Interesting. What did Siegel and Shuster do to mess themselves up?
The most glaring issue, and it’s a somewhat mysterious one, is that they ran a very profitable studio in the 1940s with gross earnings of $75k, had earned a total of somewhere around $400k from DC by the late 1940s, and earned a cash settlement for Siegel to the tune of $94k in a judgment over Superboy around that time. (Said settlement affirmed in no uncertain terms that DC would continue to be sole owner of Superboy, to say the least of Superman.) None of this came with any residual payments, which is what they deserved and should have gotten once DC was able, but I don’t think I need to point out that this is a shitload of money in ~1950 dollars. Especially for two lower-working class Jewish guys from Cleveland.
The mysterious part is that around a decade later, Siegel and Shuster were broke. Shuster eventually left the business entirely, while Siegel struggled for work and alleged that he was demeaned and blackballed by Mort Weisinger. Given Weisinger’s reputation, I can believe that.
Where did the money go? That is something they never addressed or accounted for. While they could make the case that DC denied them residual payments over Superman and maybe even denied them work after the whole Superboy debacle, I doubt they could rightly accuse DC of making them poor. And, though in a very limited capacity and after much arm-twisting, they did eventually get some manner of payment in perpetuity from DC. Again, that doesn’t absolve DC of its moral lapses, but it was a positive gesture that DC wasn’t legally obligated to make, to a pair of talented gentlemen who affirmed through multiple contractual settlements that DC owns their character.