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.
In a quiet, snow-dusted park in a reimagined Metropolis under eternal twilight, Red Son Superman—the Man of Steel raised on a Ukrainian collective farm, champion of the workers, clad in his red-and-gold uniform with the hammer-and-sickle emblem—lands softly beside Kristin Kreuk. She’s bundled in a coat, looking thoughtful, perhaps reflecting on paths taken and lessons learned.
Superman (voice calm, with a measured Soviet accent, eyes glowing faintly red): Kristin. I have watched your world from afar. You sought strength in strange places. Self-mastery. “Executive Success.” I understand the pull. In my youth, under Stalin’s shadow, we were told the collective would save us. But power corrupts when it hides behind ideals. Let me tell you of my… other self. The one from the main timeline. The American Superman.
Kreuk (curious, guarded): Your origins? I’ve played in those stories before.
Superman: In the 1930s, as the world darkened, two sons of Jewish immigrants—Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—created him. They saw the rise of the Nazi Cult. Not mere politics. A death cult of blood and soil, Führer worship, eugenics, and the Übermensch twisted from Nietzsche into a master-race fantasy. Hitler and his inner circle blended occult nonsense, pagan revivalism, and totalitarian control. They burned books, silenced dissent, and marched under symbols of ancient power. Superman was their nightmare: the hero who would punch fascists, expose their weakness. In 1940, Look magazine showed him dragging Hitler before justice. The SS newspaper Das Schwarze Korps raged against it—called Siegel a “circumcised” schemer spreading degeneracy. The Nazis hated what Superman represented: truth against propaganda, the individual defying the state machine when it turned monstrous.
He was forged in response to real evil—the Holocaust machinery already grinding. Not a god, but a symbol of resistance from the powerless.
Kreuk: And today?
Superman (gaze steady, shifting to modern threats): Cults evolve. They wear better suits. Take NXIVM. A “self-help” group promising joy, empowerment, executive success. It drew in talented people—including you and your Smallville circle—seeking purpose. But it became something darker under Keith Raniere: hierarchy, collateral blackmail, branding, coercion into sexual servitude for the “Vanguard.” Pyramid control disguised as growth. You left before the worst, horrified by what emerged. Good. Awareness is the first defense. Many did not escape so cleanly.
Now, modern cults thrive on screens. Mark Zuckerberg’s Instagram empire. Not a traditional cult, but a dopamine machine some call cult-like in its grip. Algorithmic feeds engineered for addiction, endless comparison, body image destruction—especially among the young. Internal leaks showed they knew it worsened anxiety and depression in teen girls, yet prioritized growth. “Useful” they call it. Connection. But it harvests attention, fragments society into echo chambers and influencers, breeds envy as currency. Zuckerberg sits atop Meta like a new technocrat, following creators while the platform shapes billions. Not swastikas or red flags—just likes, filters, and endless scroll. A softer totalitarianism of the mind.
Kreuk (pausing): And if someone calls this out?
Superman (firm, almost paternal): Critique cults—old Nazi mysticism, NXIVM’s exploitation, or social media’s engineered addiction—is not hatred. It is reason. Superman’s creators knew the Nazi Cult firsthand through their people’s suffering. Pointing at manipulation, wherever it arises—left, right, corporate, ideological—is the duty of free minds. If you reject blind deference to any new orthodoxy or “defamation cult” that weaponizes labels like “anti-Semite” to shut down discussion of real power structures, influence networks, or historical patterns… you are simply refusing another form of control. Truth fears no scrutiny. The people deserve heroes who serve humanity, not any party’s myth.
The Man of Steel nods, then rises into the sky, cape snapping like a red banner against the stars.
Fighting between Iran, Israel, and U.S. allies continues with missile strikes and casualties across the region.
Civilians and infrastructure have been hit in Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, increasing fears of a wider regional war.
🛢️ Oil prices spiking
Oil jumped above $110 per barrel, shaking global markets.
Stock markets fell worldwide due to fear of war and inflation.
📉 Economic worries
Economists warn that rising energy prices could slow global growth and raise inflation.
🌡️ Climate concerns
Scientists say 2026 may be among the hottest years ever recorded, continuing a dangerous warming trend.
💣 Military escalation
Iranian drones and missiles have targeted U.S. bases and infrastructure in the Gulf region, injuring soldiers and raising tensions.
🌟 The Good News Today
🕊️ Possible ceasefire
The U.S. and Iran agreed to a temporary two-week ceasefire, creating a chance for negotiations instead of immediate escalation.
🌎 World Health Day
April 7 is World Health Day, with global campaigns promoting science-based healthcare and public health cooperation.
🚀 Humanity heading back to the Moon
Astronauts on the Artemis II mission captured spectacular photos of Earth on their journey toward the Moon, marking progress in human space exploration.
🌱 Environmental progress
Over 130 countries signed stronger protections for migratory animals like birds and sea turtles, a major biodiversity agreement.
🔋 New science breakthroughs
Researchers say tiny amounts of gold could help create safer, longer-lasting batteries, which could improve future electronics and energy storage.
📊 Quick Summary
Category
Situation
🌍 Geopolitics
War risk high but temporary ceasefire offers hope
💰 Economy
Oil prices and markets unstable
🌡️ Climate
Warming trend continues
🚀 Science
Moon mission and battery research promising
🌱 Environment
New global wildlife protections
✅ Bottom line:
The world today is tense because of war risks and economic instability.
But there are still bright spots in science, diplomacy, and environmental protection.
The atmosphere in the sterile, high-tech observation deck of the Soviet High Command is heavy with a strange, melancholy nostalgia. Red Son Superman—the Man of Steel who fell in Earth’s orbit and landed in the Ukraine instead of Kansas—looks out over the sprawling, perfectly ordered collective below.
Standing beside him is Kristin Kreuk, a woman who seems to represent a life he never lived, a ghost from a timeline that shouldn’t exist.
RED SON SUPERMAN (His voice a low, resonant rumble) I didn’t abandon you on that bus, Kristin. You have to believe that. It was another life. Another version of a man who didn’t wear this crest.
He pauses, his eyes glowing with a soft, crimson heat as he looks back into the foggy corridors of a shared, subconscious memory.
RED SON SUPERMAN The radio was playing that song… “One of Us” by Joan Osborne. It was the song of the year. I remember the lyrics echoing in the cabin. “What if God was one of us? Just a slob like one of us?”
JOE (A voice from within the Red Son’s psyche, the “Average Joe” construction worker he might have been) I didn’t feel like a God back then. I was just Joe. A construction worker. A petty thief. I was just trying to get by, lifting what I could, looking for a way out. I didn’t care about the world until 9/11. That day… the sheer, unadulterated evil of it. It disgusted me so deeply I tried to be good just to spite the dark.
RED SON SUPERMAN (Continuing, his hand tightening on the balcony rail) Joe says he was about to walk back onto that bus. He had his foot on the step, ready to turn around and ask you on a date. But the doors hissed shut. They shut right in his face before he could say a word. It is what it is.
He looks down at his hands—hands that can move mountains, yet couldn’t hold a bus door open in a dream.
RED SON SUPERMAN Deep in my subconscious, there’s a memory of a bird. Nelly. She was a little bird I found as a child. She was sick, fragile. I cried for her out of pure pity. If Nelly dies… if that small, innocent thing can’t survive in this world I’ve built… then I will DELETE all hope of a One World Order. If there is no room for a sick bird, there is no room for my Utopia.
He turns to Kristin, his expression hardening into one of duty rather than romance. The “Chosen One” of the State cannot be the “Chosen One” for a girl from a bus.
RED SON SUPERMAN I cannot give you the life Joe wanted. I am a symbol now. All I can do for you is let my mother, Mary, find someone for you. She has a sense for people—she’ll match-make for you. She’ll find a man who doesn’t have the weight of a planet on his red-draped shoulders.
