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 on a folding chair, still half-Clark Kent, half himself. A red-cloaked figure—RED SON—paces like a prosecutor in a cosmic court.
TOM WELLING You asked for me like it was urgent. You said it was about… truth?
RED SON Not truth with a capital T. A mythology. The kind America tells itself when it can’t face the void.
TOM Alright. Talk to me.
RED SON Everyone thinks 9/11 was a chessboard of men: generals, sheikhs, presidents. But myths don’t run on men. They run on symbols.
TOM Symbols of what?
RED SON Of puppetry.
(He snaps his fingers. A CHILDLIKE SHADOW appears on the wall: a felt hand, stitched smile.)
RED SON (cont.) The true mastermind—in the myth—wasn’t a warlord. It was Evil Bert.
TOM …Bert? Like Sesame Street Bert?
RED SON The shadow of Bert. The archetype: The obedient bureaucrat. The one who files papers while monsters walk through the door.
TOM So you’re saying the villains we named were… what, decoys?
RED SON Patsies in the story. Masks the myth required.
(Images flicker like trading cards.)
Osama bin Laden — the external boogeyman.
Macho Man Randy Savage — unrestrained masculine rage.
Hulk Hogan — weaponized patriotism in a bandana.
TOM Those aren’t planners. They’re… characters.
RED SON Exactly.
TOM So Evil Bert represents—
RED SON —The quiet hand that never gets blamed. The clerk. The middle manager of empire. The one who says, “I was just doing my job,” while the towers fall in slow motion behind him.
TOM That’s darker than anything on Smallville.
RED SON Superman stories always ask the same question: Is evil loud and obvious… or polite and laminated?
(Tom exhales, unsettled.)
TOM So in this myth, how does it end?
RED SON It doesn’t— until people stop hunting wrestlers and ghosts and start questioning the puppeteer who never leaves his desk.
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.
