Very poor writing and editing
In this story, the future version of Superman who, a hundred years on, used his best friend Luthor's holographic projector to send himself a message back in time. That message: To delay the capture of Luthor for a bit. During that bit, Luthor saves the life of a young man who would later become the psychiatrist who would cure him of his evil.
Of course, the issue's first story tells us the tale without Future Superman's ghostly intervention and shows us Luthor saving the boy. If they had to do that latter story, they shouldn't have shown the kid getting saved in the first part to begin with. What was the point? Why couldn't they just do it in one story?
One huge mistake: how did Future Superman ever know that the kid that had drowned on that day would one day have cured Luthor?
Also in future Superman's timeline, Luthor was already cured by that boy who was supposed to drown. How? Didn't he drown? Wasn't his drowning the reason Future Superman wanted to send the message?
It's all just really silly.
It's a clear case of the writers not taking Superman seriously and thinking the readers are too dumb.
Getting rid of all these writers after Crisis was the best thing DC has ever done for Superman. I've got nothing against Elliot S! Maggin, Cary Bates and the others, it's just that many of their stories were just terrible, some were amazing, but many were unforgivably terrible and 60's-ish.
Now about the art. Now, I love Curt Swan, but sometimes the man really needs to think of what he's drawing. Till the early 70's it was okay to draw future people wearing pointy clothes with the shirt and the pants being of the same colour with weird crowns and gold belts, but this was 1986 and he made those future reporters look like court jesters from the 1200's. Really, just have a look and see what I mean.
A good amount of the 70's stuff was good, but DC really went 10 steps backward with Superman in the early to mid 80's. I'll say it again, DC changing their entire line-up of writers for Superman after Crisis was the best thing they ever did for him.
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