It has always annoyed me somewhat that DC writers feel free to blast the hell out of the West Coast whenever they feel like it, and how CASUAL they are about it afterwards. I mean, look at that two-page spread and read some of the captions. "The West Coast and its entire ecosystem is instantaneously shattered". Do tell. Santa Barbara is plastered with incendiaries, which means LA and San Diego probably sustained at least some damage, and there are likely wildfires and so forth raging up and down the entire state and points north of it. In short, this is a CATASTROPHE - it ain't just Coast City that's been blown up here, although Gods know that'd be bad enough. Think of 9/11 and all the trauma that caused, and that was just two buildings and a chunk of the Pentagon. This is AN ENTIRE CITY completely destroyed, with seven million deaths just in the initial kaboom, and several times that in collateral deaths and injuries by the time this thing has been worked out. Not to mention the immense amount of agricultural land rendered useless, the severe curtailing of the entertainment industry - Hollywood's in LA, remember? - the effects on the economy and public industry, the huge amounts of ash, shrapnel and fallout that would likely be blanketing areas of Nevada and Arizona, the horrific damage done to the local ecosystem, and the thousands, if not millions, of refugees having to take shelter elsewhere in the country. In short, this would be a disaster of unparalleled, almost unimaginable proportions, that would make 9/11 and Katrina combined look like small potatoes. And remember, due to the sliding scale of comic book time, this would have happened only a couple of years ago in the DCU, maybe as much as five or so. Soooo, do we, y'know, SEE any of this? ... ... Well, now that you mention it, no. Sure, we hear references to Coast City being blown up - and, as was mentioned, that event has indeed had huge repercussions - but as for the damage done to the rest of the state, it might as well never have happened. We've had stories set in LA and San Francisco and whatnot, and they look perfectly normal. We've seen other parts of the state, and they seem untouched. There's no mention of wildfires, or benefits for the 'Coast City disaster', or ANYTHING. In short, 'we just smacked around the Coast like crazy, and now we're going to pretend like it never happened.' And now there's this whole 'Sub Diego' thing, which I don't understand very well, but sounds an awful lot like the same sort of thing in miniature. This reeks of double standards. What, may I ask, would have happened if it had been one of the DCU's East Coast cities, like, say, Gotham? You'd never STOP hearing about it, that's what would happen - there'd be stories about disaster relief, and how New York got partially obliterated (Gotham is in New Jersey, so a blast that size would scorch the hell out of the Big Apple), and how the fishermen off Cape Cod were suffering, and it'd be a big, hairy deal. (Of course, Bludhaven got pretty much destroyed, and you don't hear too much about that, but then again, IT wasn't incinerated in a mile-high fireball.) Stop smacking us West Coasters around, DC! If you're going to blow us up, fine, but DEAL with it, don't just ignore it! Give us a little respect! We're people, too! Don't you annoy us, or we'll send Zorro to carve Zs into your living rooms.