Then, it hit me: For someone my age and older, and even a tad bit younger, Shuster and Siegel might have been before our time, but they were still alive by the time I reached adulthood. Both men were a decade older than my grandparents, but they still weren't thought of by me as strictly being historical figures. 

For those young adults of today, however, the Superman creators might be thought of as just that, historical figures, in the way that I think of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Bram Stoker, or J. M. Barrie. It's a more detached view for them, I'm sure, as Siegel and Shuster were gone many years before a twenty-something (or younger) was even born.

I also think of how a similar thing exists with World War II. At my age, my grandparents generation were the ones fighting that war. So, I have a more tangible connection there, too. But for a youngster today, there is as much time passed since World War II and today as there was between the Civil War and WWII, and between The Revolutionary War and the Civil War! EEP!

It's almost unsettling to put things in such perspective, as it makes me feel old. LOL!