Like everyone else, I was overjoyed when Superman saved the day and gave that annoying General Zodd the pounding of a lifetime, but I couldn’t help but shake my head and wonder AT WHAT COST did victory come? Metropolis was all but LEVELED in the climactic blow-out. Building after building was destroyed along with how many countless lives? How does a city recover after devastation like that? Well, BuzzFeed contacted the hazard-assessment team at Watson Technical Consulting led by Charles Watson, and using analytical models on the Metropolis stand-ins of New York and Chicago, Watson estimated that some “129,000 people would have died, with another 250,000 going missing in the rubble, and nearly a million beyond that left injured…. The overall impact, Watson says, ‘seemed to be similar to an air burst from a 20kt nuclear explosion in terms of shock effects, but without the radiation or thermal effects.’ (But with the heartwarming effects of seeing Superman and Lois hug.) All told, he puts the cost of the physical damage for the film’s third act at $750 billion, with a total economic impact of around $2 trillion.” If he just would have surrendered like a good little alien and left the planet with Zodd all of this could have been avoided. The beautiful ones are always so selfish. (via AV Club)