cuomo, and her credibility evaporated faster than a Midtown apartment deposit. Zellnor Myrie staked his candidacy on housing, calling for one million new units. Admirable. But in a race dominated by Mamdani and Lander, he's the third-most progressive in any room—and that's not a great place to be. Adrienne Adams, drafted as the centrist peacemaker, offers measured leadership and broad endorsements. But her campaign has struggled to cut through. In a year where the political circus is running full tilt, being sensible might just be the fastest way to be forgotten. Everyone wants to be the 'anti-Cuomo.' No one has figured out how to consolidate the vote. The result? Progressive fragmentation that makes a circular firing squad look efficient. The Independents, the Billionaires, and the Ballot Hobbyists Whitney Tilson is a charter school–loving hedge funder whose platform is basically 'Run NYC like a spreadsheet.' He's rich, loud, and terminally LinkedIn. Then there's Jim Walden, a Bloombergian technocrat suing to be called an 'independent' on the ballot, armed with powerpoints, white papers, and approximately five enthusiastic voters. These guys won't win. But they will fill panels, clutter debates, and write Medium posts explaining why they should have. Curtis Sliwa – The Red-Beret Rerun And finally: Curtis Sliwa, the vigilante. The red-bereted Ghost of Giuliani Past. Every few years he emerges like a Republican cicada—loud, angry, and allergic to nuance. He's running on a platform of crime, more crime, fewer migrants, and feral cats as pest control. He won't win. But if enough Democrats split the vote, he might finish second. Stranger things have happened. After all, this is the city where rats get pizza and mayors get indicted. Perception vs. Performance – The Real Contest This election isn't about what candidates have done. It's about what voters remember. And more importantly, what they feel. Adams has genuine achievements—but he feels like a nightclub manager with subpoena fatigue. Cuomo has experience—but his scandals still scream louder than his surrogates. Mamdani offers ideas—but he also scares the donor class. Lander is solid—but not sexy. And Sliwa is… available. The media knows it. Every headline is a meme. Every endorsement is a subtweet. Even the New York Times threw in the towel and endorsed no one—New York's journalistic version of saying, 'We're out of ideas. Good luck, Gotham.' Final Notes from Gotham New York's 2025 mayoral race isn't ideological—it's mythological. It's about redemption arcs, origin stories, surprise villains, and broken heroes. It's a city where Wilson Fisk becoming mayor wasn't a warning—it was a prophecy. Will voters choose the devil they know (Cuomo)? The devil they fired (Adams)? The socialist the Right fears (Mamdani)? Or the nerd in glasses who actually has a plan (Lander)? One thing is certain: whoever wins, they won't just inherit New York—they'll inherit its neuroses, contradictions, and the sacred duty of being yelled at in five languages before 10 AM.
Gizmodo
3 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
The X-Men Join the Fight In Your First Look at the Next Issue of ‘Godzilla Destroys the Marvel Universe'
Godzilla's been having a comics cameo queen moment for a while now, and Marvel has been celebrating the Big G's 70th anniversary in style with a series of fun one-issue crossovers with a whole host of Marvel heroes, from the Fantastic Four to Spider-Man. But the fun's over now: Godzilla's here to stomp over the Marvel Universe for real, and as things get from bad to worse for heroes and villains alike, it's almost time for mutantkind to enter the fight to save Earth. Gerry Duggan and Javier Garron, and Paco Medina's Godzilla Destroys the Marvel Universe is set to kick off next month, and we've already had a few tempting teases of just how bad things are going to get as Godzilla reawakens in Marvel's Manhattan, forcing heroes and villains alike to unite in a desperate gambit to stop the King of All Monsters. Our first teases for August's second issue of the five-issue mini have already teases that Godzilla might become even more dangerous by bonding with the Venom symbiote, but io9 has your first exclusive look the solicit for issue 3 of the series–as the X-Men hope to survive the experience that is a battle with Godzilla himself! Check out the solicit for Godzilla Destroys the Marvel Universe #3 below, as well as your first look at all covers for the issue. As Godzilla's wave of desolation arrives on the shores of Madripoor, the X-Men join the fight for the planet's survival! As they struggle to hold the line against the King of the Monsters, Professor Xavier fights his own mental battle as he attempts to penetrate and pacify the mind of the Kaiju–but when he discovers what lurks in the mind of the rampaging Godzilla, all bets are off! Plus, the Hulk enters the fray with an earth-shattering entrance that sends ripples felt across the world, including in Wakanda, where Black Panther is done waiting to be the next victim of the kaiju's frenzy. If Godzilla insists on fighting, Wakanda will prove the kaiju isn't the only one capable of bringing the destruction! Issue 3 will feature a main cover from Marvel stalwart Mark Brooks, depicting Cyclops, Jean Grey, Wolverine, Storm, Gambit, and Rogue alongside Godzilla, as well as a series of variant covers, including an action-figure style cover by John Tyler Christopher (featuring classic Godzilla kaiju Hedorah the Smog Monster), a 'Marvelized' Godzilla cover by Dave Wachter depicting an Iron Man/Mechagodzilla mashup, and a gorgeous variant from Jeremy Wilson showcasing Cyclops and Godzilla blasting it out. But perhaps our favourite is a bold cover by Jeehyung Lee that asks the ultimate question: who will win, one giant kaiju, or one very small, angry Canadian? Check them all out below! Godzilla Destroys the Marvel Universe #3 Cover Gallery Godzilla Destroys the Marvel Universe #3 is set to hit comic book stores September 24, 2025. Check out where you can find a store to add a copy to your pull list at Comic Shop Locator.
Time of India
13-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Throwback to when Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and Bo Jackson became animated crime-fighters in 90s cult cartoon ProStars
In 1991, NBC's 'ProStars' reimagined sports icons Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and Bo Jackson as animated superheroes fighting crime (Image via YouTube) Before the Marvel Universe or the superhero craze took over pop culture, three real-life legends—Wayne Gretzky, Michael Jordan, and Bo Jackson—tried their hand at saving the world in a truly unique way. In 1991, NBC aired a bold Saturday morning cartoon series called ProStars, which turned these athletic giants into animated superheroes on a mission to help kids and fight crime. While the show only lasted a single season, it remains a memorable experiment in blending sports fame with cartoon heroism. The surprising crossover of sports and Saturday morning cartoons At the time, Gretzky was the NHL's biggest name, Jordan was dominating the NBA, and Jackson was a rare multi-sport icon. Capitalizing on their mainstream popularity, ProStars imagined the trio operating out of "Wayneom's Gym," a quirky base led by a character called Mom. From there, they launched into over-the-top missions using sports-themed gadgets—like Gretzky's boomerang hockey pucks, Jordan's basketball gear, and Bo's all-around athletic might. While the premise was ambitious, the execution didn't quite deliver. Though each episode opened with live-action clips of the athletes answering fan mail and offering moral lessons, none of the stars voiced their animated counterparts. This disconnect, coupled with flat animation and overly simplistic writing, kept the show from truly taking off. More than a cartoon—it was a 90s time capsule Despite its shortcomings, ProStars still holds nostalgic value. Its theme song proudly proclaimed, 'ProStars, it's all about helping kids!'—a reflection of the show's attempt to mix entertainment with education. Even with exaggerated portrayals and awkward humor, the series showcased how massive these athletes' influence was in the early '90s. Critics may have panned the show for its outdated stereotypes and lack of real athlete involvement, but fans remember it for the novelty and audacity of the concept. In a world where athletes rarely stepped beyond their sport, ProStars dared to reimagine them as larger-than-life heroes fighting for good. Also Read: Why Wayne Gretzky's son Trevor picked baseball over hockey despite growing up in the Great One's shadow In hindsight, the cartoon was less about the battles won and more about the cultural moment it captured—a time when Gretzky, Jordan, and Jackson were so universally admired, they could save the day not just on the ice, court, or field, but in the world of Saturday morning cartoons.
Yahoo
09-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Ryan Reynolds Goes in for a Kiss with Sister-in-Law Robyn Lively in 'Doogie Howser' Spoof
Ryan Reynolds spoofed Doogie Howser, M.D. as a response to the show's star Neil Patrick Harris voicing Deadpool in a new video game Doogie alum Robyn Lively joined her brother-in-law for the hilarious video, in which Reynolds appears to awkwardly lean in for a kiss "No, I don't think we should do that, because ... you're my sister-in-law," Reynolds tells Robyn, who is the older sister of his wife Blake LivelyRyan Reynolds teamed up with sister-in-law Robyn Lively for a Doogie Howser, M.D. spoof. The actor stars opposite Robyn in a new video spoofing her TV show Doogie Howser, M.D., all for a joking response to the hit series' star Neil Patrick Harris now voicing Reynolds' character Deadpool in a new video game. As a whitecoat-clad Reynolds, 48, types up a scathing letter on an old-school desktop PC, Robyn — who played love interest Michele Faber opposite Harris' Doogie in the show, which ran from 1989 to 1993 — pops up in the window and yells, "House call!" "My girlfriend! What are you doing here? If my dad sees you here, he's gonna freak," Reynolds tells Robyn, his wife Blake Lively's older sister, who cheekily replies, "You're a 48-year-old man." Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human-interest stories. "I'm a 14-year-old medical prodigy who's going through the change," Reynolds says as "Doogie," which prompts Robyn to respond, "Are you talking about puberty?" "Robyn, you're being paid," quips Reynolds. "This is vindictive and stupid," she replies, to which Reynolds hits back with, "I disagree with that diagnosis." After an ad for the Meta Quest game Deadpool VR (featuring the voice of Harris, 51) plays onscreen, Reynolds and Robyn, 53, have one last thing to sort out. After he appears to awkwardly lean in for a kiss, Reynolds backs up and says, "No, I don't think we should do that, because—" "Because you are so dumb," Robyn says, at the same time he says, "Because you're my sister-in-law." A synopsis for the new game reads, "Contracted by Mojo, with the promise of making money, like a lot of money, Deadpool sets out to capture villains from the Marvel Universe." "The Merc with the Mouth soon realizes he shouldn't have so hastily signed the contract," the description adds. "Will he survive or thrive in his journey to become the Mojoverse's most famous interdimensional streaming star?" is now available in the Apple App Store! Download it now for the most binge-worthy celeb content, exclusive video clips, astrology updates and more! Earlier in his spoof, Reynolds is seen writing a journal entry a la Doogie and narrating, "Today, I learned a lesson about buttholes they don't teach you in medical school. People who steal your signature role are the biggest buttholes of all." "No, I don't blame Meta Quest. Neil Patrick Harris is an amazing actor with the nurturing voice of an angel, but even though I haven't hit puberty yet, I still know when you're getting totally screwed," Reynolds added. Read the original article on People
The National
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The National
Why your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man gives you the ‘ick' factor
That shimmering street grid, and those sandstone bases of unbuilt skyscrapers, will host the most everyday superhero of the current Marvel Universe. Everyday, in every way. It's not just Peter Parker's tentative romance with Mary Jane Watson (and her variants), or his wracked grief on the deaths of his adoptive parents, or his humdrum job as a freelance photographer. But it's also his powers; they too partake of the everyday. In his earliest incarnation, Parker is bitten by a radioactive spider, escaped from an experiment. Spider-Man first appears in the nuclear-haunted, cold-warring mid-60s, where the lingering effects of radiation on babies and animals were well known. Not to mention the beginning of plausible genetic engineering. Watching the precursor to the forthcoming Glasgow-based movie, 2021's Spider-Man: No Way Home, it's notable that all the villains assembled – Doctor Octopus, Green Goblin, Sandman, Lizard, Electro – have gained their malevolent powers through exposure to radiation, or biological/cyborg experiment. Just like Spider-Man. READ MORE: 'Ludicrous': BBC bias claims reignite as majority of panellists back Labour Doth this 'good' mutant protest too much against the 'bad' ones? The citizens are consigned to the role of spectators (or squished collateral damage) as these super-humans fight for supremacy. No amount of Peter Parker homeliness – he is your 'friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man', after all, happiest when arresting street thugs – can hide his posthuman weirdery. No Way Home might be the eighth-biggest-grossing movie of all time, but it's lame in the way it resolves this tension – where body modification turns towards good or ill. Parker and friends test-tube up some remedies for the villains, transforming them back into their humdrum, benign human selves. But then Doctor Strange – played by a somnolent Benedict Cumberbatch – has to then 'magic' them back into the parallel universes they've come from. The current Spidey-verse – with a guileless Tom Holland in the title role – is, at this late stage in the Marvel franchise, a bewildering mix of superpowers. Under the techno-influence of Tony Stark, the old struggles with the Spidey costume – stitching it together, hauling it on, repairing rips – are now an automated swoosh from suit to suit. There's also a very funny sequence where previous Spider-Men from parallel universes (Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield) explore their web-making powers. Garfield and Holland have to keep refilling their cartridges, while Maguire produces it subcutaneously from his wrist (which was creator Stan Lee's original mutation). 'Does it come out anywhere else?' asks Holland guilelessly. This is a nod to the obvious metaphor: the yearning young adult Parker suddenly suffers a condition where white sticky fluid unpredictably erupts everywhere … The actors are given enough room to riff on it. So we're laughing, these days. But I don't think any amount of irony and eyebrow-raised referencing can reduce the essential strangeness of Spider-Man – and for that matter, X-Men, Iron Man, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, Black Widow, Ant-Man, I could go on. All of them are the victims of science and technology either gone wrong, or consciously applied to the body, resulting in imposed or desired superpowers. As the box office shows, the appetite is there for stories, however fantastic, of human biomodification. You could render them as giant compensation fantasies. We're coping with our everyday sense of bodily vulnerability to the outcomes of sci-tech, through entertainments that show us gaining power from it – not being polluted and made more fragile and dependent by it. Yet it strikes me that we are much more resistant to the transformations of bioscience than we are to the transformations of AI and automation. We consume all manner of creative narratives, both desirable and cautionary, about computers becoming conscious or purposeful – and it all seems more like a lubricant to the spread of AI in our lives than an inhibitor. When it comes to us and our bags of skin, however, we're just not as embracing of the radical bio-changes that the superheroes undergo, willingly or unwillingly. The safest vector is through disability or health. The pills and therapies that suppress appetite, attack viruses, enable pregnancies, and (who knows) slow down cell decay to prolong life. Even that avatar of techno-weirdness, Elon Musk, who wants to neurologically link brains and computers, does so first in service of the paralysed, giving them some much-needed agency and purchase in the material world. Yet we appear to have an unarticulated, deeply-set norm that kicks back against too much of this. The 'ick' factor is certainly present. Take the Enhanced Games that took place in Singapore the other week. Sportspersons competed in athletics which ignored the fuzzy line between legal performance-enhancing substances and illegal ones. But the games languished under waves of aversive, sometimes even revulsed press coverage. So we revel in the superheroic cavortings of cyborgs and mutants on our screens, while objecting to already finely-calibrated athletic bodies taking a few seconds off a track record, by expanding the pharmacopoeia of their drugs. I'm not complaining! Indeed, I'm desperately grateful that there seems to be some kind of natural, intuitive limit to the kinds of transformations we moderns of the 2020s are willing to undergo. Even the blockbuster entertainments are telling us something obvious, as the Earth is (yet again) threatened with total annihilation in their narratives. Which is that it ultimately, terminally matters how we humans consciously deploy our transforming powers in the world. I will admit to enjoying these bionic characters as modern mythological gods, cartoonishly laying out important dilemmas for us. However, I sometimes crave sci-fi tales in a much subtler register. Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go is interesting to set alongside these bombastic tales. In its way, it's hardly less monstrous. The whole society in this novel is stable, settled, orderly and utterly cruel: the institutionalised children in it are clones, being grown to adulthood so that they their organs can be harvested for clients. The supportive relationships that comprise much of the novel are to support the weakening young adults, as they are weakened by the surgeries they undergo. This is body modification, but all about submission to the process, accommodating its demands. It's far from radiation, gene therapy or prosthetics enabling you to leap tall buildings with a single bound. Bio-heroes in the blockbusters conduct their sparring in the public sphere, as if they're conducting an oblique argument about the society they're in. For No Way Home, they literally battle across the surface of a scaffolded Statue of Liberty. They're also constantly pursued by an Alex-Jones-like vlogger, casting Spidey as a public enemy. In Never Let Me Go, the bio-subjects are held in a pastoral enclosure, erased from the world that depends on their sacrifice. The crowds gawp at the superheroes: faced with Ishiguro's bureaucratic horror, the crowds avert their eyes. The superheroes at least ask: What happens when your body has power and potential, when what you can do with it amplifies your agency? Ishiguro asks: what happens when the body simply becomes somebody's property? The Spider-Man producer Amy Pascal says the new film will be about 'Peter Parker going to focus on being Spider-Man, because being Peter Parker was too hard'. Cute: his pursuit of Zendaya, as his girlfriend with a now wiped memory of him, will no doubt humanise the story. But Spider-Man – and we haven't even touched on arachnophobia (or is that arachnophilia?) – is properly odd, if you scrutinise him closely enough, and line him up with all his bionic pals. There are important tensions about humanity, technology and the future, hidden behind that bug-eyed mask.
