Comics in the DC reboot universe (#SFWApro)

The opening of Justice League: Origins, five years before the “now” of the rebooted DC universe, included the comment that “there was a time the world didn’t know what a super-hero was.” After finishing the book, I found that depressing. Because taken literally, and I think it’s meant to be, it means the DCU no longer has a comics industry anything like the one I’ve spent my life reading.
In the 1940s, DC made it clear that DC Comics existed in DC Comics stories: Ted Grant became Wildcat, for instance, after hearing about a new comic-book featuring Green Lantern. Obviously the comic didn’t give away GL’s origin or secret identity, it presumably dramatized his adventures, or whatever the writers imagined his adventures were like.
In the Silver Age, we learned the 1940s character existed on a parallel world, Earth-2. Earth-1, where Silver Age heroes existed, had writers psychically sensitive enough (not that they realized this) to pick up images of Earth 2 when they were coming up with story ideas, so the comic book industry was much the same as in the real world. Silver Age heroes also appeared in comics, the equivalent of true-crime dramatizations. From occasional references, Marvel Comics existed in the Silver Age too, much as in our world.
But if Earth-reboot really doesn’t know what super-heroes are, none of that existed. And why should it? Earth-2’s super-heroes didn’t start until a few years ago either. There were no Earth-1 heroes in the 1940s or the 1960s or any time before the 21st century (or at least none publicly known). So comic-book creators have no material to work with.
Siegel and Shuster undoubtedly had decent careers—they were working on several strips before they came up with Superman—but never made the break that would make them legends. Bob Kane never came up with Batman. Comic books presumably exist, with multiple genres (war comics, funny animal, romance, crime) but never super-heroes. Stan Lee and Jack Kirby never do any of the work that makes them famous (Marvel only put out Fantastic Four after DC proved that super-hero comics were marketable. No DC Silver Age, no Marvel either).
As a life-long super-hero fan, I find this maybe the most depressing feature of the “New 52.”