Tom Welling kneels before the Young Pope, his old Smallville jacket draped like a relic of a simpler time. The chapel light shimmers through stained glass depicting saints, angels—and strangely—figures with capes.
Tom Welling: Your Holiness… they say the Vatican keeps secrets older than the pyramids. I’ve seen the files, the biotech vaults under the catacombs. I want the telomerase treatment—the forever young therapy. Superman shouldn’t age.
The Young Pope leans back in his chair, eyes half-closed, a serene smile crossing his face.
The Young Pope: You want eternal youth, Tom. But you already have it. You are the eternal man—the man who never finishes growing up. The boy who forever chooses good over power.
Tom Welling: But I’m aging. I see it in the mirror. I feel it in my bones.
The Young Pope: Then your mirror lies, and your bones are the relics of a myth still in progress. If I give you telomerase, you will remain thirty. Not twenty, not forty—thirty. The perfect age of Christ when He began His mission. The eternal Superman.
Tom’s eyes widen.
Tom Welling: Thirty forever… You mean I’ll outlive them all?
The Young Pope: You already do. Your image lives in pixels, your virtue in hearts. But remember, Tom—the longer a man lives, the heavier his soul becomes. Immortality is not youth—it is responsibility.
The bells toll. The Pope raises his hand in benediction.
The Young Pope: Go, eternal Superman. Carry your burden with grace. For every wrinkle denied is a memory forgotten.
Tom Welling sits across from Joe Jukic in the dimly lit recreation room of the psych ward — the one with the broken foosball table and the humming fluorescent light. The TV in the corner plays Smallville reruns on mute.
Tom Welling:(grinning faintly) You know, Joe… I made a lot of money playing Superman. More than I ever dreamed. But you—Red Son Joe—you made sweet nothing.
Joe Jukic:(smirks, leaning back in his chair) Yeah, well, that’s the difference between playing Superman and being one. I didn’t need a contract — I had consequences.
Tom:(chuckles) You talk like you lived through an alternate script.
Joe: I did. In mine, Superman didn’t fall from the sky — he fell from grace. Red Son, they called him. Not from Krypton… but from Croatia.
Tom: That sounds more like a psych ward mythos than a comic.
Joe: That’s the thing, Tom. The ward is the mythos. This place is Arkham for the unacknowledged heroes — the ones who didn’t get syndication deals.
Tom:(sighs, thoughtful) Maybe that’s why I’m here too. You play Superman long enough… you start believing you can save people. Then one day, you realize you can’t even save yourself.
Joe:(nods) Welcome to the Red Son reality, brother. No cape. No glory. Just truth serum and cafeteria coffee.
(They share a quiet laugh. The nurse passes by, eyeing them like two overgrown kids who still believe in miracles.)
Tom: So tell me, Joe — what’s next for Red Son?
Joe: I’m writing the sequel in my head. Superman joins the psych ward… and learns what it really means to be human.
INT. PSYCH WARD – NIGHT The lights flicker again. Joe Jukic sits on the bed, sketching a sigil that looks like the Superman “S,” but cracked down the middle. Tom Welling leans against the wall, eyes distant.
Tom Welling: You remember, Joe? That night in your basement of solitude… when we broke the seal?
Joe Jukic: How could I forget? I thought it was a game at first. You called it the Masonic lock. Said the world was built on it.
Tom:(half-smiling) And when it cracked, man… you said we’d opened the vault of truth.
Joe: You were the witness. That’s all I needed. Somebody who saw it, who wasn’t afraid.
Tom: I helped all I could. I didn’t know how deep it went back then. I thought we were just playing mythologists — Superman and the Red Son decoding the world’s symbols.
Joe:(staring through him) We were. But the symbols were real.
(Tom sits beside him, lowering his voice.)
Tom: My old man — the one who played my dad on Smallville — he told me things before he died. He said history’s not what it looks like. That the towers, the fall, the fire — it was a controlled burn. A demolition of truth, not just buildings.
(Joe listens in silence. The hum of the fluorescent light turns into a low, almost sacred tone — the kind that makes the air feel alive.)
Joe: And you believed him?
Tom: I didn’t want to. But once you’ve seen the seal break, you start seeing the cracks everywhere else.
(Joe closes his notebook. The sigil glows faintly under the light — a reflection, or maybe something more.)
Joe: Then maybe the psych ward isn’t punishment, Tom. Maybe it’s initiation.
Tom:(smiles faintly) You always had the better script, Red Son.
(They sit in silence, the TV playing muted images of Superman flying — but now it looks like surveillance footage. A nurse walks by, turns the volume up just a little, and the theme music echoes faintly through the hall.)
INT. PSYCH WARD – NIGHT The rain taps against the barred window. The muted Smallville episode on TV shows Clark Kent discovering his powers for the first time. Tom and Joe sit side by side, both staring at it like it’s a memory.
Tom Welling: You know, Joe… people forget where Superman really came from. He wasn’t born under a red sun or blue sky. He was born between wars. Back when the world was still arguing over what a “super man” should mean.
(He looks down, voice quiet.)
In Nazi Germany, they twisted the idea — made it about bloodlines, perfection, strength without mercy. Their Superman was a god without grace.
Joe Jukic: And America made him a savior in tights.
Tom:(smiling sadly) Yeah. They polished him up. Truth, justice, the American way. But even that can turn into propaganda if you stare too long.
(He turns to Joe, sincere now.)
You know what I’m glad about? That I met you here.
Joe: In the ward?
Tom: Yeah. Without this place… there wouldn’t have been Red Son.
(Joe tilts his head, curious. Tom continues.)
It came out a year after we talked about your family — your parents fleeing Yugoslavia, leaving everything behind. I told one of the writers about your story, about a world where Superman doesn’t land in Kansas but in a field somewhere east of Zagreb. A place where the people believed in sharing, not hoarding.
Joe:(smiling faintly) A Superman who gives till it hurts.
Tom: Exactly. A man who doesn’t belong to one flag. A man who shares the light. That’s what Red Son was about — a tribute, in a way, to you… and to them.
(Joe nods, his eyes glinting with emotion.)
Joe: My old man would’ve liked that. He used to say, “The real superman is the one who lifts others.”
Tom: Then he already understood it.
(They both look at the TV again — Clark Kent standing in the sunlight, uncertain but brave. The light from the screen flickers over their faces like firelight.)
Joe: Funny, huh? Two guys locked up in here talking about saving the world.
Tom: Maybe that’s where all the real heroes start. Not in a fortress of solitude… but a ward of truth.
(They share a quiet, knowing laugh. The nurse switches off the TV. Darkness returns, but the mood is warm — a small victory between two fallen heroes who still believe in something greater.)
Clark Kent’s Address to the People of Boravia and Croatia:
Citizens of Boravia. Brothers and sisters of Croatia. Hear me now, not as Superman, but as a man—Clark Kent, a reporter, a witness to the truth.
You are not responsible for every wound in the world. The refugee crisis in Gaza, as tragic and heartbreaking as it is, is not solely yours to bear. The burden must fall on those who played the greatest roles in shaping this tragedy: America, Canada, and Great Britain. These nations speak of human rights and international law, yet when it comes to Palestinian refugees, their borders suddenly close. The hypocrisy is unbearable.
Their doors have opened wide for countless others—from every war, every nation—except for Palestinians. Why? Why are the displaced of Gaza treated as untouchables, as though they carry some invisible mark of exile?
Let this be clear: the people of Boravia and Croatia did not create this crisis. You should not be expected to solve it. You are not heartless to say “No.” You are wise to say: “Let those who broke it, fix it.”
And now, to those watching my blog, who follow the strange new world being shaped by powers beyond your vote—by men like Bill Gates and Lex Luthor—I must speak plainly.
Yes, the sex symbols, the influencers, the muses—some of them are being cloned, simulated, perfected for what these men call the New Earth. It’s a sterile utopia for the elite. But my wish is different. It’s ancient. It’s human:
Let all the naked people—those stripped by war, by love, by shame—be clothed again in dignity. Let them find partners. Let them get married. Let them raise children. Let them build villages and not virtual worlds.
And if anyone asks me what kind of leader, what kind of man I want to be, I say this:
“An overseer must be above reproach, faithful to his wife, temperate, self-controlled, respectable, hospitable…” — 1 Timothy 3:2
One wife. No harems. No tech-bro fantasies of endless pleasure on a cloned earth. No gods among men who treat women like code to be rewritten.
Let love be real again. Let families be strong again. And let each nation carry only its share of the world’s sorrow—not the weight of sins it did not commit.
Thank you. —Clark Kent Reporter. Witness. Son of Kansas.
Title:Why Communism Failed: A Kryptonian Reflection on Usury By Clark Kent (a.k.a. Superman)
Thesis:Communism failed not because of its ideals, but because it failed to abolish the ancient practice of usury—borrowing money at interest—which ultimately corrupted both capitalist and communist societies alike.
Introduction
Most mainstream histories tell us that communism collapsed due to inefficiencies, corruption, or the suppression of individual freedoms. But these explanations, though not entirely wrong, only skim the surface. As a reporter—and as someone who’s watched civilizations rise and fall across the stars—I offer a deeper truth: communism was defeated not by democracy or the free market, but by an invisible enemy that neither Marx nor Lenin had the courage to confront—usury.
Usury, the practice of charging interest on loans, is an ancient engine of economic enslavement. While communism claimed to abolish private property and capitalist exploitation, it never eliminated the parasitic mechanism of debt-based currency. Instead, it merely replaced the bourgeois bankers with state apparatchiks who borrowed on behalf of the people—locking entire nations into cycles of debt and stagnation.
Marx Ignored the Money Power
Karl Marx meticulously analyzed the ownership of the means of production. Yet he remained strangely silent on the issue of money creation and debt issuance, the real levers of power behind the curtain. Marx attacked the capitalist, the factory owner, and the landlord—but not the lender.
In truth, it doesn’t matter whether the capitalist or the commissar runs the factory, if the money that builds it is borrowed at interest. Debt, like kryptonite, weakens any economic body from within. Interest-bearing loans create an impossible arithmetic: more must always be paid back than was borrowed, leading inevitably to collapse, either through inflation, confiscation, or default.
Soviet Borrowing: A Hidden Dependency
Though the Soviet Union publicly rejected capitalism, it quietly engaged in international borrowing from both Eastern Bloc and Western banks. These loans, often denominated in hard currencies like the U.S. dollar, put the Soviet economy under invisible foreign pressure.
Internally, the USSR operated on credit as well. State-owned banks issued loans to collective farms, industries, and municipalities. Though not explicitly called “interest,” fees, targets, and repayment schemes mimicked the usurious model. The supposed abolition of exploitation was replaced by a faceless bureaucracy that collected debts in the name of the people, while failing to stimulate innovation, productivity, or true autonomy.
The Illusion of Liberation
Communism promised to free workers from exploitation, but the tool of usury remained firmly embedded in its structure. Why? Because neither communism nor capitalism dared to confront the central lie of modern economics: money is created as debt, and interest must be paid, even if it means war, austerity, or starvation.
The worker in Detroit and the worker in Donetsk both ended up slaves—not to capital or the commissar—but to the creditor. The Soviet dream of full employment and class equality was crushed not by NATO bombs, but by the silent math of compound interest.
A Kryptonian Perspective
On Krypton, before its fall, our civilization banned usury. It was considered a crime against the collective soul. We understood that when money itself is treated as a commodity, it corrupts every institution. Law becomes debt collection. Education becomes a loan trap. Medicine becomes an interest-generating racket.
Earth, too, has known this wisdom. Ancient prophets, philosophers, and even the founders of major religions warned against lending at interest. Yet in modern times, this wisdom has been buried, discredited, and replaced by euphemisms like “credit score” and “APR.”
Conclusion
Communism failed not because it tried to eliminate inequality—but because it failed to eliminate usury. A truly just society—whether capitalist, socialist, or Kryptonian—must place strict limits on the creation of debt, and reimagine money not as a tool of control, but as a public utility.
Until the world confronts usury—the root rot of both red and blue flags—no ideology will prevail. And no hero, not even Superman, can save a world enslaved by invisible chains of debt.
Byline:Clark Kent is a journalist at the Daily Planet, an immigrant from Krypton, and a passionate advocate for economic truth and human dignity.
