Good points, Jonny Nevada, and all of them seem solid. I had forgotten about the translucent effect from time travel. I always thought it was interesting because it offered a solution to one very obvious, gigantic logic hole in the Superman mythos: if Superman can crack the time barrier, if he ever makes a mistake in any story, he can just go back in time and fix it. If you REALLY give some thought to this, it would make a monkey out of just about any Superman story! This isn't to say that Superman isn't alive in SOME form come to the Legion future...maybe he's something like Tom Strong, who in his old age became the bearded wizard guardian of the Tower at the End of Time. Perhaps Superman's in suspended animation, prepared for a battle at the end of time? His mind has been placed into the benevolent Supercomputer that runs Rokyn?
Here's a possibility concerning the Superman of 2965 - or 2465, or alternate 2465, or whatever the hell: maybe he's the future of the Superman of Earth-2? Batman and the Joker were two descendants that appeared in the 2465 stories, and there are Batmans and Jokers on Earth-2. One point of divergence between Earth-1 and Earth-2 is that Earth-2 has no Legion of Superheroes. Perhaps because the future of Earth-2 is protected by the descendants of Superman, so there was no niche the Legion could be created to fill?
As for the point about Laurel Kent (LLs in the first name - cute), I seriously think the Superman lineage and Superman legacy that the Legion was a spin-off of, deserved better future representation than a throwaway Legion Academy member. If you're GOING to have a future descendant of Superman in the mix, he or she should be less easy to ignore.
A good story is worth a million small problems with continuity or more realistic science...
I totally disagree with this statement.
I'm also astonished to see it on a board with respect for the past like Superman through the Ages; after all, what IS continuity at its most fundamental, basic level than the fact characters are able to remember their past?
Continuity, at least to me, is vital because a character's history, and what they have done, is more interesting to me than their powers or their code name. History is a tool for characterization, a tool for creating new stories by digging into what has happened previously. And it makes the world more true and grounded; isn't Luthor's characterization more true and more honest because he remembers all the other times Superman has placed him into prison, fueling that cueball-headed crook's rage and resentment? The fact that Starro the Conqueror remembers his previous battles with the Justice League and adopts new strategies to fight them every time gives credit to Starro's alien intelligence.
Why is it the worst writers (Byrne, Giffen, Grell) are the ones that play the most fast and loose with continuity? Because skill with world-building and making a place feel more "real" are qualities possessed by good writers, just like plotting, characterization, and imagination are. Characters should behave consistently with how we know them to behave and how they have been established as behaving. You can try to separate "continuity" from "telling good stories," but the fact of the matter is, the things that define "continuity" are what make stories good: namely, consistent, accurate characters taking actions that are appropriate and believable (however that is defined for each character and the setting).
And it should be noted also that even
errors in continuity can become the basis for future stories. Kurt Busiek's AVENGERS FOREVER used lapses in characterization and headache-inducing errors in continuity to create a wonderful story that explained them off. But this works only as long as characters exist in a "real" world and a "real" framework where mistakes can exist, because there is a right way to do something, a "true" history and canon that divergences can be made from. If there is no continuity, no mistakes can exist.
